A somewhat biased view on China…
Here the TOP 50 list of touristic attraction according to a survey made by Beijing-based Global Travel Newspaper and 31 metropolitan newspapers. The proposed list consisted of 170 sites in 31 provinces. The survey results are based on 2 million online responses, 28,000 paper votes and 213,000 test messages.
While people may argue on the list of proposed sites - Potala Palace in Tibet Autonomous Region, Lijiang Historical City in Yunnan Province and West Lake in Zhejiang Province are missing - it still provides an interesting list to prepare your vacations around China!
So, where will you go for your May vacations?
North China
. Great Wall
. Forbidden City in Beijing
. Badan Jara Desert
. A’er Mountain in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
. Ancient City of Ping Yao
. Yao Temple in Shanxi Province
Northeast China
. Arctic Village in Heilongjiang Province
. Mukden Palace and Qing-Tombs in Liaoning Province
Northwest China
. Huashan Mountain
. Terracotta Warriors and Horses
. Forest of Stone Tablets Museum
. Huaqing Pool in Shanxi Province
. Rock Painting of Helan Mountain
. Zhongwei Sand Dunes in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
. Qinghai Lake in Qinghai Province
. Mogao Grottoes
. Kongtong Mountain in Gansu Province
. Hanasi Lake
. Kashi
. Urho Ghost City in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
East China
. Yellow Mountain
. Jiuhua Mountain
. Ancient Villages of Xidi and Hongcun in Anhui Province
. Flower and Fruit Mountain
. Waterside Village of Zhou Zhuang in Jiangsu Province
. Mount Tai in Shandong Province
. Zhujiajiao in Shanghai
. Putuo Mountain in Zhejiang Province
. Lushan Mountain
. Jingdezhen
. Dragon and Tiger Mountain in Jiangxi Province
. Gulangyu Island(Nite Lily Guest House)
. Taining National Geopark in Fujian
. Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan Province
Central China
. Shenlongjia Nature Reserve in Hubei Province
. Tianmen Mountain
. Hengshan Mountain in Hunan Province
Southwest China
. Jiuzhai Valley
. Sanxingdui in Sichuan Province
. Shuanghe Cave in Guizhou Province
. Wild Elephant Valley - Xishuangbanna
. Meili Snow Mountain
. Shilin National Geopark in Yunnan Province
. Qomolangma (Mount Everest)
. Namtso Lake in Tibet
South China
. Kaiping Watchtowers in Guangdong Province
. Wuzhizhou Island in Hainan Province
. Yangshuo
. Ancient Village of Huangyao in the Guanxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
. Hong Kong Special Administration Region
Feel free to comment if you have any site you travelled to that is missing from this list! If you have any suggestion or question!
Source
China Daily - 2006 04 10
Links
As told in a previous post, visitors from China may access Wikipedia using Gollum Browser.
Couleurs de Chine, already mentioned in a previous post, is arranging sponsorships for children of ethnic minorities, mainly girls, from the Great Miao Mountains (in the North of Guangxi province and South-East of Guizhou province) In 2006, 3930 children have been able to start school or continue their studies thanks to the sponsors who have agreed to help them throughout their school careers.
In addition, Couleurs de Chine ensures the building and the rehabilitation of schools and dormitories. The association also tries to help the village in case of emergency. And such a case of emergency occurred last Monday when the village of Gulou near Danian burnt in just a few hours, leaving 170 families or 1050 people helpless without houses. The government will ensure the food supply but they will need other financial help in order to rebuild the village.
If you want to help them you may contact Couleurs de Chine by sending an email to cdcbeijing@yahoo.com.
Links
Couleurs de Chine
A Chinese version of The Apprentice will start in May… Same, same but different!
While Donald Trump take the decision on who gets fired, here the decision will be take by the audiences! Who will be the next business leader will be chosen by the LaoBaiXing (老百姓)! Anyone will be allowed to vote through SMS for the two finalists while only the audience will chose The WINNER! This schema of SMS Voting had already been used for Super Girl. But I think that the targetted audience for Super Girl was much, much larger! hehehe…
The winner… In the original USA show, the winner would get a job at Donald Trump’s Real Estate company with a 6 figures salary. In the Chinese version, the winner will run a new business with a registered capital of 10 million yuan (1 million euros); the runner up 7 million yuan and the next three candidates 5 million yuan.
Source
China Daily - 2006 03 31
Links
The Apprentice - Official Website
Last July, the price of N93 petroleum jumped up from 3.96RMB/L to 4.26RMB/L. and this week it jumped again to 4.65! In summer I usually use 100liter a month which represents an increase of 69RMB a month. Okay la! I can live with that… But what about the taxi drivers?
Let’s say that a taxi driver is driving for 400km a day and for this uses 32 liters. If the driver works 20 days a month, it makes a total consumption of 640 liters a month and an increase of more than 400RMB per month. Which is more than the government help given to the taxi drivers since last July.
No wonder the taxi drivers are asking the government for some more subsidies.
Another solution would be to push this increase to the customers. Taxi companies already did that in the past. They have some tricky way to do this in a not so obvious way. Your cab would still be 1.6RMB but the basic fare of 10 yuan would be charge after 3km instead of 4km. They made a similar change for the 1.2RMB taxis back in 2000 when the basic fare went down from 5km to 4km.
Related news: Yesterday, thanks to JayJay, I discovered a Sinopec Gas Station just near our office in Lido. A really small hidden gas station… Why is it so important? Well, Sinopec Gas Station are not so common and they are the only ones accepting the card CMCC offered me a few weeks ago. I now have gas for free!!! ^_^
Sources
China Daily - 2006 03 27
People’s daily - 2000 07 17 - basic fare going down from 5km to 4km
Starting on April 1, a 5% tax will be imposed on disposable wooden chopsticks (筷子, kuàizi). The Chinese government wants to reduce the huge amount of timber used for producing the annual 10 billions of boxes of chopsticks for the domestic market and 6 billions of boxes for the export. This represents more 1.3 million cubic meters!
