Big clean-up
给集美"洗脸"
Photo by Wang Xieyun



April 9 saw a big spring-clean at Jimei carried out by 10,000 volunteers including students, soldiers, officials and citizens from Jimei and Xiamen Island. The event is intended to prepare Xiamen for competing for the title of the First Batch of the National Civilized City.

 

 

Society

Deposit of RMB 8, 000 erroneously entered as RMB 80, 000
存款八千变八万
A teller at the local post office entered a RMB 8,000 deposit of a client as RMB 80,000 by mistake, causing the post office to sustain a loss of RMB 72,900. After repeated efforts to recover the excess money had failed, Xiamen Post Office filed a lawsuit against the depositor who was surnamed Xiao, and obtained a refund of the RMB 72,900.

Help for car breakdown just a phone call away
汽车抛锚打电话就行
Drivers stranded on the state or provincial highway after their cars break down will feel helpless no longer. The provincial traffic authority will build a province-wide automobile emergency service net within three years, with the emergency service net for state and provincial artery lines to become operational in December this year.

Xiamen to build province's largest drivers' training ground
将建全省最大驾训场
Xiamen Ganglong Automobile Training Co Ltd is planning to build a 18,000-sq m drivers' training ground in the vicinity of Gaoqi Airport. As part of its Phase I project, the company will put 20 Jetta sedan cars into training services. The RMB 3 million ground will be able to accommodate 120 driving trainees at the same time.

Penalty for tardy cab driver
让乘客误机的哥遭重罚
A cab driver who cheated a passenger by taking a roundabout and held his luggage after an argument broke out, thereby causing the passenger to miss his flight was recently fined and made to compensate for the passenger's losses arising from failing to catch the flight.

Xiamen home to 45 centenarians
我市拥有45名百岁寿星
Shao Yin, a 107-year old woman, continues to hold the longevity record in Xiamen this year. The latest statistics from the city's Old Age Office show that Xiamen is home to 45 centenarians, including eight males, which is an increase of two over last year. The number of centenarians has been increasing in Xiamen, with 12 in 2000, 23 in 2001, 34 in 2002, and 45 in 2004.

Toddler caught in escalator
幼儿小手卷入电扶梯
A boy toddler who had his left palm caught in the conveyance belt of an escalator in the Holiday Electronics Center on South Hubin Road was rescued by firefighters and the center's staff. A subsequent hospital diagnosis showed that the boy suffered only a minor scratch.

 

 

Education

Macao universities recruit students in Fujian
澳门高校在闽招生
Six Macao-based higher-learning institutions recently conducted promotional seminars at Xiamen Foreign Language School and Jimei University. They plan to recruit around 1,100 students from China's mainland; students studying in a Macao university generally incur RMB 40,000-60,000 in annual living expenses and receive degrees recognized at home and abroad.

Cellphone banned in Xiamen No. 1 Middle School
厦门一中禁用手机
Xiamen No. 1 Middle School has recently instituted a ban to prohibit its students from bringing mobile phones into the school. It's very common for a student to carry a mobile phone into class; the school authorities argue that the ban will help the students to concentrate on their studies.

 

 

City News
Edited by Lily

Beijing 北京

Defense tunnel opened to tourists
国防坑道对游人开放
Beijing opened an old defensive tunnel about 10 meters underground to tourists. The tunnel, built by volunteers in 1969, is known as "Beijing's Underground Great Wall". It is 2.5 meters high and has two exits, one leading to a lane in Qianmen area and the other to the Temple of Heaven where Chinese emperors used to pray for plentiful harvests. Most of the surviving defense works have become tourist destinations and been listed as bases of patriotic education in a nationwide campaign to boost "red tourism" at former revolutionary bases. The campaign was launched in 2004 and is expected to last until 2010.

Global bids for subway operators
全球范围地铁竞标
Beijing is encouraging foreign public bidders to win operation rights on the four subway lines under construction. The municipal government wants to make investment, construction and operation of infrastructure projects more market-oriented. Other major infrastructure projects open to international bidders include public traffic facilities, toll roads, water, gas and heat supply, as well as sewage and waste treatment.

Architects urge for protection of Hutongs
专家呼吁保护胡同
The old city of Beijing should be best remembered for its "hutongs" and courtyard dwellings. However, many are now in "a very bad condition" and it is estimated that 600 "hutongs" are destroyed each year. Architects suggested that the government give financial support to the owners of the courtyard dwellings and encourage them to repair their homes. Style and feature of the "hutongs" and courtyard dwellings should not be changed in the reconstruction of the old city, and "no planning" is the best way to protect old cities.



Shanghai 上海

Living in lap of luxury stirs debate
豪华生活展引发争议
A luxury consumption exhibition is scheduled in Shanghai for June, once again making the buzzword of "luxury" a hot topic amongst people from all walks of life. A company will sort through 150,000 of the country's richest people and eventually pick just 2,000 to attend the show, presenting limousines, boats, private helicopters and jewelry. This has dampened the enthusiasm of some, especially chic young women whose income is far above the average.

Population of seniors to explode after 2010
2010年后老年人口激增
The number of local residents over the age of 60 years topped 2.61 million by 2004, an increase of more than 60,000 from last year. The city's elderly population will explode after 2010, 10 years earlier than other parts of the country. Altogether 548 local residents were more than 100 years old at the end of last year, up 94 from 2003.

