China Chronicles October 25, 2012
- Kindergarten teacher fired after photos expose her child abuse history
A female kindergarten teacher in Zhejiang Province was fired after a controversial photo posted on the Internet exposed the smiling woman grabbed ears of a crying little boy, lifting him about 10 centimeters above the ground, Qianjiang Evening News reported.
The teacher was previously employed by Lankongque Kindergarten in Zhejiang's Wenling City and she had no teacher's license.
She posted other photos of torturing children on the Internet and all children were from her class.
In one photo, one little boy's mouth was sealed off with tapes and her Internet comments to a Netizen's advice to delete the photo were "It's just OK."
Netizens were angered by her photos and started to take actions, which finally led to police intervention. Police investigated into these Internet photos and found the kindergarten she worked for.
She graduated from a normal university for children teaching. It is common practice for local private kindergarten's to hire people with such education background without license due to a heavy shortage in suitable teachers.
The private kindergarten she worked for was now ordered to rectify. An inspection campaign into kindergartens to find similar children abuse has now kicked off in the city after the photo emerged, reported local media.
A female teacher in a kindergarten in north China's Shanxi Province was detained by police for slapping a five-year-old girl on her class repeatedly and some other children for being slow at arithmetics, media reported on Tuesday.
- Heilongjiang shrouded by heavy fog
Sanitation workers sweep a road in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, today. A fog with a visibility as low as 200 meters hit Harbin today.
- Girls forced to prostitute, fake virginity with eel blood
Police of Changzhou City in east China's Jiangsu Province recently cracked down a gang of organizing prostitution and captured five suspects who decoyed and forced minor girls to pretend to be virgins with eel blood, Modern Express reported today.
Four girls aging around 14 to 16 came to the police station on August 7, saying that they were forced into prostitution by a pair of couple, and they managed to escape on their way to meet the clients.
The police soon identified the head of the gang surnamed Chen, 30, and his lover called Xiaoyu, 24. It's investigated that Chen used to be sentenced in prison with reprieve for organizing prostitution in 2010. In this April he came to Changzhou and went back to his "profession"-he asked Xiaoyu and other two women to look for minor girls and clients, and also hired two men to watch the girls.
The police captured Xiaoyu and the other four suspects in their house on August 14, but Chen managed to escape. The police also rescued five minor girls in the house.
Xiaoyu allegedly confessed that they had decoyed and forced altogether 11 minor girls in the past four months and organized them into prostitution for over 100 times. Each time they charged about 1,500 yuan to 10,000 from johns.
To attract more clients, Chen told those young girls to use eel blood to pretend to be virgins. Xiaoyu allegedly confessed that they bought over 1,000 phone numbers from KTV waitress and sent short messages to these target customers to provide prostitution.
Over 20 whoremasters have been identified and charged administrative punishment, and the police are still hunting the gang leader Chen.
- 自行車 | bicycle
红白机的年代 has added a photo to the pool:
- 水泵 | pump
红白机的年代 has added a photo to the pool:
- 三輪車 | tricycle
红白机的年代 has added a photo to the pool:
- 環衛車 | sanitation car
红白机的年代 has added a photo to the pool:
- 開業前 | before opening
红白机的年代 has added a photo to the pool:
- 車還沒來？ | bus hasn't come
红白机的年代 has added a photo to the pool:
- Hainan to expand its duty-free shopping
THE southernmost Hainan Province will increase travelers' duty-free shopping quota, lower their age limit and expand its duty-free goods catalog next month, China's Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
Duty-free shopping quota will be raised from 5,000 yuan (US$800) to 8,000 yuan, and travelers are allowed to make duty-free purchases if they are over 16 years old, instead of 18 now.
"Relaxing duty-free quota restriction will significantly expand tourists' choices of products, thus release their shopping desire effectively and boost the sales of tax-free goods with high prices, which are slack at present," Liu Pingzhi, director of the provincial department of finance, said yesterday.
More than 60 percent of single duty-free products priced above 5,000 yuan that tourists buy at present fall between 5,000 and 8,000 yuan, and the increase on purchase limit will allow the majority of goods with high prices sold at designated shops to be covered, Liu said.
The province will also add beauty gadgets such as electric shavers and health care equipment, tableware, kitchenware, and toys (including baby carriages) to the duty-free catalog, bringing the number of goods categories to 21 from the current 18.
