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Cutting corners, costs in building posh flats

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-19

AS the cliche goes, you get what you pay for. Price often serves as the first clue as to whether a certain product is of sound quality. Unfortunately, these days you don't always get what you pay for, even when...

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Docs fiddle online while kids die

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-19

A SERIES of shocking cases involving doctors who were not paying attention, answering calls and playing a video game, may have cost the lives of tiny patients. A 5-month-old baby died while his parents pleaded...

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US greenbacks no longer 'beautiful gold'

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-17

WHEN Zhu Bin showed his handcrafted ceramics at the 2004 China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, he signed export contracts worth more than US$200,000 - at that time in excess of 1.6 million...

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Public gets window on city housekeeping

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-16

TRANSPARENCY is a two-way window, as Chinese officials are finding out the hard way. Even as they gradually open the blinds to let the public look in at the state of their housekeeping, they must also look out...

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We can sort out the problem by sorting out the garbage

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-16

INCINERATING garbage to generate power is also generating serious public concerns about the environmental damage caused by burning materials that release toxins. It's time to promote classification and sorting...

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Open society makes youth more ambitious, stressing 'I' not 'we'

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-13

DONG Yue gets up at 5:50am for an hour-long bus trip across the city to her school. The six-year-old springs up the minute her alarm clock goes off, although she often dozes off during the bus ride.For Dong, a...

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On sprawling cities and left-behind kids

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-13

AT last 9-year-old Yang Xuemei, an ethnic Miao girl in Guizhou Province, will have someone to confide in about her growing pains. She is one of the 220,000 children and young people in her hometown whose parents...

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A 3-year-old should play not study in kindie

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-10

DURING our three-month stay in Shanghai this summer, I sent my three-year-old son to a private kindergarten. My purpose was to let him enjoy the company of ther kids as he did in Kazakhstan. The differences between...

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On road rage and dead-end blame game

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-10

IT is with interest that I read Todd S. Fleckenstein's letter - this is at least the 10th time this newspaper has carried an expatriate's rant against Shanghai's often wayward traffic. In a detailed roundup...

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Tragic tale of tailings that sicken villagers

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-9

IN remote Gaocun Village, 500 kilometers south of Beijing, Pang Qingru rolls up her sleeves and trouser legs, showing streaks of red skin. "Because iron ore tailings have been blown everywhere in the village, many...

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Rural credit cooperatives step into breach to help lift farmers out of poverty

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-9

OVER the past 27 years, Shi Shengchang has trudged along the bumpy paths in southwest China's mountainous area, visiting poor villagers. Shi's greatest joy is seeing impoverished people living a better life with...

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Why 'comfort foods' make us feel worse

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-7

MANY people respond to stress by eating sugary or starchy, high-carbohydrate snacks, but sometimes what are intended as "comfort foods" make them feel worse. That's because those snacks often cause nutritional...

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Pressing the West to squarely face facts

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-6

WITH its external surplus melting like a snowman in the sun, China is likely to give short shrift to any attempts to blame it for the woes of the world economy when finance ministers meet in Scotland at the end of...

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Too soon to blame drywall from China

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-5

TWO years after the so-called tainted Chinese toys and pet food scare, another Chinese manufactured product is causing safety concerns in the United States. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said...

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Saying farewell to Qian Xuesen, father of our space program

Opinion | Chinese perspectives
2009-11-4

THE heavy yet beautiful snow in Beijing on Sunday was clearly tears from "above" to lament the passing of one man whose legacy is treasured with awe in China and can be felt in the US and many other parts of the world....