Parking chaos

at motor show

The Shanghai Auto Show was - as billed - a truly international event. The huge numbers of visitors must have made it very profitable.

The only thing that let it down was the total lack of parking for show visitors. Since it was a motor show, people like to drive to it if they have a car. The Pudong exhibition centre is not car friendly and that fact is not advertised at all in any of the show promotion literature. As a result the roads by the centre were choked with people being forced to park illegally. Added to which, in their eagerness to get parked, many motorists blocked fellow drivers by parking three-deep, nose to tail. We were forced to park on a flyover which did not give me the most comfortable feeling in the world.

Hopefully the lesson will be learnt and when the show comes to town again in 2007 maybe there will be a bit more organization for those who do drive to the show.

Frank Dutton, Shanghai

Xu inspires social

consciousness

I am writing this letter to respond to a report you published in March ("Peaks of devotion", March 10-16). It was about a university student (Xu Benyu) from Shandong Province who made huge sacrifices to help poor students in Guizhou Province. I was moved because I am a poor student too. I know how much hardship a poor person needs to experience before success and how much courage one needs to give up good opportunities - especially for further study - to go to the sort of poor region the locals are trying to escape.

I have a dream of helping poor people too. I'm graduating now and my classmates and I have many things, such as valuable books to dispose of. I hope they can be sent to a place where they are really needed. In addition, if possible, I hope I can do something else to help during my summer vacation.

Gan Yangying, Hefei