Help please!  Arrived here from Australia three weeks ago to teach at Dali University.  The support I expected hasn't eventuated so in dire need of someone to talk to.  Please advise me where I can meet an English speaking person / people?  Cheers  Rosie

Can some one please let me know website of Kai Yue Hostel in Qingdao?

Also any other hostel/hotel can you please recommend that is in the city centre with around 100-150 yuan price range with attached bath/toilet?

Thanks in advance.

DONGXIANG, China — No, the old man answered, standing in his bare home deep in a mountain ravine, he had never seen an airplane. The man, Tie Yongxiang, has never watched television, either. He listened to the pop quiz and seemed pleased when he could answer the last question in the affirmative.

China? Had he ever heard of it?

"I know what China is," said Mr. Tie, 68. "It is a country run by people who are supposed to be helping us."

. . . . 

The most recent census found 513,000 Dongxiang people in China, and an overwhelming majority live in and around Dongxiang County. Of the 25 townships in the county, 19 do not have a single Chinese person. Most people do not speak Chinese, and some, like Mr. Tie, have only a vague notion of China, despite living in the middle of it.

BEIJING: Pakistan and China will start a regular bus service on daily basis from June 1, connecting several cities in both countries.

A decision was taken at an official meeting held in Urumqi on March 20 and 21.

It will be for the first time that Pakistan’s Northern areas will be connected to China’s Western region through a regular bus service. According to a formal protocol signed by the two parties, a bus each will operate from both sides daily between Sust and Tashkorgan.

Another bus will run thrice a week between Kashgar, Sust, Khunjrab and Gilgit.

Sources said the two countries would also start a goods transportation service via Khunjrab pass from May 1.

It was agreed that each side would issue 3000 permits to their registered transporters to carry goods between the two countries. Each permit will be valid for one-round trip and the vehicles will be operated from the designated points. The number of permits could be gradually increased according to the demand of the transporters.

The protocol is an important step forward to build upon the existing road network arrangement between the two countries. It will go a long way promoting their commercial links and strengthening people-to-people contacts.

During the talks, the two sides emphasized the importance of Karakorum Highway that serves as a ‘Friendship bridge’ between the two countries. They also acknowledged that Pakistan could act as a transit facility giving China access to Central Asian markets and developing energy sources.

The officials reiterated their commitment for early rehabilitation and up-gradation of the KKH. They also referred to a MoU signed during President Pervez Musharraf’s recent visit to China.

Pakistan’s delegation at the talks was led by Firdaus Alam, Ministry of Communication joint secretary, and included Shahid Iqbal, road communication director, Abdul Salik Khan, a senior of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Babar Amin, a Pakistan Embassy official.

While the Chinese side was headed by Wang Shuiting, senior official of Department of Highway, who is also deputy head of Xinjiang’s Communication department.

The two sides have considerably reduced tariffs on a number of import-export items under the Early Harvesting Programme.

People are starting to steal little girls in China to sell them for foreign families to adopt.  I can't say I ever imagined this before.

link

Thirty minutes later they pounce on a thief trying to flee the mall after stealing a mobile phone from a woman's backpack, only to be threatened by three of the thief's knife-wielding partners in crime.

The six safeguard members attack the assailants and wrestle the knives from their hands.

A band of vigilantes, who organized themselves over the internet, spend their time after a day at the office by trying to prevent thieves in Guangzhou.

China's apparently trying to reform death penalty legal procedures.  The supreme court is going to start reviewing death penalty cases again, which it had stopped doing in 1983.  Appeals in death penalty cases are going to start being held publicly, whereas previously the hearings were closed.

Chinese were outraged by the case of a butcher executed for murdering a waitress who was later found alive, and that of a man who served 11 years for murdering his wife, who turned up not only alive but with a new husband.

New York Times article about how World Heritage sites status can turn a place into a mass tourist attraction, rather than protecting it.

In Lijiang, China, where his group has been working to preserve the ancient houses and culture of the Naxi people, he said that soon after its nomination to the list in 1997, Lijiang was beleaguered by development.

"They had no zoning, no planning," Mr. Morgan said. "Suddenly the first tourist hotels went in." Soon, he said, there

A BBC article reports on a letter written by former communist party officials.  I'll copy it here since the BBC news website is...  censored in China.

A group of former senior Communist party officials in China have launched a scathing attack on the country's handling of the media and information.

In an open letter, the group denounced the recent closure of investigative newspaper Bingdian (Freezing Point).

They said strict censorship may "sow the seeds of disaster" for China's political transition.