China Chronicles November 27, 2012
- Kate Moss, you've got competition ...
LIU Qianping was visiting his 24-year-old granddaughter in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou recently when the women's clothes the aspiring fashion entrepreneur was packing into boxes caught his eye.
His visit came as the model that granddaughter Lu Ting and four friends had booked for a photo shoot to promote their online fashion business suddenly cancelled, dealing a setback to their new venture.
But Liu, a 72-year-old farmer visiting to escape the chilly winter of central Hunan Province, stepped in to help.
"I walked into the room and saw them packing up some clothes and I thought they looked quite interesting and quite cute," Liu said.
"So I tried on a jacket and they found it really funny, and I thought it was quite funny, too. So they asked if they could take pictures of me and post them on the Internet to sell the clothes. And I said, 'why not?'"
Thus it was that two weeks ago a star was born.
Liu, known affectionately as MaDiGaGa - funny elderly - is now one of China's most recognized models.
Delighted with his new fame, Liu says he now sometimes looks at fashion programs on television for ideas on how to pose but generally relies on his granddaughter's team for direction. Liu does, however, have his own opinions on styling.
"He will tell us which items should be stronger and what should be improved," Lu said.
"He really likes bright, contrasting colors while I prefer more tone-on-tone combinations. He gives lots of advice when we try different combinations, so we have some very different styles," she said.
Since her grandfather became involved, visits to Lu's online site have increased four-fold and continue to rise.
Liu, who traveled to Shanghai with his daughter for the first time last week after they were invited to appear on television, said he had been approached by other companies to model for them but had turned them down.
"I never dreamed of lucky things like these happening to me. Now, my name has sprea! d to everywhere in the country," he said.
Lu has been criticized on the Internet and accused of using her grandfather, but Liu insists the experience has put a spring in his step and she says they are now closer than ever.
"We have no firm plans on how long we will continue, it depends on my grandfather," Lu said. "If he is happy and his health is fine, we will keep using him as our model."
- Mother demands change to lighten pupils' burden
A SOFT-SPOKEN mother becomes an agitated campaigner when talking about Chinese children buried under loads of schoolwork.
Hu Lanlan has written to the Ministry of Education, appealing for changes she believes will be crucial for saving China's more than 200 million children.
Hu, whose teenage twins attend junior high school in Beijing, was prompted to write the letter after a series of suicides over poor grades or heavy loads of schoolwork, she said.
Ten years ago, a friend's 14-year-old son hanged himself because he had not finished his mountain of schoolwork and feared punishment.
"Similar tragedies, however, are still happening today," she wrote in the letter. "Each year, dozens of children commit suicide under the pressure of too much homework and their parents' expectations for them to enter top schools."
The youngest of these children was just nine years old.
Last Tuesday, a 12-year-old boy in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, jumped from a 16th-floor window, leaving behind an English exercise book in which he wrote: "I'm going to die. Bye."
The boy had poor grades and sometimes failed to finish his homework. The day before he died, his teacher had torn his Chinese textbook in pieces because the boy had not done his assignment properly.
"As an ordinary citizen, I make my appeal for those millions of Chinese children devastated by the exam-based education, out of my love for the kids and the determination to do something for their physical and mental health," Hu wrote.
Growing academic pressure is a threat to children's psychological health, according to Dr Ye Yiduo, a child psychologist in eastern Fujian Province.
In a survey of 6,091 children, he found that at least 20 percent of primary school students, 44 percent of junior high students and 52 percent of senior high students had psychological problems.
"These are not just abstract figures," said Hu, who quoted the figures in her letter. "Behind thes! e figures, so many children and families are suffering. Pre-teens get up drowsily at daybreak to go to school and stay up late to finish their assignments. Many attend training courses on weekends and holidays in order to excel."
When Hu was young, in the 1980s, she said she had more fun than homework.
"Today, however, children are like machines running around the clock. In an ailing education system, teachers exert too much pressure on children because they themselves feel the stress from school authorities," she said. "We should understand the children, who are not as mentally strong as we might think, and create a healthier environment to boost their confidence and enable them to truly love school life."
Hu called for laws ensuring children can get at least eight hours of sleep each night and exempting primary school students from homework.
