Flying giant dragon
"巨龙"腾飞
Photo by Yao Fan



The 3rd Dazhou Cup Kite Competition opened on October 29 on the southern lawn of Xiamen International Seaside Hotel. 53 teams from 7 countries and regions brought over 500 kites to take part in the competition, making this the biggest event yet in the history of the Cup.

 

 

Economics

Electronics & Digital Street officially opens
电子数码街正式挂牌
The Electronics & Digital Street on Hubin South Road, Xiamen's first street certified as dedicated to electronics retailing, officially opened on October 29. The opening of the street coincided with the start of the weeklong 1st Digital Festival.

B&Q opens
百安居开张
B&Q, the world's third largest and Europe's largest retailer of building materials, opened an outlet in Xiamen on October 28, making it Xiamen's first international building materials supermarket. The store has an area of over 10,000 square meters, offering more than 50,000 kinds of products in 14 categories.

Bargain glasses store opens on Zhongshan Road
平价眼镜店抢滩中山路
"Glasses Express", a store offering discount glasses, opened on the 2nd floor of 57 Zhongshan Road on October 29. According to the owner, the store sells glasses for merely two-thirds or even half of the regular price. In addition to the discount glasses, the store also offers medium- and high-end optical products, with a total range of products over 10,000 lines.

Fujian's largest food court opens
我省最大美食广场开业
The New Food Vogue Food Court, located on the 5th floor of the SM Shopping Mall, has recently opened. The court, with a floor area of 6,000 square meters, is the largest food court in Fujian Province, offering more than 3,000 kinds of delicacies to residents of Xiamen and neighboring areas.

 

 

Society

8 large car parks planned on island
岛内规划8个停车场
Local authorities have drawn up a plan to build eight large-scale car parks on the island, including two car parks on multi-purpose developments (on Xiaxi Road and Shuixian Road), two surface car parks (in Jiangtou Park and Xiangyu), two underground car parks (at Nanhu Park and the Primary School Attached to Xiamen Foreign Languages School), one multi-storey car park (at No. 1 Hospital), and one mechanical car park (at Zhongshan Hospital).

Leading surgeons take up part-time positions in Xiamen
各地名医兼职鹭岛
Five leading experts in urinary surgery from Singapore, Taiwan and Wuhan have accepted appointments and officially joined the city's No. 1 Hospital on a part-time basis. They will provide technical, research and teaching support for the hospital and conduct training for the hospital's full-time surgeons on a regular basis.

Scholars from around the world meet at Xiamen University
中外学者聚首厦大
The existence of the Sino-Tibetan language family has long been the subject of debate. A recent conference at Xiamen University gathered 180 scholars to continue research into the hypothesis.

Local runners to join Shanghai marathon
出征上海马拉松
Xiamen will send a team headed by head coach Huang Lisheng and consisting of 30-plus runners from the city's Long-distance Runners' Club to take part in the 10th Shanghai International Marathon, which is scheduled for November 26.

Fujian expressway speed limit to be raised
闽高速公路最高限速放宽
With the exception of the Fuzhou-Xiamen Expressway, which has a speed limit of 110km/h, all other expressways in Fujian Province have a speed limit of 80km/h. This low speed limit has stirred up much controversy as drivers have received many tickets for exceeding the limit. Expressway authorities are now considering raising the speed limit to 120km/h for all expressways in the province.

Tuition fees harmonized for students
台港澳学生实行同等收费
Students from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau who are enrolled in bachelor's, master's or doctoral programs at Xiamen University will be entitled to the same tuition fees and accommodation rates as mainland students from this year.

New homes to be equipped with solar energy
买来新居即可用太阳能
The Proposal for Implementation of Integrated Solar Energy Heat Utilization and Construction in Xiamen has recently been accepted by an expert panel after evaluation. Under the scheme, the market for solar water heaters will be developed in line with the development of new construction projects. The local government intends to have installed heaters in the homes of 20% of local residents by 2015.

Check ID labels before buying used household appliances
买旧家电先查"身份证"
Under a new regulation which will soon be enforced by the local authorities, second-hand household appliances will have to carry an ID label, which indicates clearly their date of manufacture and service life. Used household appliances without such a label will be barred from entering the resale market.

 

 

City News
Edited by Lily

Beijing 北京

Residents earning more, spending more
城里人多挣多花
Per-capita disposable income for Beijing's urban residents surged by 12.5 percent year on year to reach 13,166.8 yuan (approximately 1,600 US dollars) in the first three quarters of this year. They spent more on food, clothing, telecommunications, medical care, household durable goods, education and cultural activities, while spending on housing dropped by 7.1 percent year on year.

New countryside map
新郊区图规划在即
Beijing is expected to draw a new map of rural areas at the end of this year. The new map will be the first to focus on systematic coverage of Beijing's villages and townships. 92 percent of the area of Beijing municipality is rural, but 40 percent of the villages in and around the city have never been properly planned or mapped before.

Company selling lunar land probed
卖月球土地被查
City authorities have launched an investigation into a local company claiming to sell land on moon. The company, Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics Science and Technology, was registered on September 5 to do business related to space travel, the development of the moon and sales of moon land. The so-called Lunar Embassy in China, through which one can purchase an acre on the moon for 298 yuan (37 US dollars), started operations on October 19.



