All you white people look the same to us

"Michael Phelps" visiting Tian'an Men Square.

Beijing Welcomes You!

Things to love about Beijing…

Love The Peking Duck.

I loved it when the bus ticket conductor would scream at the top of their lungs at whoever, young/strong enough of course, didn't give the seats to the old/pregnant/handicapped. And trust me, when Beijingers yell, they YELL, properly. They could make sure that the people sitting comfortably in the bus behind ours get enough hint too. Don't know if they still do that now, maybe the Olympics Committee has been trying to make everyone more "polite"... but hey not that many foreign tourists would take publis buses anyway, if any.

My Green Beijing

I did prepare myself well for seeing lots of changes in Beijing before I came back this time. It's been a year and a half after all and I knew how fast Beijing could change, especially with the Olympics coming up and all. Well at least I thought I did. I was still shocked with how many new buildings there were, that I couldn't recognize half of the city, that there was a new metro line and even the metro price has been changed, that even Beijing can have clear blue sky for several days in a row in winter, all that... Of course some things never change here, and will never do, for example the traffic (obviously) and the city's capability to entertain itself as well as the public, for example the following:


After all the real green natural scenery in Huangshan and the genuine city skyline in Hong Kong (genuine being the key word), the fact that Beijing actually put this up at the entrance of Tian'an Men Square struck me as a genius idea. You want green trees? There, you have green trees! I was so amused that I had to run across half of Tian'an Men Square (it's big!) back to it and took the photo. Next time you get out of the Tian'an Men East metro station, check it for me and let me know if it's still there. I'll miss it. I demand it be kept in Beijing's City Planning Museum.

World Peace

Miss China crowned Miss World 2007 on Dec 1, World AIDS Day.

Nice try

The Information Office of the State Council of China on Thursday issued the country's first ever white paper on its political party system, systematically summarizing the political party system with Chinese characteristics.

Zhuang Congsheng, director of the Research Office under the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, said rich experience had been accumulated for China's multi-party cooperation system over past decades and during the process, an increasing number of countries paid great attention to the democratic and political building of China.

"However, the fact that not too many people know well China's political party system has caused some misunderstanding. The white paper will help the international community learn the historical background, features, advantages, values and functions of China's multi-party cooperation system," said Zhuang. (Chinese Government's Official Web Portal news release)

White Paper on China's Political Party System full text.
Quote: "The political history and practice of modern and contemporary China prove that the construction of democratic politics in China must proceed from the country's basic conditions, and blind emulation of the political or party systems of any other country will never succeed; and that dictatorship will also end in failure, as it is against the law of historical development and the people's will."


More China political party system information:

Ruling party: The Communist Party of China
Other 8 political parties:
The Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang
The China Democratic League
The China National Democratic Construction Association
The China Association for Promoting Democracy
The Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party
China Zhi Gong Dang
The Jiu San Society
The Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League

Memberships of CPC: 73 million
Total memberships of all other 8 political parties: 700,000

From end of November to mid December, all the 8 small parties are going to have their national congresses where the new party leaderships will be elected, aiming at promoting younger leaders to catch up with the pace of the same action by CPC, and seeking more powerful official positions in the Chinese government. Most recent achievement is Mr. Wan Gang, Vice President of China Zhi Gong Dang, became Minister of China's Science and Technology Ministry earlier this year. He's the first non-CPC Minister in the past 35 years.

Updates Email from That's Beijing.

For one, as most of you already know, we switched our URL from www.thatsbj.com to www.thebeijinger.com several months ago.

Good for them!

[Followup] New public holiday proposal awaiting approval

The Golden Week pattern will be adjusted and the new version is supposed to be published tomorrow. Current proposal:

October Holiday remains the same.
Reduce the May Holiday from 3 days to 1 day.
Add 1 day leave to each of the 3 biggest traditional holidays: Qingming (Apr 5), Duanwu (Dragon Boat Festival, May 5 in Lunar Calendar), and Mid-Autumn Day (Moon Festival, Aug 15 in Lunar Calendar).
Move the starting date of Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) holiday week one day ahead to CNY Eve - meaning the new week will be from Dec 31 to Jan 6 in Lunar Calendar.

How does it sound to you?

[Update 1] The draft has been officially confirmed and submitted for approval. Also, update to the details: in a leap lunar year the public holiday for the traditional festival will only fall in the first leap month. Bummer.

[Update 2] The public survey on the proposal was closed on midnight of the 15th. Here are supporting rate results of the nationwide internet voting by 1.55 million Chinese netizens.
Increasing public holiday from 10 days a year to 11. - 89%
Adding 3 more traditional lunar holidays but decreasing the May Holiday from 3 days to 1 day. - 68%
Keeping October Holiday and Spring Festival Golden Weeks. - 82%
Moving the starting date of Spring Festival holiday to CNY Eve. - 81%
Moving New Year (Jan 1st), May Labor Day (May 1st), and the three new lunar holidays to connect to weekends to make "long weekends". - 77%
Increasing employee's paid personal leave days. - 90%

The final plan will be published by this year end. Now let's see how this turns out.