The Chinese National Population and Family Planning Commission today admitted that over 13 million abortions a year are conducted in China.

Wu Shangchun, a division director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission's technology research centre, told China Daily that research shows nearly half of the women who had abortions had not used any form of contraception.

Research in China regarding this statistic has said that inadequate knowledge about contraception is a major contributing factor to the sheer number of abortions.

Yet another shocking figure it that over 70% of the Chinese people surveyed did not know that sexual transmission is the main contributor to the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus.

Li Ying, a professor at Peking University said Chinese parents are reluctant to teach their children about sex, so more needs to be done on sex education.
"Sex education needs to be strengthened, with universities and our society giving more guidance,”
The real number of abortions is much higher than reported, because the figures are collected only from registered medical institutions. As many abortions, are performed in unregistered clinics.
In addition, about 10 million abortion-inducing pills, used in hospitals for early-stage abortions, are sold every year in the country.
The Shanghai hotline, which offers help for pregnant women, has reported an increase in calls, mostly from women 18 and under. Abortions cost about 600 Yuan ($88). Since the 1990s, doctors have not asked for a woman's marital status when an abortion is performed.
There are about 20 million births in the country each year.

News Source:
China Daily

Photo Source:
Flickr: Art Es Anna

I have been trying out several different ways of learning Mandarin as I set upon this language-learning journey. There is a multitude of different ways you can go about learning any language, and it can be overwhelming.

The language is of course overwhelming itself. No alphabet, 56,000+ characters, it looks wildly different from western languages and over a billion people speak it as their first language. The amount of people you can then speak to, after learning increases almost 200% from English to Mandarin. By being able to speak both of course, you are able in theory to speak to almost two billion people. A third of the world’s population.

Mandarin is also now the third most spoken language in the US, and as the Chinese economy is growing, it makes business sense to start to be able to converse in Chinese Mandarin. It makes sense to start learning Mandarin in terms of numbers of people and economics.

Yet of those reasons alone will not give you either the confidence or the determination to learn something so radically different. In my opinion, you have to want to learn Mandarin and have passion for the culture surrounding the language. The more you want to understand and open yourself up to the culture and language simultaneously the more you will take in.

Here, I wanted to just put a couple of links to software and books that I personally feel are good, as well as other resources, and ideas that could help you learn Mandarin. Nothing beats hard work and enthusiasm when learning a new language though.

1. From books:
   
   There are so many different books that usually come with accompanying audio series for language learning, I could not even try to list them all. The ones I have personally found useful are:
   
   Chinese for Dummies
   Complete Mandarin Chinese Book/CD Pack
   
   I also purchased a book that teaches to write characters, although in my naivety I bought the traditional characters guide, whilst most people that use Mandarin use the simplified characters. It seems that mainly those in Taiwan and Hong Kong use the traditional Chinese characters.
   
   
2. Podcasts:
   
   I have been made aware of some podcast series that help you learn Mandarin, whilst I personally do not use them. They are out there and no doubt help conversational Mandarin, whilst furthering the development of hearing the language day to day. The ease of being able to slip on headphones at work, or on the way to and from work, or even in the evening as you are relaxing, is very useful.
   
   The downside to this is as far as I can tell most podcasts tend to cost 99p per lesson, and they do not always cover as much as you would like.
   
   
3. Rosetta Stone
   
   Personally I seem to get on with Rosetta stone well for learning new vocab and repeating the vocab in new ways that reinforces the learning. It is based around a picture system, where you get words and the pictures together and no there is no English spoken or written. I have found that the lack of explanation sometimes causes confusion (though does make you actively learn by trial and error which is engaging and therefore good) especially when first introducing negatives and possessive elements of the language. Otherwise though it is a strong software package which I thoroughly recommend.
   
   Rosetta Stone: Chinese (Mandarin) Level 1, 2 and 3 Set (Mac/PC CD)
   
   
4. Online Mandarin / Mango Languages
   
   
There is a plethora of upstarts and a myriad of compaies that offer Mandarin courses in one way or another. Here I would like to share a couple of the gems I have found and utilised.