She also demanded an end to the exam-based evaluation system by canceling tests and rankings during primary school and junior high years.
An education ministry official said yesterday they were "attentive to this letter" and were "checking the situation," but refused to comment further.
- Heart attack kills jet designer
The 51-year-old head of production for China's J-15 fighter jet died of a heart attack on Sunday, a day after he witnessed the successful take-off and landing of two of the planes on the nation's first aircraft carrier.
Luo, chairman and general manager of the Shenyang Aircraft Corp, headed the manufacturing and production phase of the J-15.
"Mourn General Manager Luo Yang. Luo will be immortal," read electronic signs at the gates of the SAC, a subsidiary of China's state-owned aircraft maker, the Aviation Industry Corp of China.
Flags were flown at half-mast at the company gates in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, and the homepage of the SAC's website was turned black and white in mourning.
Meng Jun, chairman of AVIC Shenyang Liming Aero-Engine (Group) Corporation Ltd, said he spent eight days on the carrier with Luo from November 18. Luo worked all day and night and bore enormous psychological pressures during those days, Meng said.
Colleagues of Luo said he had always been in good shape but he overworked himself.
Luo returned to Shenyang on November 17 from southern Guangdong Province after attending an airplane exhibition. He had no time to go back home but headed instead to the base of the J-15 fighter jet for test flight preparations.
Chu Xiaowen, a AVIC official who also worked with Luo, said his late colleague analyzed testing data and watched the flying and landing processes, and recorded the condition of the jets every day.
Luo felt uncomfortable at one point, but didn't ask the doctor to examine him, Chu said.
Even his wife only received one call from Luo - on Saturday, when he told her the test flights were successful.
"People in the SAC are in the deepest sorrow for Luo Yang. And we will remember him forever," read a company obituary.
A memorial service is to be held in Shenyang on Thursday.
"This is so unfortunate. I feel deeply sorry to hear the sad news of Luo's death," said Wu Guang! hui, chief designer of the C919, China's first domestically produced large passenger aircraft.
"We had been familiar with each other since he worked at an aviation institute in Shenyang. The tall man was gentle and always energetic," Wu said.
Luo's 79-year-old mother has not yet been told of her son's death.
- 7 perish in foggy highway vehicle pileups
SEVEN people were killed and 35 others injured in multiple vehicle pileups caused by fog on sections of a highway in east China's Shandong Province, traffic police said.
As heavy fog shrouded the province yesterday morning, at least 22 accidents involving hundreds of vehicles happened on the Beijing-Taipei Highway (Highway G3).
Seven crashes occurred in the Tai'an section, leaving one dead and 11 injured, while 15 crashes occurred on the expressway's Ningyang section, killing six and injuring another 24, Qilu Evening News reported.
Online pictures show mangled remains of sedans and sports utility cars after they crashed into the metal fence placed along the highway and heavy-loaded trucks rolled over, with windows and truck bodies scattered on the wet road.
The highway was reopened at 3pm following the rescue work, the paper said.
Nearly 50 highway entrances in southeastern parts of Shandong were temporarily closed as the fog reduced visibility to less than 50 meters in some areas. The fog also caused traffic jam in some sections with one queue of vehicles stretching back over 10 kilometers.
A red fog alert was issued by the meteorological authority of Liaocheng City while an orange alert was issued by Heze City.
The highway network is a partially completed expressway that, when completed, will connect the Chinese mainland with Taipei, capital city of Taiwan, and is a main trunk route in China's national highway plan.
The 2,030-kilometer four-lane highway passes through Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, and Fujian.
Though local officials speak highly of it, the Jinan section, dubbed a "deadly highway," has long been plagued with safety issues. Since 1999, a four-kilometer downhill road in Manshou Mountain has killed nine people on average per year.
Preliminary investigation showed the section, full of twists and turns, has a sunken road section at the edge of the mountain, which makes it easy for vehicles to turn over,! Ji'nan Times reported earlier.
But the contractor has refused to repair the road in spite of authority's demands because it would cost hundreds of millions of yuan, officials said.
Villagers live near the highway even see a potential fortune from the "deadly highway." They have set up lookout towers on top of their houses to monitor the road in order to rush to the accident site in time to earn "rescue fees," the paper said.
