"Statistics on the number of travellers during Golden Week are like the Emperor's New Clothes - everyone knows they're not true, but nobody dares to say so."

- A Beijing resident arguing that because tourism departments completed the counts too quickly after the holiday many people doubt their accuracy.

"China can buy one Airbus 380 only by selling 800 million shirts."

- Bo Xilai, from the Ministry of Commerce, trying to assuage the worries of France and other European Union countries over the rise in Chinese textile exports, during his visit to France.

"If one country can stand for Asia, it must gain support from all the other countries on the continent."

- South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun explaining to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan why he opposes Japan's attempt to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

"The salaries of workers on the assembly lines of Shanghai Volkswagen were once the envy of many white-collars. But in 2004, a sluggish year for auto manufacturers in China, the average annual income of a worker of the company slumped to less than 60,000 yuan (US$7,230), while in the past each worker earned the equivalent of 26-month's salary (through bonuses) every year."

- A Shanghai-based magazine commenting on how the stagnant auto industry has spread despondency to every link.

"Singaporeans think they speak the best English among all Asian countries, followed by Hong Kong and South Korea."

- From the conclusion of a survey conducted by the global English training organization Wall Street Institute.

"Although people of my generation are quite lonely, we still have the company of cousins. But the next generation will even lose that last consolation."

- A Chinese girl born in the 1980s. According to a survey of people born after the single-child policy was implemented in urban China, 66.9 per cent wished they could have siblings and 46.1 per cent hoped they could have two children of their own in the future.