Men age early
男人衰老更早
The percentage of Shanghai men showing signs of early ageing has doubled over the past two decades. Symptoms of the "male menopause," which includes weariness, bad moods, vesicular diseases and deteriorating sexual ability, trouble 20 per cent of Shanghai men under the age of 45. This compares to about 10 per cent complaining of these problems in the early 1980s. Many men only care about physical problems, but are careless with their psychological health, or shy away from seeking andrologic medical care.

Guangzhou & Shenzhen 广州 & 深圳

Bad employers to be hammered
打击无良雇主
Employers who run away to avoid paying workers will have to answer to the government next month. They will be able to demand employers pay 50 percent to 100 percent of their wages if the court finds the employers liable and they fail to meet the payment deadlines assigned by the court. Businesses should pay workers on sickness or work-related injury leave no less than 80 percent of the government's minimum wage. They will also pay employees working overtime during weekdays four times their usual wage. Employees working on statutory holidays will also be paid the overtime rate.

First direct cargo flight to the US begins
开通直航赴美货机
United Parcel Service (UPS) launched its first cargo flight from Guangzhou to the United Sates on April 4. The new flight courier will provide three cargo flights per day from Monday to Saturday. It is expected the direct freight flights will provide increased convenience for cargo transportation between Guangdong and the US.

Comic play causes concern among parents
喜剧表演令父母担忧
A Cosplay festival has been held in a middle school in Guangzhou, with boys and girls dressing up like characters from popular cartoons and comics. The students saved their pocket money or even breakfast money to buy or design their costumes with expense ranging from 200 yuan (US$24) to 3,000 yuan (US$363). But parents expressed concerns over their children's indulgence in comics while the school said the event will continue next year but under more guidance.



Chongqing 重庆

All rails of Chongqing-Huaihua railway connected
重庆怀化铁路全线连通
The last pair of rails of the Chongqing-Huaihua railway was laid down in Qianjiang District, Chongqing. Now it has been completed. Chongqing-Huaihua railway, 624.523 kilometers long, starting west from Chongqing and ending east in Huaihua, is one of the key projects of the development of west China. The construction of the railway is turning the 100-year dream of the local people into reality.

BBC investigators in CQNEWS website
BBC访问重庆新闻网
A working group from the BBC making an investigation at the website of WWW.CQNEWS.NET. BBC has some interest to extend its learning English program in west China regions. Chongqing is the fourth autonomous municipality under the central government and is the most populous city with over 30,000,000 people in China.

Hong Kong 香港

Launch of new online company info search services
开通新的商家搜索网
The Hong Kong Company Registry launched a new internet search service which enables customers to have online access any time to current data of registered companies. Users around the world can enjoy online access to updated company information, including more than 80 million pages of documents registered and kept by the registry.

Forex reserve assets hit US$122.4 bln
外汇储备达1224亿美元
Hong Kong's foreign currency reserve assets stood at 122.4 billion US dollars in March, down 1.5 billion US dollars from February. The figure represents over six times the currency in circulation. In terms of foreign currency reserves ranking, Hong Kong is the world's seventh largest holder of foreign currency reserves after Japan, the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, South Korea, India and Russia.

Anti-spamming bill to be tabled
反网络垃圾法待讨论
A draft bill regulating spamming will be tabled at the Legislative Council next year. This will prevent Hong Kong becoming a safe haven for illicit spammers. The legislation is about prohibiting "unsolicited electronic messages", such as e-mail, fax, text and multimedia messages. Unsolicited e-mail, fax and machine-generated voice calls cause most of the nuisance presently. The key is to strike the right balance between the need to discourage spamming and to enable legitimate e-marketing activities to develop properly.

Taipei 台北

Podium collapse injures 160
寺庙坍塌伤160人
A stand collapsed at a Buddhist temple in central Taiwan injuring more than 160 pilgrims.
Hundreds of pilgrims had mounted a wooden stage to pose for a picture at the Lingyen Mountain Temple near the town of Puli.
Though investigators are still looking for the cause of the accident, officials said the temporary stand probably couldn't support the weight of all the pilgrims. Wooden pieces of the 99-foot-high stage were strewn over the lawn.


Vocabulary
recruit 招收
roundabout 迂回
incur 产生
centenarian 百岁老人
toddler 幼儿
escalator 自动扶梯
grids 格子
skyward 飞涨的
andrologic 男性的
menopause 更年期

 

 

Xiamen Kaiming Movie Complex 厦门天地开明电影城 4月14日起隆重上映 《玩命手机》 "Cellular" 地址: 江头北路69号 Ticket line: 5517918 Plot outline: A young man receives an emergency phone call from an older woman who claims to have been kidnapped...

 

Symphony concert
交响音乐会
Program: Wagner's Overture to "Tannhauser", Beethoven's "Symphony No 5" and Schumann's "Cello Concerto"
节目: 瓦格纳、贝多芬与舒曼的作品
Time: 7:30 pm, April 15 (Fri)
时间: 4月15日晚7: 30
Venue: Music Island Philharmonic Hall, Wanshou Lu at 67 Wenyuan Lu
地点: 万寿路文园路67号音乐岛爱乐厅

Disappeared women reappear
消失的女人复现
Author: Erla Thorarindsottir
作者: 艾尔达·索拉瑞斯
Duration: April 15-May 3, 2005, 10 am -12 am and 3 pm - 5 pm, Wednesday - Sunday
展期: 2005年4月15日-5月3日, 上午10: 00-12: 00, 下午3: 00-5: 00, 星期三-星期日
Venue: Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen University Art College
地点: 厦门大学艺术学院中欧艺术中心