- Production at unlicensed dentures factory halted
AN unlicensed denture processing factory in Beijing has been ordered to suspend production for allegedly using recycled metal materials to make dentures, Beijing News reported yesterday.
The Beijing Jingjiayi Denture Processing Center is also accused of using illegal cleansing cream to whiten the dentures to meet the requirement of hospitals and clinics.
The factory, in the city's Tongzhou District, has been ordered to suspend production after a local law enforcement team found it had no license following an undercover investigation by the newspaper.
The investigation found the factory melted recycled residue of metal materials to make dentures and used shoe polish and furniture cleansing products to whiten and brighten the dentures.
Since the purity of the metal was lower, the dentures would unavoidably have small holes on them. The poorly-made dentures were also likely to cause irritation in the mouth and other oral diseases if they were not disinfected under strict conditions, according to Shao Dongsheng, a former prosthodontist with Beijing Stomatological Hospital.
The unlicensed dentures and false teeth were sold to small- and medium-sized hospitals and dental clinics in Beijing at low prices.
For instance, a false tooth worth only a few dozen yuan was sold to medical faculties at several hundred yuan and resold to patients at thousands of yuan, the newspaper said.
"To put it bluntly, this is an unlicensed factory. If there is any check, we won't pass it," Huang Yuchao, the factory owner, told the newspaper's reporter, adding there were hundreds of illegal denture factories in Beijing while only around 50 were licensed.
- Two sentenced to death for trafficking of babies
TWO ringleaders of an infant trafficking gang, based in mountainous Ya'an City of southwest China's Sichuan Province, were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
Cai Liaochao and Chen Hongfeng were accused of selling 14 babies between July 2010 and May 2011, the Ya'an City Intermediate People's Court said.
Four other gang members received jail terms of between three years to 15 years.
The court said the gang purchased newborn babies from poverty-stricken families and sold them in Shandong, Fujian and Henan provinces. A boy was priced at 30,000 (US$4,818) to 40,000 yuan and a girl 10,000 to 20,000 yuan.
Their crime came to light when three of them were caught trafficking three babies from Sichuan to Shandong in May 2011. Cai and Chen were given the death sentence because they were jailed five years earlier for the same crime, the court said.
China has seen many cases of poverty-stricken families in southwestern regions selling their children to sterile couples in big cities to earn a living. In a significant case in July, young mothers from Sichuan and Yunnan were among 802 suspects arrested for abducting and trading 181 children.
Police rescued 8,660 abducted children and 15,458 women while busting 3,195 human trafficking gangs last year.
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Film wide : 9.30mm - Heavy fog causes expressway crashes in Shandong, killing 7
SEVEN people died and 35 others were injured in at least 22 accidents on several sections of an expressway in east China's Shandong Province amid heavy fog today, local government officials said.
Seven crashes occurred at the Tai'an section of the Beijing-Taipei Expressway early this morning, leaving one dead and eleven injured, while 15 crashes occurred on the expressway's Ningyang section, killing six and injuring another 24, the traffic police reported.
Heavy fog shrouded southeastern parts of Shandong early today, reducing visibility in some areas to less than 50 meters, according to local meteorological authorities. Parts of the province's expressways were temporarily closed.
By this afternoon, police said the expressways had reopened. - Factory uses waste metals to make dentures
AN unlicensed denture factory in Beijing was suspended from production yesterday for allegedly using recycled metals to make dentures, today's Beijing News reported.
The Beijing Jingjiayi Denture Processing Center is also accused of using illegal cleansing creams to whiten dentures to meet hospital requirements.
The factory in the city's Tongzhou District was suspended by law enforcement officers after reading an investigative report by a local newspaper.
A journalist found the factory smelted recycled metals to make dentures and used shoe polishers and furniture cleansing products to whiten and brighten the dentures.
Due to the low purity of recycled metals, the poorly-made dentures contain tiny holes and can cause irritation and other mouth diseases if not strictly disinfected, said Shao Dongsheng, a Beijing prosthodontist.
