Home-bound rush
春运开始
Photo by Zheng Xiaodong



The 2006 Spring Festival peak travel period began on January 14. Long queues stretched out in front of all the ticket windows at Xiamen Railway Station, and plastic shelters have been set up on the square outside for passengers waiting to board trains.

 

 

Economics

First "one-man company"
首家"一人公司"领到执照
Mr Zheng, the founder of the first "one-man company" in Xiamen, has recently been awarded a business license recognizing his status as a corporate legal person. A "one-man company" has only one legal representative, who has the sole say in all corporate affairs and will never see any divergence of opinion among different shareholders. Such a company requires a minimum registered capital of RMB 100,000 and faces no limits on the scope of its business.

Xiamenese spend RMB 2 per month on fish
厦门人每月花2元养鱼
On average, Xiamen residents spend RMB 2 per month on keeping ornamental fish, making the aquarium business a RMB 2 million a month industry. The business is growing at a staggering rate of 20% or more a year.

Duty-free emporium to open
港澳台零关税商场将开业
Huatian Duty-Free Emporium for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Commodities has recently been furnished and decorated for trial opening on January 16. The new shopping facility will not be officially opened until May. Commodities from Taiwan will account for one third of the merchandise for sale in the new emporium.

Foreign fastfood prices up slightly
洋快餐悄悄调价
As Spring Festival approaches, foreign fast food chains in Xiamen are adjusting their prices upwards slightly. KFC and Pizza Hut have both hiked their prices by a small margin, while McDonald's is offering red envelopes to customers who spend more than RMB 18 on a single purchase.

New drugstores opening every three days
我市三天新开一家药店
Over the last 20 months, Xiamen has witnessed the opening of about 220 new drugstores, averaging one every three days. As of the end of December, 2005, Xiamen had 521 pharmaceutical retailers, compared with merely 300 in April 2004.

 

 

Society

South Korean golfers play in Xiamen
韩国高尔夫爱好者来厦
As most golf courses in South Korean are closed in winter due to the freezing weather, the country's golf players have been flocking to Xiamen in large tourist groups. The tours started in December last year and have picked up since the start of the new year, with flights from Seoul to Xiamen packed to overflowing. On January 12 alone, more than 300 South Korean golfers arrived in Xiamen.

Longyan to Beijing: 26 hours by train
"海西号"龙岩进京26小时
On January 12, the "Haixi" passenger locomotive departed from Longyan on its first journey to Beijing. "Haixi" is the fastest Beijing-bound train from Fujian, with the entire journey taking only 26 hours, more than 11 hours faster than the train departing from Xiamen and 10 hours faster than the one from Fuzhou.

Employees receive mutual aid for major diseases
职工大病将有互助保障
Xiamen General Labor Union plans to implement a mutual aid program to cover major diseases suffered by working people after Spring Festival. Under this program, a local employee will receive up to RMB 10,000 in aid in the event of a major disease. To qualify for the aid, an employee will have to pay RMB 40-50 per year to the union of the company for which he or she works.

5 Nobel laureates to visit Xiamen
五诺贝尔奖得主将来厦
April 6, 2006 marks the 85th anniversary of the founding of Xiamen University. At the invitation of the University, 5 Nobel laureates and 40-plus presidents and vice presidents of foreign universities will join the celebrations for Xiamen University's 85th anniversary.

Bus driver rewarded for catching pickpockets
公交司机抓扒手受褒奖
Mr Zeng, a young public bus driver who was hurt by a pickpocket gang while attempting to stop them from picking pockets on his bus, has recently received a certificate of merit and cash reward from the local police for his bravery.

Local population hits 2.64 million
厦门总人口已超264万人
At the end of 2005, Xiamen's total population stood at 2.6409 million (including non-permanent residents), with a birth rate of 8.98 per thousand. The 1.06 million non-permanent residents enjoy the same benefits as permanent residents in terms of employment, medical care and schooling.

Realty services graded
物业服务有望按质论价
Realty management rates in Xiamen will be differentiated according to quality. Rates for maintenance, shared facilities and parking will be fully revised accordingly. Xiamen Dacheng Asset Appraisal Firm is currently working on a citywide survey of the costs of realty management.

 

 

City News
Edited by Lily

Beijing 北京

6 new twin cities
缔结33个友好城市
Beijing now has twinning links with 33 capitals of other nations and will strive to raise the number to 50 by 2008. Since Beijing and Tokyo became twin cities in 1979, the twin city project has been developing rapidly. Six new twin cities in 2005 put an end to an embarrassing recent stagnant period for the twin city project, and helped to correct the lack of twin cities in eastern Europe and central America.

Crematorium moves out of town
八宝山公墓迁出城区
By 2008, Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery's cremation facilities will be moved out of Beijing proper to Mentougou District in western suburban Beijing. Babaoshan Cemetery's memorial park will remain at its original site and funerals will still be held there. A number of late Chinese leaders and foreign sinophiles, including Zhu De and American writer Agnes Smedley, rest in peace at Babaoshan Cemetery. The remains of many ordinary Chinese are also kept there.

A-type blood needed
A型血近期急缺
The Beijing Municipal Red Cross is running out of A-type blood and has asked for more donors. Blood stockpiles at the center have been on the decline recently. The volume of blood collected by the center's collection buses on the streets has been dropping. The Red Cross blames factors such as the cold weather, student exams and holidays and the departure of many migrant workers to spend the forthcoming Spring Festival at home.

