117
THE death toll from a flood which swept through a primary school in Northeast China¡¯s Heilongjiang Province this month was officially put at 117, with 105 of the victims being children, the Xinhua News Agency said. A mountain torrent flooded a primary school in Shalan town on June 10 after 20 centimetres of rain had fallen in 40 minutes. According to China News Week, the local township government took the day off to celebrate the second day¡¯s Dragon Boat Festival, although June 10 was a Friday which should be a working day, so when local villagers called the office for help, no one was there to answer the phone. Locals also told the magazine that the primary school failed to organize an effective rescue of the children, with some teachers even locking doors and asking children not to move until their parents came. Many parents said they had to break in when they arrived to rescue their children, while many teachers had climbed onto the roof to escape the flood. The report also praised those teachers who acted responsibly and bravely during the flood.
36
OFFICIALS in Northwest China¡¯s Shaanxi Province ran up a bill at a rural restaurant so large it will take the cash-strapped local government 36 years to pay it off, the Beijing Evening News reported recently. Over the four years they frequented the restaurant and had paid only a tenth of their
200,000 yuan (US$24,000) total tab, the paper said. The town government can only pay 5,000 yuan (US$602) a year and they owe 180,000 yuan (US$21,686), so it will take 36 years to pay back all they owe. ¡°That¡¯s a lifetime,¡± Wei Zhongqin, the owner of the now bankrupt restaurant, was quoted as saying.
85
A SURVEY conducted among 3,000 university students in Zhengzhou, capital city of Central China¡¯s Henan Province, found that 85 per cent would be prepared to end their relationship with campus lovers if faced with modern temptations such as a higher-salary job or better career opportunities in a different city. For a long time, university graduates have confronted the dilemma: to pursue a better job while ending their relationship or to continue their romance by taking a lower-paid job in a less attractive city. It seems that ruthless competition has led the majority of graduates to become ¡°realistic¡±.