Those who use fake identity cards or passports will be banned from making duty-free purchases on the island for three years, while duty-free shops found to have broken rules, such as selling products to Hainan residents or extra pieces to tourists, will get warnings, according to customs regulations.
The initiative is aimed at boosting tourism in the island province.
- One civil servant vacancy draws 9,470 applications
A SINGLE vacancy in one of the National Bureau of Statistics's offices in Chongqing City attracted 9,470 qualified applicants as of yesterday, the last day for applying to sit for China's annual civil servant exams.
The application deadline was 6pm but the number is expected to set a new high record as the qualification review work will last until tomorrow.
According to initial statistics, more than 1.37 million candidates passed the qualification review to register and apply for the exam, which is to be administrated in November, according to the China Central Television.
The number of candidates is 60,000 higher than last year and is predicted to reach 1.5 million after all the qualification review work finishes. This year, the country opened nearly 3,000 more positions compared to last year. National-level government agencies, their affiliated public institutions and local branches will recruit 20,839 civil servants in 2013.
Hong Xiangyang, founder of xycareer.com, a career planning website, said applicants' enthusiasm indicated a grim employment environment in China.
"Many graduates told me they are feeling growing pressure from deteriorating employment and wish to secure a stable position in the government offices. Civil servant posts, which the public considers to be decent and stable, have become the most sought-after jobs," Hong said. Hong said it has become a trend that many students start to prepare for the civil servant exam from the time they are enrolled into universities.
"The students are blind and have no idea what kind of job to pursue. Many of them were born in the 1980s and 1990s. They live in a comparatively good environment due to the one-child policy and don't want to try hard jobs.
"Even their parents encourage them a lot to sit for the exam no matter what majors they study in universities," Hong said. Hong said the growing popularity of the exam also reflected inferior education quality and poor teaching resources in Chinese unive! rsities.
"Why don't students choose a job related to their major? Because they learned nothing from their majors," Hong said. Hong said it is not positive for graduates to see the exam as a big source of jobs.
Though the applicants rose this year, it doesn't mean all of them will take the exam. Last year, 1.33 million people applied but only two-thirds actually took the test. "Many students applied for a try but some stepped back at the last minute," Hong said.
- Plant safe, officials tell protesting villagers
A DISTRICT government in the east China city of Ningbo yesterday assured the public that a petrochemical plant it plans to expand meets "the most stringent discharge standards," two days after local villagers protested over pollution concerns.
Zhenhai District said it would keep relocating residents who live near the plant after 200 residents took to the streets to protest over possible health hazards.
The new complex is planned to be built in the Ningbo Petrochemical Economic and Technical Development Zone in the district with a combined investment of nearly 55.8 billion yuan (US$8.8 billion).
Villagers gathered in the district government building on Monday and displayed banners saying, "We want to survive."
The plant, run by Zhenhai Refining & Chemical, is a producer of paraxylene, or PX, a carcinogenic petrochemical used to create raw materials for polyester film, packaging resin and fabrics. Health experts say it also can cause fetal abnormalities.
The Zhenhai government has spent 6.4 billion yuan building 13 residential complexes and 10 shelters, totaling 2 million square meters, for relocated villagers. More than 9,800 households have moved to their new homes. The protesting villagers, however, have not yet been relocated.
During the protest, some villagers blocked an intersection, but they left after the local government issued a written response promising to address their problems.
The local government said, however, that those who stirred up public fury to disturb the social order would be punished.
The district has spent 3.6 billion yuan to reduce pollution from the plant, according to local authorities.
But Internet users pointed out that the project violates the rules because the plant was established only 15.5 kilometers away from the downtown while it should have been set up 100 kilometers away.
Similar protests have erupted in recent years. In 2007, thousands of people in southeast China's city of Xiamen protested the! construction of a PX plant over health concerns. The plant was eventually relocated.
Last year, authorities in Dalian in northeast China ordered a PX chemical plant shut down after local residents took to the streets to demand that the plant be relocated.
- Tainted frogs removed from food market
FARMED bullfrogs, a delicacy in China, were found to have been fed an antibiotic, banned for use in animals, during regular market inspections in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province.