Tesco to enter Beijing in 2007
英零售巨头Tesco明年入京
British retail giant Tesco will open its first outlet in Beijing in 2007, to take advantage of the business opportunities brought by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Tesco wants to catch up with its global rivals Wal-Mart and Carrefour in expanding into China. Tesco has started construction of the 20,000-square meter shopping center in the eastern part of Beijing. Besides Beijing, Tesco also plans to open more stores in south China where the local economy is strong.

Shanghai 上海

10, 000 overseas specialists to be recruited
两年将招募万名"海归"人才
Shanghai plans to employ another 10,000 "overseas experts" in the coming two years to boost its development. Candidates for the posts will be students from abroad with a bachelor's degree or higher, foreign specialists and professionals from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. More than 4,000 returned students have come to work in the city every year since the overseas recruitment program was launched in August 2003.

87, 000 new babies expected
今年将有八万七千名新生儿
87,000 new babies will be born to Shanghainese couples this year. More than 99 percent of local couples follow the nation's family planning policy. The Shanghainese population started dropping in 1994 and continued to decline until 2003. In 2004, the local population remained stable. To control the population and improve health among newborns, the government launched a range of campaigns to promote reproductive health and family planning last year.

Shanghai world's busiest port
上海港成为世界最繁忙港
Shanghai surpassed Singapore as the world's top cargo port in 2005, courtesy of China's fast-expanding manufacture and trade sector. Total cargo throughput rose 16.9% to 443 million tons, some 21 million tons more than Singapore. However, Shanghai remained in third place as a container port, behind leaders Hong Kong and Singapore.

Guangzhou 广州

Gas delivery charges capped
限定瓶装气运送价
Pricing authorities have set ceilings on the delivery charges for liquefied natural gas (LNG) cylinders in a bid to curb the rising prices. Delivery charges for a 14.5-kilogram cylinder will be limited to three yuan (US$0.4) for the first two kilometers, and 0.5 yuan for each additional 0.5 kilometers, with a maximum fee of six yuan. The price for the gas cylinder and delivery charge should be listed separately on receipts.

World's largest illuminations
中信广场将成新年世界最大亮点
The largest illuminated image in the world, at the CITIC Plaza, will add to the thrills of Chinese Lunar New Year. The illuminated image will include a sentence that reads "Seven Types of Happiness Approach" (七福到) in Chinese. The enormous image is 160 meters tall and covers 7,000 square meters. Passers-by can already see the head of the cartoon character Fido Dido on the exterior wall of the building. The entire installation will be finished just in time for Spring Festival.



Low confidence weakens house market
购房信心大降
Consumer confidence in the housing market in Guangzhou has fallen sharply along with real estate prices. Among families surveyed, only 7.8% planned to buy homes in 2006, a 4.8% point fall from 2005. Among those who planned to buy a home, 53.6% would choose newly-built commercial apartments, 42.3%wanted second-hand flats, and the remaining 4.1 percent had other choices.

Chongqing 重庆

Overseas workers earn one billion yuan
海外打工年挣10亿元
Overseas investment in Chongqing totalled nearly 200 million yuan, and the 3,200 workers sent abroad had earned nearly one billion yuan by the end of December 2005. Most of the workers sent abroad are sewer and construction workers working in Japan, the USA, Africa, the Middle East, Mongolia and in some Southeast Asian countries.

Art auction breaks records
规模最大艺术品拍卖进行中
The largest ever auction of art works in Chongqing will take place in the Chongqing Hotel on January 19. The estimated value of the art works at auction will be over 20 million yuan. The art works will include porcelain, china, bronze, paintings, jade, cloisonné enamel, lacquer-ware and ivory carvings.

Tigers move to Tiger Mountain
11只珍贵虎迁至"虎山"
Eleven tigers from the Chongqing Yongchuan Zoo have moved to new accommodation in ‘Tiger Mountain'. The area of the new Tiger Mountain is 100,000 square meters, and it will provide a better environment for the tigers. The group is made up of two golden tigers, four silver colored tigers and five white tigers. All of them are extremely valuable specimens.



Hong Kong 香港

Public welfare a priority
将致力提高公众福利
The HKSAR government's working priorities are developing the economy and improving public welfare. In order to achieve these goals, the government will work hard on raising levels of employment, enhancing the city's competitiveness, speeding up infrastructure projects, exploring overseas markets and reducing transaction costs in local markets.

Turkey bird flu warning
防土耳其禽流感
HKSAR has reminded travelers to Turkey to be vigilant for avian influenza after human infection was reported in the country. Though no case of bird flu has been found in Hong Kong, the city has taken aggressive measures and launched a public campaign to maintain the zero-case record.

Taipei 台北

Pigs to light up your life
培育绿色荧光猪
Researchers have bred pigs that glow in the dark. Three male piglets, born three months ago, have green eyes, teeth and trotters and their skin glows green under blue light. The fluorescence permeates the piglets' entire bodies, including their internal organs. The piglets were created by adding DNA from glowing jellyfish to embryos which were then implanted in normal pigs. The pigs will be used to test cures for human diseases as the green tinge will make the pig tissue easier to spot.

Record-breaking stage show arrives
"歌剧魅影"上演
Taipei will witness history in the making as "Phantom", the English musical love story, plays for 6 weeks from January 18. Created by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Phantom is eclipsing Webber's other perennial favorite, Cats. It was first seen on Broadway in 1988. Eighteen years later, it has become a phenomenon of longevity, and returns as well as production costs.


Vocabulary
divergence 分歧
scope 范围
ornamental 观赏的
emporium 商店, 商城
hike 上升
fluorescence 荧光
infrastructure 基础结构
stockpiles 库存紧张
green tinge 淡绿色
stagnant 停滞的
jellyfish 水母
cylinder 罐
eclipse 超越