Society
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BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese celebrated the Lunar New Year Monday with hopes that the Year of the Ox will be more bullish than disaster-stricken 2008.
"Goodbye to the snows of 08, the quake of 08, the pain of 08, the bitterness of 08; May 2009 be bullish for you," read one greeting sent by text message at midnight, as fireworks exploded across the nation in a raucous welcome to the New Year.
The Year of the Rat was not a good one for China, despite high hopes for the Olympic games hosted in Beijing in August. Ice storms interrupted the last Lunar New Year. Tibetans staged a brief but widespread uprising. Tainted milk sickened thousands of babies and a slowing economy heralded heavy job losses.
In Sichuan, where a devastating May 12 earthquake killed more than 80,000 people, some survivors put on a brave face.
"We've cobbled together a new house. It's not too bad," said Liu Shaoyun, whose nephew was killed when his school dormitory collapsed in Muyuzhen, in northeastern Sichuan.
"It's a little cold, but what can you do?"
Premier Wen Jiabao this weekend visited ethnic Qiang villagers near Beichuan, a town that was half-buried by landslides during the earthquake.
The economy is a more immediate worry for most Chinese, as a real estate slump at home and drop in export demand from abroad has caused factories to close and businesses to cut bonuses. Many migrant workers, whose remittances sustain the rural economy, are now home for the New Year but could have trouble finding jobs when they return to the cities next month.
Unemployed people have been allowed to peddle wares without paying a fee at the temple fair in Beijing's Temple of the Earth, the Beijing Times said Monday.
Chinese president Hu Jintao pledged more "equal development across society" during a pre-holiday visit to Jinggangshan, a poor Communist revolutionary base in the southern mountains that has been mostly left out of China's headlong rush to riches over the last three decades of economic reform.
State television showed Hu beaming as a baby kissed his cheek, visiting a marketplace, and singing with villagers at Jinggangshan, where an embattled Mao Zedong regrouped communist forces in the late 1920s before embarking on the Long March.
Acknowledging the winter storms and power outages that ensnarled much of South China last winter, Hu also visited a power plant and called for steady electricity supply.
The ox is one of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac and symbolizes, patience, hard work and tenacity and loyalty.
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In Chengdu Panda Breeding Center, 13 panda babies born in 2008 show up to greet the coming Chinese new year.
After the Chinese new year, they will walk out nursery to start new lifes.
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A little girl dropped off the platform of Beijing West Realway Station on her way to catch up the train heading to Xi'an.
The workers of Beijing West Realway Station helped her out without being injured.
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A fashion show is held in a primary school located in remote countryside. far from professional show, these models are its own students.
The primary school holds this show to promote green ideas and develop the creativity of its students from childhood.
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BEIJING – Nearly 1,000 people have been caught cheating on China's notoriously competitive civil service entrance exams, some with high-tech listening devices in their ears, state media reported Monday.
The official China Daily newspaper said in an editorial the number caught cheating was the largest ever for the exam.
Cheating during tests is common in the country of 1.3 billion people, where pressure to pass competitive national exams for entrance to universities and civil service jobs is intense. About 9.5 million young people take college entrance exams each year, but only one in four are eligible for college enrollment.
The cheaters had people feeding them information through wireless mini earplugs, and bought standard answers for the exams from outside companies, the official Xinhua News Agency cited the State Administration of Civil Service as saying.
About 775,000 people took the competitive civil servant exam last year to fill just 13,500 available positions. In some cases thousands were competing for more coveted positions, such as a ministry or a department with travel prospects, Xinhua reported.
Calls to the State Administration of Civil Service rang unanswered Monday.
There are no specific rules in dealing with cheaters in regards to civil servant exams, but they should face the harshest punishment, the China Daily said.
"Those who cheat in examinations for civil servants fall into the category of worst offenders and deserve the severest punishment," the editorial said. It said civil servants should be role models in moral integrity.
An earlier Xinhua report warning the public not to buy exam answers, said exam papers were state secrets and those caught leaking them faced three to seven years in prison.
China's civil service exam has been in place from imperial times and has long been seen as a stepping stone to social status and financial stability.
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