One of the other benefits to having twitter is being able to find out about all the other resources out there. I was lucky enough to talk to the moderator of MangoLanguages, and their system is similar in the repetition to that of Rosetta Stone, but without the pictorial element, which means that everything you learn is directly translated from English to Mandarin. The explanations are really good and there is extra narrative to provide a lot of background knowledge that Rosetta Stone cannot provide.

Both of these systems (Rosetta Stone & Mango Languages) are great, one is just CD based off of your computer, Rosetta Stone and Mango languages are quite pricy, though Mango is free at certain libraries. I personally recommend Rosetta Stone, because I believe being immersed in the language and picking it up and working it out first hand is great.

As for other learning Mandarin sites that I have found useful:

BBC offer a small amount of free lessons and games to initiate you in Mandarin learning. I recommend the Mandarin tone recognition game.

[I am open to any other suggestions for inclusion here]



5. Twitter & #Mandarinmonday
   
   Though it is also on the internet this tool I think is immensely helpful so I have given it. its own point. Though social networking site Twitter, I have met several people that have already been incredibly helpful in my learning. Twitter is incredibly useful for meeting people that have similar interests, and I would recommend if you do not have an account, go and set one up.
   
   When you do, you will start to notice that to make things easier to search people use #hash key to keep relevant topics together and easily scan-able. Bill and his friends have started Mandarin Monday, which is where anyone that wants to can get involved speaking mandarin and trying out new phrases, whilst native speakers will correct and aid the learning of everyone else.
   
   It is a growing community and incredibly useful. Again, I would totally recommend that you utilise this free learning resource!
   
   
6. Local Mandarin Get Together
   
   My local town has a small community of Native speakers that share their Mandarin with fellow learners. They meet once a month and only speak in Mandarin. This is particularly useful once you have developed some vocab and want to test it out.
   
   Gatherings like these are invaluable if you cannot afford that trip to China just yet.
   
   
   
7. Chinese Movies
   
   Whilst the internet has YouTube and many online streams of Mandarin lessons on. I have to admit, for me YouTube is not a good learning environment and I am easily distracted. I believe the lessons range between brilliant and terrible and you have to find one that suits you...
   
   Nevertheless, for me personally, YouTube does not work. However, films in Chinese will get you used to the accent, pronunciation and the speed of the language, although you may not understand much that is said, the more exposure to hearing Mandarin spoken will develop your speaking and listening skills.
   
   
8. College / School style Lessons
   
   For some reason where I am based, seems to be a lack of this type of course available and when it is, it is purely just passing the same old language qualification, GCSE or A-Level. I have always felt that you should learn what you need to get by, not what you need to pass an exam. Therefore this type of course, although invaluable would set you back substantial money (if you’re no longer in education) and when in a class of up to 20 others, you don't get the one to one time required to really improve.
   
   Whilst a great way of learning and the motivation of learning in a group, I feel that there are better ways to learn Mandarin. Especially more personalised speed of learning, as lessons are very rudimentary, and can therefore get boring and stuck in a routine. Learning a language should be for fun and for your own enjoyment when you are motivated to learn.
   
   
9. One on One teaching
   
   An expensive but fruitful way of learning. But one that will be suited to your speed of learning and will not have a set syllabus like the lessons that you may find at schools or colleges. And the teacher will be able to spend a lot of time on the things that you personally want or need to develop upon.
   
   
10. Go to China
    
    The best way to learn any Language is being immersed in it, and thrown in at the deep end learning everything and anything around you. It is probably the best way, but again expensive. For me personally, the allure of a trip to China is huge, but I want to have the basics in place first. Certainly to be able to read a little before I go is essential as I want to be included in my trip to China, not a tourist peering into a new World.
    
    There are so many other helpful resources and over time, I hope to get a large list of resources that people can utilise in their discovering of the Mandarin language.
    
    Please feel free to give me links to other sites here, and I will have a look around, and include them here.
    
