Beijing Promises Airport Nirvana

From today, passengers traveling through Beijing Capital International Airport will spend no more than 3 minutes going through customs and less than 10 minutes waiting for a security check.

The airport has introduced a series of measures to reduce waiting times and improve the overall level of service.

One new service is sending delayed luggage on to passengers in Beijing free of charge within 24 hours.

Others include setting time limits on procedures to ensure passengers never have to wait too long, he said.

Passengers on international flights will spend no more than 45 seconds in frontier inspection, and a maximum of 3 minutes at quarantine and customs, he said.

Exceptions will be made only in cases where officials believe an individual merits closer inspection, he said.

Ninety-five percent of all international travelers will wait no more than 25 minutes before entering the processes of check-in and border checks.

As for flight delays and expensive catering and shopping facilities, which have been the two most common complaints in recent years, he said airlines will provide free food to passengers whose flights are delayed for more than 2 hours due to airlines' reasons, and free accommodation if flights are delayed for 4 hours due to airlines' reasons.

Meanwhile, products on sale at the airport will be priced the same as in Beijing's downtown area, he said.

For example, Beijing roast duck used to sell for 98 yuan ($13) at the airport. Now it will be priced at 72 yuan, the same as downtown. （People's Daily)

You can try it right away if you are coming in town for the Beijing PoP Festival next weekend.

Credit: China Law Blog

On size, interaction and population control

Beijing just released its latest guideline on the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education and revealed its plan to restrict the average class size for elementary schools (8-13 year old) and junior high schools (13-15) to 40 students, and class number for an elementary school should be 2-4 per grade, and 6-10 for a junior high. Following this new rule, some elementary schools in Beijing will have to shrink their size to 1/3 or even 1/4 of their original scale.

[Boooo, smaller classes are cool but the more I think about it, my 60 people class back in junior high was be a lot more fun, especially when it comes to graduation parties and you are supposed to drink with everyone in the room who comes to you with a vengeance.... yeah we were 15.

Hao, moving on. Speaking of schools and the youngs...]

A new high school rule by Yizhou High School, Guangxi, has shocked the students and caused quite a buzz in the city lately. The school's new "Several Rules on Interaction between Students of Opposite Sexes" clearly regulated that:
"On campus, students' conversations with the opposite sex should be verbal, no written notes, QQ (Chinese IM), or mobile phones are allowed.
"Normal communication should be transparent, civilized and healthy.
"During conversations, students are not allowed to have any body touch with the opposite sex, including such immoral behaviors as holding hands, hugging, padding, and kissing.
"Students are not allowed to dine out in pairs with the opposite sex in any places including school canteens, immoral behaviors like whispering or public intimacy are specially prohibited.
"Conversations between students of opposite sexes should take place in brightly lit up places like classrooms or corridors. When there is no other people around even in these bright places, no one-to-one conversation between opposite sexes should take place."
...
And what's more? Surveillance cameras in canteens, dorms and classrooms have been installed. Three violations will send you home, dismissed from the school for ever.

[This is SO ridiculous it's laughable. The rules were strongly protested by students but surprisingly (or not?) the majority of the parents are in favor of it, saying that it's harder and harder nowadays for them to teach those spoiled "princes" and "princesses" on behaviors because they are the only kids in the families so the school is doing a good job helping parents. Please, whose kids are they? HELLO!!!]

On a related account, there are 18 million more men than women at marriage age in China this year, and the figure will rise to 30 million in 2020.

[Score. WTF is going on in my country?]

It's hard to catch up!

August 16, Ministry of Education issued the 2006 edition of Language Situation in China Green Paper. The report studied Chinese language situation in several specific areas such as dialect preservation, Chinese language development under the strong influence by foreign languages, and rare word usage for names. Also, 171 new Chinese words were officially added to the Mandarin vocabulary.

Some of the new Mandarin words added last year:
八荣八耻、抱抱团、博斗、车奴、成考移民、倒扁、断背、二奶专家、废统、公司驻虫、国六条、解说门、考霸、科研包工头、剩女、网络晒衣族、威客、微笑北京、微笑圈、文化低保、文替、毒娃娃、捂盘惜售

Pardon me. Please don't ask. I don't know what they mean nor how to translate them either. They make sod-all sense to me.

Some of the key research results:
1. The strong influence by English is a significant element leading to the downgrade of average Chinese level of Chinese people. For all the research achievements by China's scientific research institutes, over 80% are published in foreign languages. However the report is strongly against putting the native language and foreign languages into opposition. The report also proposed several solutions to enforce Chinese language education.

2. Word usage for names. According to the survey in 2006, currently there are 23,000 surnames in China, 129 of which take up 87% of the entire population. In order to avoid duplicate names Chinese parents have demonstrated extreme creativity and effort to distinguish their children by names. Apart from 4 character names (which has become common), there have been names like Zhao-A, and, even, "@". The report has suggested all the public service departments to upgrade their Chinese input software in their computer system to satisfy the growing population with rare names.

3. Dialect protection. The report calls for a joint effort from the whole country to preserve dialects, especially those of ethnic groups and those of small populations. "Don't let any of the dialect go extinct like all the species that we have lost." Officials from the National Langauge Committee also claims, however, that children speaking Mandarin from childhood is not a threat to dialect preservation?
Is it not? I just wish that my young cousin could ever speak our dialect so that it wouldn't sadden me every time when I talk to him in our dialect and he replies in Mandarin...

When will we learn to be a better loser?

Bangkok Universiade -- Simeon Williamson of Britain clocked 10.28 seconds to claim the men's 100m title on Aug. 11 night, overwhelming Chinese sprinter Zhang Peimeng by 0.05 second. However, the Chinese delegation joined hands with Canada and Kazakhstan to immediately file a formal protest, arguing that the gold medallist had an obvious false start.

After reviewing the start record and official video, the Athletics Technical Committee issued a statement early next morning, announcing that a re-run would be held in late afternoon on Aug. 12, due to a timing-device malfunction.

Williamson had reportedly committed a false start due to a starting time of 0.099 second, merely 0.001 second exceeding the official line of 0.1 second.

Dramatically, when all the eight sprinters stepped back to the track in heavy rain, the top three stayed at their original place as the previous race even with better time.

The Briton proved himself to be the authentic fastest man at Universiade by reclaiming the title in 10.22, when China's Zhang still finished as the silver medalist 0.08 second behind. (Details)

poor girl

A panda once believed to be male and sent to Japan to breed with a female without success gave birth to twin cubs this week, state media reported on Thursday. (CNN)

When could be an even better day!

08.08 in the Gregorian calendar, 06.06 in Chinese lunar calendar, the start of the Beijing Olympics one year count down, yesterday seemed to be about the best day for Chinese young couples to tie the knot, possibly "reminded" by their superstitious parents.

In Beijing alone, 3390 couples registered, the second highest record in history, following 4000+ couples on Dec 18 (Oct 28 in lunar calendar) last year.

For a brief glance of the reason of Chinese' obsession with lucky numbers, click here and here.

[8am, 08.08.2007, over 100 couples lining up in a 100+ meter long queue in front of the marriage registration office in Haidian District, Beijing. The first couple in the queue, Mr. Zhao & Ms. Cao, got to the office and started queuing the afternoon before.]

What when we all jump at the same time?

Credit: Christina