This is Beijing-Beijing English blog

Liu Xiang (R) attends a group discussion during the ongoing National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing on Wednesday.

Although he was elected as a member of the CPPCC last year, it is Liu’s debut at the conference – albeit one week late because he just flew back from Huston after three months because of surgery and rehabilitation in the United States due to a foot injury.

Surrounded by the expectant media outside the meeting hall where members of the sports field would join in a group discussion, the former Olympic champion and world record holder said he was a bit of nervous as a newcomer to the conference.

The No.1 water bar at Qianmen began to service the customer. It is the first water bar at Qianmen which sell sofe drick like coke, etc.

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Today is the International Women’s day, so let us give more attention to the women. Expecially to those beauty attentent and jounalist for the CPC and CPPCC as they also make their contribution to the country.

Education in Beijing is least satisfactory in the country as it fails to maintain fairness, according to a recent survey.

Ji’an in Jiangxi province ranks No. 1 in overall assessment of public education, followed by Hangzhou and Nanchang, said the recently-released 2009 Development report of China’s Education.

Taiyuan, Kunming and Beijing figure on the bottom of the list.

The annual report, produced and released by the 21st Century Education Research Academy, has been evaluating public education satisfaction since 2003.

The survey, conducted late last year, covered 30 major cities in the country, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Lanzhou.

About 6,000 local residents aged 18-60 years old were polled in each city, and asked questions on “general evaluation of public education, fairness, costs, education quality, students’ burden and the quality of teachers”.

“The government has promised to provide satisfactory education to its people, and we need to know how far it’s going with its promise,” said Professor Yang Dongping of the Beijing Institute of Technology, who led the survey.

“We found that the average point of public education satisfaction in 2008 was lower than that of the previous year,” Yang said.

The average score of major cities nationwide on public education satisfaction last year was 3.0, while the figure in 2007 was 3.5.

The survey used a 5-point scale, with 5 meaning “very satisfied” and 1 meaning “very dissatisfied”.

The survey found that Taiyuan, Beijing, Xi’an and Changchun failed to clear the No.2 – “dissatisfied” – category on education fairness, one of the most debated issues in the education system of the country.

“These cities are notorious for high-cost schools and lack of honest ethos in local education departments,” Yang said.

Wu Mei, a mother of a 12-year-old boy in Beijing, said she has to pay 30,000 yuan a year for her son’s education in a relatively better high school.

“Parents have to help their children find a better high school, using all connections, money and tricks, in this age of razor-sharp competition,” Wu said.

Although the government has insisted on the policy of neighborhood admissions, supporting weak schools, and encouraging the development of non-public schools, selecting the best of schools is an “unavoidable concern” for parents, especially as the social gap widens, said Qin Hangyin, a researcher with the China National Institute for Educational Research.

Beijing, along with other nine cities including Xi’an, Chongqing and Harbin, also flunk in public satisfaction on cost of education.

Xindi (27 years old) and Xiao Han (24 years old) were both wearing wedding cloth. They stand on the streen of Beijing hands in hands. They said they know how to love and they found their love in Beijing. They hugged and invited to the amazment pssers-by: “welcome to attend our wedding.”

This happened on  February 14, the Western Valentine’s Day. And this scene happened at the old streets of Beijing. A pair of lala (lesbian), a pair of comrades (male homosexuals) took their wedding photo on the public.

This kind of activity of homosexusl have been hold in Beijing for 3 years. Orgnizer Sam said the first two years activety the group send roses to the passers-by in Beijing’s business district Chongwenmen and Jianguomen. This year they plan this wedding photography show wanted to arouse the concern of gay marriage.

For the ability of the people today, the most important thing is to keep learning with time. Otherwise we will be behind the others if we do not keep learing. So nowdays the online degree will be a good choice.

Online degree courses are normally taken by people who have no time to attend a full time college but still would like to increase their knowledge in their respective fields. Online degree courses are available in literally all fields today like management, medical transcription services, hospitality management, medical sciences, nursing, health management, IT enabled services, graphics and animation and much, much more

First, the online degree will give more chance for those people who want to pursue their career further. Expecially for those who need a jot at an early ageto support their famliy. This will not be late at all for them to further their education and improve their station in life. Second, the online degree will save time for there people. They don’t have to school to attend the class as usual. They can choose their free  time to learn online.

Under the recession of the economy, An online university degree from a reputable college is the best option for those students who want to enhance their career prospects and study after hours. Even some of my colleague who are doing good work, they choose the online degree at their free time. This will give them more confidence at this time and in the future.

Slumdog story all too common

It’s really hard to find a good reason, for everyone endowed with an ability to reason, to spend money watching “Slumdog Millionaire”.

Thanks to the articles provided by China Daily in the page “Life” of February 23, 2009, we know now that this Oscar -winning movie shows, of course in the typical highly artistic way of great Western film productions, the most absurd hopes of the underprivileged young workers of the third world.