    
    
    
    Charlie
    
    

The English Football Premier League's bid to expand is well placed with a new deal that will see matches broadcast on free to air television, by Guangdong TV. This move sees football moving into China (the world’s most populated country), aiming to dislodge the NBA as the biggest sport industry in China.

Many Premier League executives arrived in Beijing for the Asia Trophy. Pay TV group WinTV currently own the rights to all premier football matches and have done since 2007. Although the Premier League failed to convince one of the top four clubs to appear in the Asia Trophy Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham and Hull City join the local side Beijing Guoan in the competition.

Manchester United played a friendly in Hangzhou on Sunday and other clubs have also targeted China as a priority for long-term growth. The move to bring broadcasts free will see much more of the population watching the lucrative sport, with the Premier League hoping for replication of the success they have enjoyed elsewhere in the world.

News Source:
Guardian

Presidents of Taiwan and China exchanged telegrams today for the first time in 60 years, in the latest sign of their thawing relations. President Ma Ying-jeou received a message of congratulation from Chinese President Hu Jintao following the former's election as chairman of the Kuomintang, party officials said yesterday.

Ma won Sunday's election as the sole candidate with 93.87 percent of the vote with a turnout of 57.79 percent of the 533,000 eligible voters.

Today the two presidents Hu Jintao and Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou exchanged messages, which hope to improve relations between the distanced island, despite the anti-Beijing sentiment in Taiwan.

Beijing still claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which has been self-ruled since Chiang Kai-shek fled there following his defeat in the civil war in 1949. China has previously warned it could use force if Taipei pursued formal independence.

"I hope our two parties can continue to promote peaceful cross-strait development, deepen mutual trust, bring good news to compatriots on both sides and create a revival of the great Chinese race," Hu said in his telegram.

Ma replied he hoped Taiwan and China could "value reality, establish mutual confidence, set disputes aside and achieve a double-win situation."

Ma was elected president in spring last year on a platform of improving relations with China and because of widespread dissatisfaction with the ruling Democratic People's party. He has signed landmark trade deals, and now starting to build bridges with President Hu.

News Source:
Guardian

Chinese State media will now reach an extra 300 million people, having started a 24-hour Arabic language channel. CCTV will now be broadcast in 22 Arabic-speaking countries in Africa and the Middle East having started on Saturday 26th July.

Jiao Li, president of China Central television, said, "The launch of the Channel is a great step forward in the process of strengthening CCTV's international communications capacity. The channel, covering 22 Mideast countries and nearly 300 million people, will greatly enhance our global influence."

This news also comes just after the announcement of the first Chinese daily newspaper being released in Africa. Both these forms of media are a part of China's growing media influence, and helping the world understand what is going in within China.

The húlúsī (葫芦丝) is a Chinese flute like instrument made from the gourd of the cucurbit plant. The hulusi is so named from húlú; a gourd and sī meaning silk.

This instrument is made of up to four bamboo pipes, which include brass or silver reeds, and is enclosed by a wind chamber. The Dai people also know the hulusi as the bilangdao. Often only one bamboo pipe will be used for the drone, whilst one is just for ornamental value.

The hulusi sounds similar to a clarinet and is often described as “hauntingly beautiful”. The soft tone makes it an ideal solo instrument, and is often used to accompany a singing voice.

The hulusi was originally used primarily in the Yunnan province by the Dai and other non-Han ethnic groups but is now played throughout China, and hulusi are manufactured in northern cities such as Tianjin.




There's a touching legend about the cucurbit flute among the Dai people. It is said that in the remote past, a young man of the Dai minority saved his sweetheart from a mountain flood by holding a big bottle gourd and rushing through the turbulent waves. His unswerving loyalty to love touched the Buddha, who inserted bamboo pipes into a gold bottle gourd and gave it to the brave man.

Holding up the gold bottle gourd, the man played beautiful music. All of a sudden, the torrential flood retreated, flowers came out and peacocks were spreading their tails. All things on earth seemed to be sending their good wishes to the lovers. Ever since then, the hulusi has been passed down from generation to generation among the Dai people.

