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And Finally

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Booze ban for government officials
Oct 23, 2020 (WiC 515)

Spare a thought for government officials in Qingcheng in Gansu province this weekend if you open a bottle of wine at home or meet friends for a beer. Despite being free from Covid-19 restrictions, Qingcheng county’s bureaucrats won’t be ...

Ron Howard to make biopic about Lang Lang
Oct 9, 2020 (WiC 514)

When Chinese pianist Lang Lang was nine, he moved with his father to Beijing so that he could prepare to sit the entry exam for the Central Conservatory of Music. For a year and a half they rented a tiny room with no heating, where the ...

Stamping it out

Gansu government targets tattooed taxi drivers
Oct 2, 2020 (WiC 513)

Some people see them as a form of art or self-expression. For others they are marker of lower socio-economic status or even criminality. The Chinese government is unquivocal where it sits in this debate: tattoos are ‘unhealthy’, a ...

Village ticked off for its multi-storey cemetery
Sep 25, 2020 (WiC 512)

Last week we wrote about multi-storey pig farms – a new type of hoggery intended to save space in a country that has a fifth of the world’s population on only a tenth of its land. This week there’s another land- saving idea – albeit ...

Marginal grains

Midea makes new ‘AI-controlled’ rice cooker
Sep 18, 2020 (WiC 511)

Rice cookers in their modern form emerged from 1950s Japan, with a thermostat-controlled cooking temperature that shuts off the heat when the rice is done. Some of the high-end cookers in Japan today cost as much as ¥90,000 ($850). Equipped with ...

Lashed together

Why Pingdu is the ‘capital of fake eyelashes’
Sep 11, 2020 (WiC 510)

“The eye cannot see the eyelashes” is a Chinese proverb to describe seeing faults in others but being oblivious to your own. There are others sayings too: if something is “as close as your eyelashes” it means it is ‘about to ...

It doesn’t add up

Textbook furore shows maths is still a male domain in China
Sep 4, 2020 (WiC 509)

Over the years, various studies have shown that there is no difference between boys’ and girls’ capabilities when it comes to maths. Yes, by the time they hit teenage years, boys tend to do better in maths as an academic subject. But at ...

The digging debate

Should low income students study archaeology?
Aug 28, 2020 (WiC 508)

By all accounts Zhong Fangrong is a quiet girl who takes solace in her studies. She was born into rural poverty and was raised by her grandparents because her mother and father had to live and work in the city as migrant labourers. Despite her ...

Education or bust

How Zhen’an county overspent on a school
Aug 21, 2020 (WiC 507)

Only three months ago Xinhua was praising Zhen’an county in Shaanxi province for “pushing forward with infrastructure construction in an effort to build a liveable and eco-friendly environment”. The article was accompanied by aerial ...

Protection of pets in focus as bird is stolen
Jul 31, 2020 (WiC 506)

Pure white plumage, round head and a small but fat shape – call ducks with their adorable appearance are becoming rising stars in China's pet market,” China Daily informed its readers last year. A shop in Guangzhou was even making a living ...

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