Today in China

A naked young woman who was high on ecstasy was dancing in Guangzhou’s Zhongshan Dadao and caused a heavy traffic jam in the city’s busy area on Wednesday morning, reported the Southern Metropolis News.

After examining her, psychiatrists said she had no mental problem. The 20-year-old had taken too many ecstasy pills, the newspaper quoted psychiatrists as saying.

Errrmmmmm… No picture for this one… ‘_^

Source
China Daily - 2006 05 13

That’s it! We are below 8 RMB for 1 USD… It’s the first time since last July’s first reevaluation of the RMB. At that time you needed 8.11 RMB for 1 USD. And it seems that it will still continue, since experts are expected the yuan to rise to 7.8 against the USD before the end of the year!

Grrrrr!!! Everything is rising against the USD. The euro is worth 1.2826 USD this morning, the yuan is rising also and… I’m paid in USD!!! grrrrr

Source
China Daily - 2006 05 16

While Dan Brown who wrote the Da Vinci Code would expect to be the most successful author worldwide, Naomi Simmons outsold him by more than two to one!

Naomi Simmons is a best-selling course-book author for English Language Teaching.
I write books for children around the world to teach them English. I have just written 36 books for Chinese children. These teach English through fun stories, songs, poems and raps. It was really challenging to do as all the stories were set in China and had to be both relevant and funny for Chinese children.

Her series of text books for primary school childrren “New Standard English” has sold 105 million copies in China! She says that the success of this series is based on the fact that children gets to read funny stories, sing funny songs and play funny games. The stories - which even made it as cartoons on China Central Television - are a mixture of Chinese Tales and introduction of English culture. Children would learn for example that English people pour milk in their cup of tea or eat peas by piercing them with a fork.

However, unlike Dan Brown who earned more than 425 million USD from royalties (193 million USD for the movie starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, out in China this Friday), Naomi received a fixed commission of ‘only’ 272,000 USD.

Links
China Daily - 2006 05 16
Naomi Simmons’ official website
New Standard English by Naomi Simmons, published MacMillan English
Dan Brown’s official website
Da Vinci Code, the movie

Following a previous post, here is another version of the “You Know You’ve Been in China Too Long When…” list, reorganized and with some new items!

At Mealtime…

1. A few shots of baijiu don’t even give you a buzz.
2. You’re at an expensive western restaurant and don’t even notice the guy at the next table yelling into his
   cell phone
3. A June 2000 Great Wall Cabernet (mixed with Sprite) is your vintage of choice
4. You think of ’salad’ as diced apples in mayonnaise
5. When someone says ’snack’, you think: salted cuttlefish.
6. You don’t recognize a bowl of chicken soup unless there’s feet and a head in it.
7. You only drink beer from one litre bottles.
8. You invite friends for dinner and serve 1,000 year old eggs as an appetizer.
9. You crave salt…all the time.
10. You feel awkward using a knife and fork.
11. You think pork belongs as a flavouring in all foods.
12. Your favourite pizza toppings are corn and shrimp.
13. You think that all table cloths are made from plastic.
14. Ashtrays doubles as a spittoon.
15. The table doubles as a spittoon.

(more…)

Starting yesterday, people may get on a bus or enter a subway station with the use of a smart card. For those who don’t have it, they may still buy a plain paper ticket on the bus. What may seem like a minor change triggered chaotic situations - especially during rush hours - in this more than 14 million people. 4,000 “order maintainers” were sent to the most crowded bus halts and subway station to help the nearly 1.5 million monthly pass users on the bus and the 200,000 on the metro to get used to this new smart system.

From now on, passenger are required to enter through the front door (or the middle door on buses with three doors) and to exit using the back door (or the front and back doors of a three-door bus), due to the fact that the card readers are installed only for the front and middle doors of busses.

And this Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) does not seem to be restricted to busses and subways! You may also pay with this smart card on a taxi. Anyone of you already used this new system?

Source
China Daily - 2006 05 11

Well, in fact… the guys from ChinesePod made this video in Shanghai but it also apply to the cabs in Beijing. This is a nice introduction to useful sentences when you’re in a taxi. Zou guai! You guai!!! Kuai dian ba!

And this is the 4th one, I missed the first 3 episodes. Check the links to get them!
Enjoy!

Links
Blog entry on ChinesePod
The PDF with the vocabulary and characters used in this video
Episode 3: Revenge of the Reservation
Episode 2: The Restaurant
Episode 1: Inaugural video

The Website of Beer Mania is online!
This is a first version and we are open to any comments and suggestions to improve it!

For those who don’t know the Beer Mania - probably the visitors connecting to the Internet from the Moon - this is one of the nicest bars in Beijing! You’ll get a wider choice of Belgian Beers than in any other place around the city and people overthere are so nice!!!

Way to go Marc!!! Keep me a few Westmalle Triple in your fridge for when I come back from vacation!

This morning, Beijing was all yellow/brown under a nice layer of sand and dust. I’m glad my scooter was parked inside the building…

I suppose we were hit by the rest of the deadly sandstorm which started in Xinjiang Province (新疆, Xīnjiāng) with powerful winds reaching 183 km/h. The storm was so strong overthere that it smashed cars’ windscreen and killed at least one person. Trains and busses were cancelled in the touristic cities of Turfan (吐魯番, Tǔlǔfán) and Hami (哈密, Hāmì).

And then, I arrived in my office this morning to notice that the windows ARE OPEN!!!! grrrr!!!

Source
Shanghai Daily - 2006 04 12

Here is the first post of a serie of funny video from China. This one shows a plane landing in some unknown airport in China. Amazing!!! At the same time funny and a little bit scary…

And I have to go back to Belgium - by plane, of course - next Tuesday…. Ouch!

Links
New Videos Category

At the Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai, inmates get their sentences reduced if they invent a new technology. For example, a car thief saw his life term reduced to 12 years after inventing an anti-theft device for cars. So far, no less than 132 projects proposed by prisonners have won prizes in different technology competitions.

“I am so grateful to the prison who set up the platform for us to show our gifts,” said an inmate surnamed Zhang. “I was granted a sentence reduction twice and will be released next April.” Zhang, 42, was a post graduate majoring in architecture at one of the city’s top universities when he was sentenced to 10 years for taking bribes in 2001.

A quick search about this Tilanqiao Prison returned some interesting findings. Back in 2004, they conducted the first hearing in a Chinese Prison, seaking the opinion of thousands of inmates about the prison’s management. Since then, the prisonners may get married during their sentences and supermarkets as well as psychological hospitals have been opened in the prison’s walls.

The possibility of reducing a prisonner’s term by contributing to the scientific effort of the country seems another good way to prepare the reinsertion of the prisonners.

Source
Shanghai Daily - 2006 04 08