The Shēngxiào (Chinese: 生肖), better known in English as the Chinese Zodiac, is a scheme that relates each Chinese year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to a 12-year cycle.
Maybe foreigners think Chine zodiac is interesting. But honestly, it not a big deal for Chinese people. If a Chinese people ask another, 'what is your zodiac?', he is just asking the age in a way not directly.
Zhu Yu is a performance artist in China. His most famous piece of conceptual art, titled "Eating People," consisted of a series of photographs of him cooking and eating what is alleged to be a dead baby.
We don't know it is a real baby body or not. But he made most of us sick. What the hell did he want? To get famous by being a freak? To make foreigners think we Chinese like to eat babies?
Fuck the so-called 'artist', fuck the humor of 'Chinese people eating babies'!
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet to teach Mandarin Chinese in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into computers.
The system was developed from earlier versions by Zhou Youguang (b. 1906), who led a government committee in developing the system in China (PRC) in the 1950s. The system was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the official standard in Taiwan in 2009, where it is generally referred to as the New Phonetic System.
Learn more about Chinese pinyin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin
China's Ministry of Culture has ordered domestic websites to stop providing playback and download services of 100 overseas songs that have failed to go through "official approval procedures."
"The websites are ordered to clean up the music products because the products have not gone through official approval procedures, but it does not mean the songs are banned because of their content," an unnamed official with the ministry told Xinhua on Saturday.
The official made the remarks in response to doubts from fans and media that the songs, including those by Lady Gaga and Owl City, might be banned for containing sensitive or offensive lyrics.
In China, websites must be licensed by the government before offering online music services, and imported music products must be approved by the ministry before entering the market.
According to the ministry, the country's search engines and websites were urged to check and "immediately cancel" all services related to these songs by September 15, or they will face punishment.
Previously, the ministry has already ordered websites to stop featuring 200 songs that include "Cold Wind Blows" by Eminem, "Push That Knot Away" by KT Tunstall and "Grenade" by Bruno Mars for similar reasons.
"The ministry will continue to clean up online music products that fail to receive official approval in a bid to regulate our country's online music market," the official said.
China's aging citizens will account for more than 30 percent of the country's total population by 2042, according to a legislature report.
Li Jianguo, vice chairman and general secretary of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), made the remark on Wednesday in his report on the implementation of the law on protection of senior citizens' rights.
Li submitted the report to the NPC Standing Committee, the country's top legislature.
Official statistics show that China now has more than 178 million people at or above the age of 60, or more than 13 percent of its total population.
Li said that China entered the society of grey hairs in 1999, when the country was still industrializing and urbanizing.
As families become smaller and more young people leave their hometown for job opportunities in the city, it is becoming increasingly difficult for families to take care of their elder members.
By 2030, there will be an average of 2.5 people of working age for every senior citizen living in China, according to Li. The ratio stood at five to one last year.
Li's report suggested ways to tackle the problem, such as establishing a national elderly care system, strengthening social security for the elderly and improving laws that protect the rights and interests of senior citizens.
For Duan Can, a graduate in electronic engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology, a half year of work on an graduate-school application has brought offers to attend three leading US universities.
"The biggest surprise was the offer from Stanford University because it only admits the most talented Chinese students every year," she said.
In the end, she decided to go to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. One reason for her choice was that she received a full scholarship to attend the school, which is more commonly known as Virginia Tech. The assistance will let her avoid draining her parents' money while she works for five years on a doctorate degree.
Virginia Tech was not the only school to offer a full scholarship; she has also got one from the University of Florida.
Some agencies that help Chinese study overseas are seeing leading US universities make a record number of admission offers for doctorate programs this year.
"We are so surprised and happy to see so many admission offers pouring in from Stanford University, New York University and Columbia University," said Zhang Meng, senior manager of CACDIY International, an agency that helps Chinese study overseas.
"If Chinese students only have admission offers, that means they have to pay all of their tuition and living fees," he said. "I guess US universities want to attract more Chinese students, who brought in a large amount of money this year.
"Chinese students who have more than two offers, regardless of their money situation, simply have more choices."
The biggest headache for agencies that help Chinese students study abroad used to be that their rich clients would come to them with impractical aspirations to be admitted into well-known universities.
Their wealth has since made attending such places easier, since it prevents them from having to rely on scholarships to afford tuition, he said.
"I feel so relieved when our clients can choose among several offers," he said.
On Aug 16, the Council of Graduate Schools, a US organization that promotes graduate education and research, released the International Graduate Admissions Survey, which looks at admissions trends. According to it, the number of Chinese applicants to US graduate schools increased by 21 percent from this past school year and the number of offers being made to prospective Chinese students increased by 23 percent.
This is the sixth year in a row that those percentages have increased by double digits, the report said.
"Expensive tuition fees are not a big problem for me," said Liang Shuang, a graduate from the Beijing Jiaotong University. "And the opportunity to study at Stanford will not be around for another year."
Liang this year received an admissions offer from Stanford, where she can pursue a master's degree in environmental engineering.
"My dreams have always been more important than making money, and I like being able to choose between offers," she said.
More and more Chinese students, seeing their number of options have increased, now have greater expectations.
Xia Chaolun, a graduate from Zhejiang University, said that of all the offers he has received, he is only considering those coming from US universities that are ranked among the 20 best such institutions and that will give him a full scholarship.
"I got an offer to study computer science at Cornell on a full scholarship," he said.
According to CACDIY International, scholarships to study computer science or engineering are the hardest for Chinese students to obtain when they are applying for graduate schools.
Chinese and the United States have jointly shut down a chain of pornographic websites, which were all in Chinese and advertised to Chinese-speaking individuals in China, the U.S. and elsewhere.
Wang Yong, key operator of the porn websites, was arrested in the United States on June 23 by U.S. police, China's Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on Thursday.
Chinese police detained more than 10 people suspected of maintaining the websites in China on June 23, according to the statement.
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