The company sold its dentures and false teeth sold to small and medium-sized hospitals and dental clinics at low prices. A false tooth made at a cost of less than 100 yuan was sold to dental clinics for hundreds of yuan and resold to patients at thousands of yuan, sometimes 60 times the factory price, the report said.
"To put it bluntly, this is an unlicensed factory. If there is any check, we wouldn't pass it," said Huang Yuchao, the factory owner. Huang told the reporter that there are hundreds of unlicensed denture factories in Beijing and only half of them are licensed.
Huang admitted that about 20 percent of their products failed the quality standard and needed to be remade.
The law enforcement team has cut the water, gas and power supplies for the factory and official investigation is still ongoing.
- Factory uses waste metals to make dentures
AN unlicensed denture factory in Beijing was suspended from production yesterday for allegedly using recycled metals to make dentures, today's Beijing News reported.
The Beijing Jingjiayi Denture Processing Center is also accused of using illegal cleansing creams to whiten dentures to meet hospital requirements.
The factory in the city's Tongzhou District was suspended by law enforcement officers after reading an investigative report by a local newspaper.
A journalist found the factory smelted recycled metals to make dentures and used shoe polishers and furniture cleansing products to whiten and brighten the dentures.
Due to the low purity of recycled metals, the poorly-made dentures contain tiny holes and can cause irritation and other mouth diseases if not strictly disinfected, said Shao Dongsheng, a Beijing prosthodontist.
The company sold its dentures and false teeth sold to small and medium-sized hospitals and dental clinics at low prices. A false tooth made at a cost of less than 100 yuan was sold to dental clinics for hundreds of yuan and resold to patients at thousands of yuan, sometimes 60 times the factory price, the report said.
"To put it bluntly, this is an unlicensed factory. If there is any check, we wouldn't pass it," said Huang Yuchao, the factory owner. Huang told the reporter that there are hundreds of unlicensed denture factories in Beijing and only half of them are licensed.
Huang admitted that about 20 percent of their products failed the quality standard and needed to be remade.
The law enforcement team has cut the water, gas and power supplies for the factory and official investigation is still ongoing.
- China coal mine death toll hits 23
RESCUERS today found the body of the last missing person in a southwest China coal mine, bringing the death toll from a recent coal-and-gas burst to 23.
The body was discovered in a shaft of Xiangshui Coal Mine in Guizhou Province around noon today, ending the two-day rescue efforts, said officials in charge of the rescue operations.
The mine was hit by a coal-gas burst on Saturday morning when 28 miners were working underground. Eighteen miners were killed on the spot. Five miners have been rescued, with one in critical condition, Guizhou provincial authorities said earlier.
An investigation into the cause of the accident has been launched. Initial results show that inadequate safety measures are to blame.
Guizhou's Deputy Governor Sun Guoqiang said recent fatal accidents have occurred more often in mines operated by state firms than private ones.
He said the safety situation among state-owned mines is "grave" due to lax supervision over whether mines are adhering to safety rules, and he ordered a new safety overhaul of the mining industry.
Lu Hongzhuan, chairman of Pannan Coal Exploitation Co., Ltd, the operator of the mine, General Manager Wu Chao and Chief Engineer Zhao Qingping were sacked yesterday following an investigation launched by the State Administration of Work Safety and the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety.
A deputy general manager of Guizhou Panjiang Group, which controls the coal mine, also resigned, said a government statement. It did not disclose the deputy general manager's name.
The coal mine is located in Panxian County of coal-rich Liupanshui City. It went into operation in 2006 with a designed annual output of 4 million tonnes. The mine sits on a coal deposit of 1.3 billion tonnes.
Coal produced by Xiangshui feeds the region's Pannan Power Station, which is considered a key part of the government's strategy to send electricity from its resource-rich western regions to the power-hungry industry belts in the east! .
According to government figures released in mid-October, 1,146 people have died in 650 mining accidents across the country so far this year. About 46.5 percent of the deaths were caused by illegal mining operations.
Authorities intended to shut down 625 small mines this year to boost mining safety.
The State Council, China's Cabinet, on Saturday ordered tightened coal mine safety supervision.
It said in a circular that coal mines that have failed to meet safety standards should not be reopened and those who abuse their power to lower overhaul standards will be punished.
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