The Dai people are versatile and skilled in singing and dancing. During festivals, they sing songs to the accompaniment of intoxicating hulusi tunes and the music can be heard everywhere. Popular hulusi pieces include Phoenix Tail Bamboo Under Moonlight & Deep within a Bamboo Forest. I include some examples below for you.





Photo Sources:

Flickr: mtbl
Flickr: laurajcole

This is a quick guide through the minefield that can be using chopsticks. This is a beginers guide to learning the do's and don'ts of Chinese chopstick etiquette. There are many types of Chopsticks which range from disposable wooden ones at Chinese take-aways and restaurants, Re-usable Bamboo Chopsticks right through to the higher standard, though harder to use Porcelain Chopsticks. You could also buy an entire chopstick set to get you started. The choice is yours, however the etiquette is fairly standard.

“Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard” Spike Milligan

11: Do not dig under food to get the best pieces. It is also considered bad manners to change the food you have selected after you have touched the food.

12: It is bad manners to spear food with the points of the chopsticks as if they were a fork.

13: It is bad manners to pull the dishes towards you using the chopsticks. Always pick the dishes up or move them by hand.

14: Do not lick, suck or nibble the ends of chopsticks.

15: Do not reach across another person with your chopsticks.

16: Do not eat food directly from the central plate; transfer it to your bowl first.

17: Do not eat with a broken or mismatched pair of chopsticks. If one chopstick does break or cannot be eaten with, take a new pair, not just one to replace it. The Chinese are very superstitious and like things in pairs.

18: Also do not use chopsticks as drumsticks, similar to the rule above, Chinese believe all good things come in twos. Therefore, by separating chopsticks between hands you are disturbing the peace.

19: Do not use chopsticks as hair accessories. The hair accessories are completely different from chopsticks meant for eating. You would look silly with an ornamental fork stuck in your hair...

20: Do not duel with chopsticks; again, they are for eating, and not fighting.


So you best get practising with your chopsticks and your newly learnt etiquette rules. Best of Luck and most of all enjoy your new chopstick eating experience.

Photo Sources:
FlickR:AidanMorgan
Flickr:Hsing
JustHungry

There are three things that makes Mandarin hard to learn for westerners, and these three seem to be the biggest reasons that put people off learning Mandarin or as it is in Chinese pinyin Pǔtōnghuà ('common speech').

1. The Look of Romanised Pinyin
For English speaking people who are not as willing to learn, the Romanised pinyin uses many characters that are barely used in the English language the majority of the time. Many people are dismissive over lots of Z, X, Y and J’s as looking the same. This of course is nonsense but is a major hurdle for those learning to get over.

2. There is No Alphabet
Instead there are thousands of separate characters, used to represent the syllables. Knowledge of about 3,000 characters enables you to read about 99% of the characters used in Chinese newspapers and magazines. To read Chinese literature, technical writings or Classical Chinese though, you need to be familiar with at least 6,000 characters.

Every character is given exactly the same amount of space, no matter how complex it is. There are no spaces between characters and the characters which make up multi-syllable words are not grouped together, so when reading Chinese, you not only have to work out what the characters mean and how to pronounce them, but also which characters belong together.

The largest Chinese dictionaries include about 56,000 characters, but most of them are archaic, obscure or rare variant forms.

3. Intonation of Words

Western languages are very simple in the way that they are spoken, with a fairly open intonation where you can change the way you say something on your mood. Mandarin demands that you have the proper intonation of words, otherwise you could end up calling your mother a horse, as many Chinese syllables have four or more other meanings depending on the tone that you use.

Chinese Mandarin has 5 different possible tones that each syllable can be said with. This is briefly depicted in my pinyin vowel chart where intonations are represented by the 'accents' placed above them in the pinyin Romanisation.

There are many homophones in Mandarin; this is words that sound the same in terms of both syllable and intonation. These homophones are usually paired with other syllables to make words and phrases that are understood in context, and when written have their own syllables.

There are about 1,700 possible syllables in Mandarin, which compares with over 8,000 in English. As a result, there are many homophones - syllables that sound the same but mean different things. These are distinguished by the tone they are spoken with and in written Chinese by using different characters for each homophone.