But is 5% enough?
This new tax is arriving together with some other taxes related to wooden floor panel (5%), yachts, golf clubs and balls (10%) and luxury watches (20%).
Are the 50RMB fake rollex also taxable? ‘_^
Let’s go back to chopsticks with two quite interesting related websites…
Erik Wegweiser collects chopsticks as a hobby. His chopsticks are often handmade, of unusual material or design, and represent various world cultures and artists. He has more than 300. Why did he start to collect chopsticks? Well, here is his answer: “They’re not Pokemon, Beanie Babies, etc., and the mere fact that you can’t buy them at the corner gas station along with prepaid phone cards or get them free with your hamburger is enough to make finding them half the fun.” ^_^
Then, because wooden chopsticks do not damage the aluminum skin like regular tools, a guy at PCOnline is using them to dismantle a Mac Mini! Have a look at his report, especially if you are learning Chinese as it is both in English and Chinese Mandarin on the same page!
Source
China Daily - March 22, 2006
Links
How to unpack a Mac Mini with a pair of disposable chopsticks
Erik’s Chopsticks Collection
Look at this! I now have the proof that the Beatles were Chinese!
Forget John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr! Welcome the almighty Wang Brothers!
Well… Okay, I admit, it’s a fake! But in fact, the real one is even more incredible! How come they decided to make their face so asian?
Was it for fun? Was it for marketing reasons?
Links
Source at Ijamming - April 2 2004
The Beatles at Wikipedia (Gollum browser for our China based visitors)
1. The footprints on the toilet seat are your own.
2. You no longer wait in line, but go immediately to the head of the queue.
3. You stop at the top or bottom of an escalator to plan your day.
4. It becomes exciting to see if you can get on the lift before anyone can get off.
5. It is no longer surprising that the only decision made at a meeting is the time and venue for the next meeting.
6. You rank the decision making abilities of your staff by how long it takes them to reply “Up To You”.
7. You no longer wonder how someone who earns US$ 400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes.
8. You accept the fact that you have to queue to get a number for the next queue.
9. You accept without question the mechanic’s analysis that the car is “Broken” and that it will cost you a lot of money to get it “Fixed”.
10. You find that it saves time to stand and retrieve your hand luggage while the plane is on final approach.
After killing some 200 millions birds since 2003 due to the bird flu, shuttlecocks manufacturers around the world start to notice the goose feathers shortages in China. Badminton (羽毛球, yu mao qiu) players know that, for each shuttlecock, these manufacturers need to find 16 goose feathers, clean them and attach them to the base of a Portuguese cork.
Because of these shortages, prices of shuttlecocks have increased dramatically by more than 50%. However, Badminton Clubs use to buy their feathered projectiles at the beginning of the season. They will only be affected beginning of the next season; most clubs buying their shuttlecocks in July or August.
At the same time, the International Badminton Federation is pushing the research towards a better more advanced plastic shuttlecock.
Source
China Daily - 2006 03 15
Links
Shuttlecock on Wikipedia (Gollum Wikipedia Browser)
Chinese Shuttlecock Federation
International Badminton Federation
In order to fight against the popularity of Western Festivals such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Halloween, Peng Zhenqiu - professor at Shanghai Political Institute - proposed during the National People’s Congress to add some more holidays. The objective is to remind Chinese people about their own traditional festivals.
Here are the targeted festivals for these new 5 days off: Double Nine Festival (重陽節, chóng yáng jié, 09/09 in Chinese Calendar), Pure Brightness Festival (清明节, qīng míng jié, 106 days after the winter solstice, on the 4th or 5th of April), Dragon Boat Festival (龙船节, lóng chuan jié, 05/05 in Chinese Calendar, somewhere in June), Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, zhōng qiū jié, 15/08 in Chinese Calendar) and Lantern Festival (元宵节, yuán xiāo jié, on 15/01 in Chinese Calendar).
So far, Chinese people enjoy 10 days off a year. The way that the Chinese government organizes these vacations is quite interesting. In order to make it artificially longer, people will work during a weekend to get 2 extra days. Is it clear? Well… here is an example for last Chinese New Year:
The 1st, 2nd and 3rd of May are official holidays. Then, the Chinese government adds the 4th and 5th as extra days. But these two days are not free!!! You have to work the weekend before. This means that we will be working for 7 days from the 24th to the 30th of April and then on holiday for 7 days from the 1st till the 7th of May.
And it is the same for National Day (holiday from the 1st till the 7th of October) and Chinese New Year (the first seven days of the Lunar Calendar). And then, we still have one day for the Western New Year with a similar schema to be on holiday on the first three days of the year.
If they add these 5 new holidays, it would raise the total of holidays in China to 15!!! But, of course, this has just been proposed to the Congress, there is nothing decided about this…
Source
China Daily - 2006 03 09
Links
Wikipedia - Chinese Calendar (Gollum browser for visitors from China)
Today, 8th of March is the Women’s day! In China, it means that all female employees are entitled to take half a day off. The office is empty… Only guys remain and here is something I just received this morning in my emails. Hahaha! Quite funny indeed… Sorry girls… ^_^
Click here for the French, English and Chinese version!
Thanks to Chimulus for the drawing!
Note: I translated it in English and Chinese so that everybody can enjoy it.
[powered by WordPress.]
[hosted by TodayInChina.]
