A somewhat biased view on China…
Official figures show that Shenzhen, less than 2000 square kilometers, counts 10.70 million people. Amongst them, about 9 million are migrant workers. They don’t have a permanent resident permit and therefore do not enjoy the same benefits in term of social security and education for their children.
Getting a resident permit is extremely difficult. Companies get a fix number of residencies for their employees if they have paid at least 50,000 yuan (US$6,165) in corporation taxes in the previous financial year or have exported more than US$2 million goods or services. For the self-employed, only those who have paid at least 80,000 yuan (US$9,860) personal income taxes for three consecutive years can apply for a residency allowance.
So, any shortcut?
Yes!
The easiest (ahem!) way to become a Shenzhener is to be Miss Asia 2005!!! Wang Lei, Miss Asia since October, said to reporters “Shenzhen is my second hometown and I wish I could become a real Shenzhen citizen”. And so she is, after the Shenzhen Bureau of Labour and Social Security decided that Wang has “special expertise” in the “cultural industry.” And Shenzhen is in need of such talent.
Of course, many migrants see the case as one of double standards and do not understand why Wang should get a resident permit, just because she’s pretty… 
Source
China Daily - 200 11 24
Shenzhen Official Website
ShenZhen on Wikipedia
Google plans to open an R&D Center in Beijing. In order to make it a successfull launch, they need to attract talents. What could be better than a Chinese Specific Google Code Jam?
The Google Code Jam, organized by TopCoder Inc., each year attracts thousands of participants from around the world. This year’s winner, Marek Cygan - student at Warsaw University - won the 10,000$ grand prize.
So, this time the contest is restricted to Chinese people and the registration starts… today! Candidates may register until the 12th of December when they will attend the first competition to qualify as the 500 candidates for the first round. After that, two more rounds, they will be 20 candidates left for the Final on the 20th of January, just before Chinese New Year!
For this Chinese Contest, the winners will go home with electronic gifts instead of cash. But I bet that the candidates are taking part in this contest more for the hope to get a job in the new R&D Center than to return home with the gifts… Indeed, Kai-Fu Lee (???), head of Google’s chinese operations, said “We are bringing the [Code Jam] competition to China as a way of reaching out to smart, talented people who enjoy solving problems.”
Source
Infoworld Nl
The Shaolin Temple is entering the age of reality TV with “Chinese Kung Fu Star Search”. This show will start in March and will let viewers to vote through SMS or on internet after each episode.
This reminds me the Super Girl contest where they chose the three best new chinese amateur singers. The winner, Li Yuchun, received 3.5 millions SMS for the Finale! Altogether, the three finalist received 8 millions SMS and more than 400 million people watched the show on TV. Which is amazing when you compare it to the US Super Bowl’s audience of 140 millions people.
This Kung-Fu Reality TV contest is open to anybody who practises Chinese Kung-Fu, regardless of nationality, skin colour or style. The only restriction is on the gender, only males (Why???) and Shaolin Monks are also excluded. The finalists will be selected to perform in a big-budget movie and television series based on stories from the Shaolin Temple.
I hope we will also see the preliminary selection process. It could be quite funny…
Anyone of you will participate? Hahaha!
The President Bush arrived in China last Saturday for a 3 days visit aimed at promoting Sino-US relations. He will meet Chairman Hu, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan and other senior officials to cover such topics as bilateral relations, trade and economic cooperation, the Taiwan question and other international and regional issues of common concern.
As you probably know due to his multiple falls, President Bush enjoy riding mountain bikes. Yesterday, he took his mountain bike, together with 6 young chinese cyclist preparing for the Olympics and 2 US secret agents, on the Laoshan Olympic Mountain Bike Course. Which is quite funny for us because this official Olympic Road is the one we take to go to Zhen Bian Cheng and we did it by bicycle a few years ago, before it was chosen for the 2008 games!
Here is a news confirming what we know… Employees get a pay 30% higher in China than in India… at least in the big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. According to the survey, a Software Engineer in Beijing gets an average of $13,400 per year while his counterpart in India gets $10,300. And this is not limited to Software Engineer, Wage costs are higher in China than in India in 95% of the 42 job roles surveyed.
However, this might change in a few years since salaries increase faster in India, with an average of 11.5% per year for the last five years for 7.5% in China.
No wonder that in China, we notice the following for western companies:
Where will Indian Subcontracting companies subcontract to cut the wage costs a little more? South-East Asia? Africa? Eastern Europe?
Source
Computer World - November 17, 2005
As you already know, the Panda is on of the Five Olympic Mascots. The Pandas, one of the world’s critically-endangered species, is really important in China. Therfore, I MUST give you the status of the artificial breeding of Pandas in China!
They started this project back in the 1960’s and since then, 2005 is the best year with 25 babies. They artificially inseminated 38 pandas in Spring and 25 babies were born in Fall. Out of them 21 survived. This is a big improvement compared to the last few years with 9 babies in 2000, 12 in 2001, 10 in 2002 and 15 in 2003.
This project is really important because the Pandas in captivity show little instinctive behavior, especially sexual desire, essential for natural mating and conception.
In 2004 there were 1,590 giant pandas living in the wild - in mountainous areas in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces - and another 161 kept in captivity at worldwide zoos.
Source
Xin Hua Net, 2005-11-17
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, and his wife, Maria Shriver, were in Beijing this week. Arnold is leading a trade delegation from California, hoping to sell the world’s most populous nation everything from oranges to software. They will now continue their trip in Shanghai.
In China, you do not decide by yourself whether you need heating or not… The government knows what is good for you and take care of you and your familly. ermmmmm… Maybe not…
The fact is that China has huge energy shortage issue and therefore has to manage the heating of people carefully!
In Beijing, people are promised to have temperatures of 16 C or above until the heating is switched off on March 15. And if you heat your appartment too much, you get a penalty! Your heating gets rationed if you heat excessively above 20 C. For shopping malls and office, the temperature should stay below 18 C and for hotel rooms below 22 C.
According to Li Dawei, general manager of the Beijing District Heating Group, all major heating plants in Beijing will work to capacity this winter. Energy shortages in Beijing will be more serious than in previous winters.
If you go further to the North, in Harbin the city of the ice festival, heating starts earlier on October 20 and authorities promised a minimum room temperature of 18 C between 6 am and 29 pm, and 16 C in the rest of time.
But all this heating energy does not help when I drive my scooter to go to work!
The first two confirmed human cases have been reported in China. A 24-year-old poultry worker died in the eastern province of anhui and a 9-year-old boy (see picture) in central Hunan who recovered. The boy’s 12-year-elder sister died a few weeks ago is also considered as a bird flue case by chinese investigator. However, she will not count in the WHO statistics because she was cremated before appropriate testing.
These are the first two human cases but many more could come due to the size of the poultry stock in China. However, so far, no genetic mutation nor spread between people have been observer. If this should happen, the risk of a flu pandemic would seriously increase.
Meanwhile, the huge vaccination campaign continue in China while Vietnam decided to kill all poultry stocks in most of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, its two biggest cities.
Sources
China Daily
This is amazing!!!
China just announced that they will vaccinate the entire poultry stock to fight the bird flue. Thi announcement comes just after the confirmation of two new outbreaks. More than 6,500 chickens infected in Urumqi and Zepu counties in the northwest Xinjiang region on Nov. 9, and more than 2,700 died.
They are talking about more than 14 billions animals!!! I’m just wondering how they will manage this!
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