July 3 - Headlines from the China Daily News

Ni Hao!

I have not viewed any television here in China yet, so I am getting news from the China Daily News, which is printed in English. The face of China is changing dramatically in many ways. Here are some highlights of recent news articles I read...

1. Li Fengzhi, a 60 year old resident of Kunming, was released from a local drug rehab center. Li first tried opium in 1968 when she visited a relative. Over the next four decades, her drug habit grew more costly and dangerous. Now that she has fully broken her addiction, she has no home to go to. So, Sun Jianhua, a local police officer, will help Li register for a living allowance and begin working again.

2. A boy previously sentenced as a "juvenile delinquent" took the entrance exam for a vocational school in Jiutan. The 15 year old boy is currently residing in a local correctional facility. Last November, he got into a fight with a classmate, and the classmate died. He said he had not intended to kill him. The boy was sentenced to three years of re-education through physical labor. To help him prepare for his life after he is released, prison authorities allowed him to take the exam, accompanied by a plainclothes police officer.

3. A group of students at a university in Guangzhou are upset about a ban on dogs on campus. The ban on dogs was imposed last week because of all the barking. Some students complained to the officials that this was an infringement of their rights. All students who have licensed dogs must send them home or put them in the care of relatives. Unlicensed dogs will be sent to the police station. Dogs without owners will be considered strays, and the security department will be allowed to put them down.

4. A woman in the Chaoyang district has been detained, and is the first person to be accused of endangering public security by trying to commit suicide. The woman tried to commit suicide after quarreling with her boyfriend. She turned on a gas stove in her home last Tuesday. Police were notified and took the woman to a hospital.

5. A new Ethical Code for Teachers is being drafted by the Ministry of Education. During the quake in Sichuan, a teacher ran away from the classroom, unmindful of his students during the quake. His running away triggered a public concern about the responsibility and rights of a teacher, the morality of a teacher, and the social values, offering insights for the building of morality and the rule of law.

In Japan, it has been ruled that when a quake takes place, teachers cannot abandon their students. If a teacher like the one in Sichuan Province is found out, he would be sacked immediately and can never gain a foothold in the society. The article also stresses that during the quake a good many teachers put the safety of students at the forefront. The man who ran from his students is said to "tarnish the overall moral image of teachers."

6. In Weng'an, Guizhou, 30,000 people too part in a mass protest action, torching government buildings and smashing burning cars. People were protesting the authenticity of a police report on a 17 year old girl's death. The girl's body was found floating in a river. Based on her reputation as a quiet, nice child who didn't hang out or play around, the community doesn't believe that the death was a suicide.

7. A Shanghai man stabbed five policeman to death and wounded five others at a police station in the district. He then started a fire at the gate. It was not clear how Yang, an unemployed Beijing resident, managed to fatally attack so many policemen inside a police station. Later... Yang told police that he went on the killing spree because he was angry with police for interrogating him last October over bicycle thefts.

My Internet time is again running out... I send my love to all of you in the U.S. and wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July (a day earlier on this side of the International Date Line)! I do miss the ease we have of using the same native language when we speak. However, many people here in China speak English very well, and communication is accompanied by signs and gestures, until we understand one another. I am learning a few new Chinese words each day. I am told I have a good ear for the inflections in the language. This is good...