Shanghai 上海

Golf not only for adults
儿童高尔夫兴起
Golf, widely seen as an elite sport because of the high level of club fees, has a growing number of younger fans now. Compared with the golf craze among children in nearby provinces, the phenomenon is still in its infancy in Shanghai, but it is growing fast. A few of the famous golf clubs offer training specifically for children, usually in summer vacations, with prices around 2,000 yuan (US$ 247).

Elderly held back from internet by poor English
帮助老人上网
A lack of English, lack of instructions and poor memory are holding senior citizens back from using the internet. But the Shanghai Committee for the Aged is trying to encourage elderly residents to get online whenever possible by explaining the internet and how to use it. They aim to help 100,000 residents over 60 get to grips with surfing the web by the end of next year.

Real estate market remains sluggish
房地产市场继续走低
Shanghai property sales are cooling off. Experts say the situation will last for at least a year due to buyers' expectations of lower prices. Now developers are offering perks like free parking spots, country club memberships, and even free cars as incentives. Banks are also relaxing their conditions on loans and mortgage payments, but the effect has yet to be seen.

Overseas talent recruited
广募海外人才
Shanghai will head overseas early this month to recruit Chinese talent studying abroad, as part of a local program to attract 10,000 overseas Chinese students to work in the city. In early November and December, a local recruitment delegation will go to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to seek candidates for hundreds of high-level technological and management positions in government institutions, large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, universities and financial institutions.

Guangzhou 广州

Huangpu's New Eight Attractions
黄浦新八大景
Huangpu district is working on developing its tourist industry by promoting its New Eight Attractions. The newly selected eight attractions include ancient and modern tourist sites, such as the Temple of the South China Sea God, Huangpu Military Academy and Hengsha private school street.

University to regulate student sex
高校出台学生性行为新规
The South China Normal University has recently published new regulations making it a punishable offence to live with a partner or have an affair with a married person. Philandering and "sabotaging others' marriages" are now violations of campus regulations. Offenders will be given warnings, punished or even expelled, the new statute says. The regulations also give students the right to appeal and to arrange a hearing before punishment.

Bridge safe for restricted traffic
洛溪大桥交通管制
The Luoxi Bridge is currently safe for a restricted amount of traffic despite the 176 cracks found there. The traffic department carried out a thorough inspection of the Luoxi Bridge from October 1 to 12 and spent days of analyzing the data collected. Between 70,000 and 80,000 vehicles a day use the Luoxi bridge, which was built in 1988. The four-lane bridge connects the urban districts with suburban Panyu.

Chongqing 重庆

Antique Porcelain Museum opened
开放古陶器博物馆
The Chongqing Antique Porcelain Museum was opened recently in Ciqikou Street. Nearly 10,000 people visited the free museum in its first 20 days of operation. The museum displays nearly 400 kinds of local pottery. Visitors can make pottery works of art themselves in the museum, buy antique porcelain, or take their antiques to the museum for appraisal.



City experiments with green economy
成为首批循环经济试点城市
Chongqing has become one of the first test group of cities experimenting with a cyclic economy in China. The other five cities include Beijing, Shanghai and Guiyang.

GDP tops national level
GDP 居全国之首
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Chongqing in the first nine months of this year reached 211.39 billion yuan, an increase of 11.8%. It was the highest municipal GDP in the country.

Hong Kong 香港

2nd for international investment
国际第二大投资地
Hong Kong's net international investment position was 430.4 billion US dollars last year, ranking second in the world, just behind Japan. Among 11 other selected economies, France, Germany, Japan and Singapore were net creditors, while Australia, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Thailand, Britain and the United States were net debtors.

B&Q to open store
百安居将开新店
B&Q, Britain's largest retailer of hardware and DIY goods, will open its first store in Hong Kong in early 2007. The project will involve a total investment of more than 200 million HK dollars (25.64 million US dollars) and will create about 200 new jobs.

Hong Kongers buy mainland homes
港人乐买内地住宅
Hong Kong people have spent 9.4 billion yuan (US$ 116 million) on buying as many as 18,000 flats on the mainland in the first nine months of this year, up 8 per cent on 2004. Shenzhen remained the most important target for Hong Kong property investors, accounting for 52 per cent of the total number of real estate purchases.

Taipei 台北

Mainland sends tourism inspection group
大陆派出旅游考察团
A Chinese mainland tourism inspection group left for Taiwan on October 28 to pave the way for opening tourist routes to the island. During the trip, which runs until November 6, mainland tourism personnel will exchange views with their Taiwanese counterparts to facilitate the early opening of mainland-Taiwan tourist routes.

Demand to stop corporal punishment in schools
呼吁停止学校体罚
Corporal punishment has long been common practice in Taiwan. Now, however, a movement pressing for the elimination of corporal punishment in schools is gaining momentum. This follows a caning incident in Taichung, where a teacher repeatedly hit the outstretched hand of a male student with a wooden stick. When the boy turned, the teacher hit him on his back.

Women more tired than men
女人比男人累
According to a survey, Taiwanese women, regardless of their age, occupation, status, education and working hours, are more tired than men. In general, people of both genders who have to work more than 49 hours a week, or have old people or small children to care for at home, are most likely to be suffering from fatigue.


Vocabulary
giant 巨大的
bargain 便宜的
vogue 时尚
surgeon 外科医生
hypothesis 假设
harmonize 使一致
corporal 身体的
fatigue 疲劳
philander 玩弄女性
sabotage 破坏