Foreign students need about Putonghua skills

This coming September Chinese universities will open their doors to a new academic year. Across China thousands of foreign students will start studying different courses in Putonghua. Most of these international students have already spent a year in China studying Putonghua to prepare for their new studies. This year, however, is often grossly inadequate for preparing them for study at a Chinese...

Students Disciplined in Prince Bullying Case

An additional small group of students have been removed from school in the Phoebe Prince case, according to a news release issued by Christine Sweklo, assistant superintendent of the Hadley Public Schools, media reported Wednesday. Prince, 15, a freshman at South Hadley High School in western Massachusetts, was widely acknowledged to have been a victim of bullying. She took her own life two m...

The lovers' last resting spot

The remains of a married couple or two lovers holding hands are seen in the 4,200-year-old tomb where they were discovered in Chengdu, Sichuan Prov-ince. The lovers' last resting spot was discovered during metro construction in late December last year. According to Chen Xiping, one of the archeologists who is excavating the site, the large skeleton is man lying with his face facing up and his fe...

3D explosion heralds changes to consumer experience

From Hollywood blockbusters like Avatar, Alice in Wonderland to the upcoming Clash of the Titans, from 3D game console to 3D TV, the accelerating adoption of 3D technology in entertainment and other sectors is expected to bring new changes to consumer experience. "It's coming. It's coming faster than even we thought," James Cameron, the director of Avatar, said in a keynote speech at the CTIA W...

Status changes whip crowd into laughter

"Judge thy neighbor," rather than "love thy neighbor," was the theme of a bilingual workshop on a recent Wednesday evening. "Tonight's workshop is going to focus on status," exclaimed Beijing Improv Comedy co-founder and leader of the night's workshop, Jonathan Palley at the Jiangjinjiu Bar, a well-respected venue for live music and a future cathedral of comedy. "Status is the key to interes...

Fashion banks on the mid-90s in spring

In 1994-5 an American teenage television drama called My So-Called Life (episodes are available on Youku.com) made a deep impact on my adolescent self. What I loved about the program were the issues the show addressed, topics that seemed pretty radical for prime time television at the time: acceptance of gays, drugs, premarital sex. Watching it now as an adult, what really jumps out more than e...

'Unspoken rules' get unwelcome focus lamp

Tawdry teacher-student rela'tionships have been the inspi'ration of literature, fantasy and scandal the world over, and none more so than last week when one of my colleagues at the Communication Univer'sity of China (CUC) became embroiled in a "casting couch" affair. A former CUC student known online as "Siwuxie" claimed that in order to land a highly sought-after place at the school, she had t...

Xiamen will introduce 100 high-level overseas talents within 5-10 years

The Xiamen Municipal Personnel Bureau has revealed that the city is currently studying and formulating relevant policies to introduce global talents, and planning to introduce 100 high-level overseas talents within 5 to 10 years. At present, the city has established a comprehensive policy system on the introduction of in-service personnel, foreign experts, overseas returnees, Taiwan talents, ...

From a small backpack to full truck load

After more than a year of putting up with my noisy ant-colony neighbors upstairs, I decided to take the plunge and move house. With thoughts of packing up all of my stuff – that has somehow grown from a 20 kilogram backpack 4.5 years ago to a one bedroom apartment chock-full of things, echoing through my mind, I couldn't help but think back over my four previous moves in Beijing. The first was...

Spotlight

After losing his business and returning home, award-winning graffiti artist Shang Xiaoyue is still holding on to "one last dream." Taking forgotten buildings and empty construction sites as his canvases, the native of Jinhua, Zhejiang Province creates by night to avoid being caught by the urban management officers (cheng-guan), all the while hoping one day for a legitimate place to practice his...