A total of five batches of bullfrogs in the Mawangdui wholesale market were found last month to contain furazolidone, a cheap anti-bacterial that can damage the nervous system and cause liver necrosis if used improperly, a food safety official said. The exact number of bullfrogs tested was unclear but all the frogs in the market were removed from sale, officials said.
The Shanghai Food Safety Office said their checks have not turned up any such problems in locally sold bullfrogs.
Most of the contaminated frogs found in Changsha weren't raised there but came from southeast China's Fujian and Guangdong provinces, which are big bullfrog producers for other areas, including Shanghai.
Some growers feed the frogs, which are vulnerable to intestinal and liver disorders, with furazolidone because of the drug's quick effectiveness and low price, Changsha Evening News reported yesterday.
A frog supplier in Changsha surnamed Chen told the newspaper he earns only 1 yuan (16 US cents) by raising and selling 1 kilogram of frogs. He said the meager profit drives some suppliers to take such measures to ensure as many frogs as possible survive.
The suppliers can get the medicine in pharmacies but apparently do not realize improper use can risk the health of the people who eat the frogs, the paper said.
Medical experts said one big concern is that if animals are fed such antibiotics improperly, the drugs will lose effectiveness because microbes will develop immunity to them.
In Shanghai, the trade in bullfrogs reached its peak in 2011, when Sichuan and Hunan cuisines were trendy, with 30,000 to 40,000 kilograms of frogs sold by markets every day.
But local consumption was lowered following food safety scares. In the biggest case, in June 2011, more than 400 kilograms of bullfrogs ! were removed in local markets after they were suspected of containing cholera bacteria. The frogs tested negative for the bacteria, officials said.
- Jaywalkers fined 5 to 50 yuan
A NEW campaign initiated by the government of Shijiazhuang City, capital of north China's Hebei Province, will make pedestrians think twice about jaywalking.
Fines of 5 to 50 yuan (80 US cents to US$8) will be levied on people who cross pedestrian walkways when the light is red as part of a two-month traffic safety campaign initiated by the city's civilization office and traffic management bureau on Tuesday.
It is common for pedestrians in most Chinese cities to ignore traffic regulations, with large crowds of people crossing against red lights on a regular basis. One of the city's traffic monitors recently reported that about 600 people jaywalked within one hour at one of the city's intersections.
Wu Ruiqi, director of the traffic management bureau, said the first three people within a given group of jaywalkers at major intersections will be fined, while entire groups of jaywalkers at smaller intersections will be fined.
Traffic police, coordinators and volunteers have been sent to 400 intersections across the city to enforce the new rule, Wu said.
Those who cannot afford the fines will be able to volunteer to guide traffic and pedestrians or receive related education instead, Wu said.
Some people have been skeptical of the new rule, while others have given it some praise.
"The first three people in a group? How many police officers and volunteers do they need to keep watch along the streets? It's a waste of manpower and resources," said Beijing university student Li Bo.
- Man seen showing off monkey carcass sought
A MAN caught on camera smiling while he displayed the carcass of a skinned, bloody monkey sparked outrage on the Internet and is being investigated, according to forestry police in Xichang City in Sichuan Province.
Online posts said the young man killed the monkey, removed its skin and fur and showed off the carcass at Lushan Mountain, chanting, "Come and see! It's so exciting! Let's photograph it!" A picture showed the man lifting the monkey by an iron wire around its neck.
It triggered a public outcry. "The lack of awe for life results in such horrible behavior," one microblogger wrote.
Internet users have called for a search for the man. Several people came forward to confirm the authenticity of the online picture. Pictures indicated the monkey was about the size of a very small child.
A woman surnamed You said she saw the man flaunting the carcass around 2pm on Monday, the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper reported yesterday.
"Some visitors tried to stop him while some shouted, 'Bravo,' " she added. Local residents said they don't know the man and doubt he is a local.
Xichang Public Security Bureau launched an investigation when it learned of the case. Police said they first were confirming that the Internet story was real, and then would investigate to see if any laws were broken.
"In recent years, more monkeys are descending from the hills to find food or play with people. We don't exclude the possibility that some are hunted by poachers," said a forestry official in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, which administers Xichang.
"If the monkey in the picture is from Lushan Mountain, then it is very likely to be a rare species under state protection, and thus the man would be punished by law," he added.
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