The movie shows the problems that the poor have to endure in the emerging economies, and judging by its runaway success – succeeds in making them appear normal, acceptable, and even funny.

Nevertheless, it’s really not worth wasting our time, and human sensitivity, to watch “gangsters using a spoon to scoop out the eyes of boys and girls” so they could ‘earn double’ as beggars”.

It’s strange indeed that there are Indians who felt offended by the word “slumdog”. A dog’s life is definitely not that abject.

Cervini in Beijing

Via email

How to leverage a rich culture

“Culture plays a vital role in promoting Sino-African relations,” President Hu Jintao made this comment while on a visit to the Chinese Culture Center in Mauritius on Feb 17.

The Chinese Culture Center, the first cultural facility that the Chinese government opened overseas, has expanded over the past 20 years. Apart from language teaching and introduction of traditional Chinese culture, it has also hosted arts and photo exhibitions, performances and film festivals, which attracted successive presidents and prime ministers. China has opened seven such culture centers overseas, and will open at least five more.

In a global information age, soft sources of power such as culture, political values, and diplomacy are part of what makes a great power. Success depends not only on whose army wins, but also on whose story wins. But China’s soft power still has a long way to go.

China has always had an attractive traditional culture; the problem now is how to make the most effective use of its rich cultural reservoir to influence the outside world.

Meteohoo

on the China Daily website

Protecting rights of farmers

The objectives of doubling the per capita income of rural residents by 2020 are to lift the living standards of the peasants and narrow the income gap between farmers and urbanites.

The government has heard and is responding to the dissatisfaction of the rural population and is acting to formulate laws which will protect the farmers from corrupt land-grabbing local officials. This move would hopefully redress past wrongs and stabilize the rural economy.

With new legislation, farmers will be able to sell their rights attached to their land to reorganize agriculture and rural communities. However, I do see a need to provide unbiased legal and financial services to farmers contemplating the move to sell their land rights.

Another step forward for China.

Cestmoi

on the China Daily website

 Yangtse Evening Post chose the following ten stories as this year’s top ten fake news items.

‘Fake news’ (假新闻) has become a frequently heard term to refer to made-up stories and hoaxes that have become commonplace in China’s censored anarchic media. According to the Yangtse Evening Post, the following news stories all appeared in Chinese newspapers and print magazines, but it does not name the publications.

Chinese peace keeper swallowed by python in Congo
March 2

A Chinese engineering unit dispatched to Congo (DRC) on a UN peace keeping mission returned home. In an interview, Zhang Yi, a translator with the unit told the newspaper that poisonous snakes and pythons are very common in the country. The barracks were constructed in special ways and the soldiers had to wear long rubber boots to prevent being hurt by the snakes.Despite all the precautions being taken, tragedy still happened: A soldier didn’t return after going out to relieve himself. The searching group found a huge python with a bulging belly. The beast was killed and gutted and the soldier was found but he was already dead.

On March 5, the peace keeping office of the Defense Ministry denied the report, saying “such accident has never happened to our troops in Congo” . The next day, the media which published the article issued a statement saying that the source provided false information during the interview.

Shanghai dialect “dia” ( 嗲) enters online Oxford dictionary
March 19

The Oxford online dictionary recently added a new entry: “dia” (“嗲” in Chinese). Along with “dia” as a noun, there is also “diaist”, “diaistic”,”diaism” and other derivatives……”嗲”, a character which takes its origin from the English word “dear”, now makes its way back to the English language again. According to John Simpson, the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, it was the influence of Shanghai as a global metropolis that convinced the dictionary to create an entry for “dia”.

It is said that the news was denied by Oxford University. Beijing Youth Daily traced the origin of the story to the blog of a Taiwanese university student who was studying in Shanghai.

Real estate developer association chairman: Destroy Forbidden City to make room for new property development
March 25

“The math is very simple: instead of spending billions of yuan on maintenance every year, why can’t we just blow it up, and make room for new buildings, which can solve the high property prices in Beijing caused by the scarcity of land resources?” a developer told the media recently.Hu Yunjing, chairman of Beijing’s real estate developer association agreed with that idea. According to Hu, 24 million square meters of surface space would be created had the Forbidden City been totally demolished. The space would be enough for buildings capable of housing 1.2 million people.

This, again, is an Internet spoof that made its way to the print media. In the original Internet post, it was clearly stated that the story was a piece of “literature” rather than “fact”.

There is a case of missing the 500 million lottery in Beijing. The winner of the lottery lose the case for buring lawsuit against the lottery center.

The winner of the lottery picked a winneing number for 500 million on July 29th last year. But he went to his hometown to look after his father in law who is ill. When he came back to Beijing, he knew that he was the winer of the lottery, but it is expeird as the validity for the lottery is 28 days.

He brought lawsuit against the lottery center. But he lost the case.