Put the hours in to recognise the Chinese Language and break the mystery;
To clear this trickiness up, when you start to learn and religiously decide to put the time into learning this language, the words become clearer and the more you use it the easier it becomes to distinguish between words, syllables and sentences. The characters themselves are also recognisable the more you use them.

Please give mandarin a go, and leave comments here about your experiences.

Picture Source:
FlickR

A panda at Wolong national nature reserve in Sichuan province, China, called You You has given birth today to the first ever IVF panda cub named LuLu.

Artificial insemination is commonly used for breeding pandas. In 2006 there were 30 cubs born from donor sperm. However, using panda sperm that has been frozen earlier - instead of from an immediate donor - had not been successful before.

An aging Chinese population has made Shanghai's Population and Family Planning Commission launch a campaign to encourage eligible couples to give birth to a second child .

Population officials have started to inform families about their decision about the second child policy, according to Xie Lingli, director of the commission

Shanghai has about 3 million people aged 60 or older, 21.6 percent of the population," the commission director said.

"The rising number of retirees will put pressure on the younger generation and the social security system," Xie said.

Decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy has produced new strains across the population and prompted exceptions in some family categories. Rural parents are also allowed to have a second child, if the first-born is a girl.

This comes days after reported protests in Venice of the One Child policy that until now has been enforced in China. Xing Xin still has another 40 or so days left in the box protesting. Maybe it did all work after all?!

News Source:
Shanghai Daily
BBC

A Chinese artist named Liu Bolin has taken street art to hidden depths. After having his studio pulled down, he decided to take his personal sculptures to the people. When performing often people do not notice him until he moves and is about to leave.

He said the inspiration behind his work was a sense of not fitting in to modern society and as a silent protest against the Government's persecution of artists.

Liu says this type of work takes a long time to perfect and often will study photos and pose for 10 hours at a time to get each scene just right.

Bolin graduated from the Sculpture dept of Central Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai.

In Chinese pinyin, the most popular Romanisation style (now that the Wade Giles [link] system has been shown to be less helpful to Westerners learning the language) has six vowels, though each vowel has five potential ways of being written depending on the tone of the syllable and the positioning of the vowel itself.

China and Asia experienced the longest solar eclipse of the centaury, which lasted 6 minutes and 39 seconds at its longest. Large areas of India and China plunged into darkness this morning.

In China, Shanghai, together with Wuhan and Chongqing further to the West, was set out by enthusiasts as one of the best spots to watch the occurrence of the eclipse.

Though there was not a perfect sky for viewing the solar eclipse, in some areas the clouds lightened towards the totality of the eclipse. Heavy rain and an overcast sky prevented thousands of Chinese who took to the streets from seeing the corona effect around the moon.

Chinese astronomers said whilst the clouded view ruined the party for many, the phenomenon raised public awareness of space and science.

News Source:
Telegraph
BBC
Shanghai Daily

Photo Source:
Morena7 Flickr

A Chinese boy from Xingwen in eastern China aged 9 has been admitted to hospital after drinking petrol in order to become a Transformer robot.

Xiao Fang, sipped petrol as he ate food in the belief that it could help him emulate the powers of robotic superheroes such as the Transformers. However, he has been left critically ill and has suffered serious nerve damage.

The Doctor treating Xio Fang says he is surprised the boy managed to keep the petrol down, and Xiao Fang's father said "I did wonder about the smell of petrol in our house."

This news comes as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has made a huge breakthrough at the Chinese Box office. Transformers have taken record haul of 400m Yuan (£35m) in its first four weeks of release.

The success of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is partly due to the increasing number of cinemas in China, which employs a quota system for foreign movies. Each year, only 20 or so films made outside China are allowed into the country, though Hollywood movies are distributed everywhere, via illegal DVDs.


News Source:
Telegraph
Guardian

Photo Source:
Flickr

The first photos that went around the world last week showing bloody ethnic riots in China were shocking. One memorable photo depicted two Chinese women, dripping with blood, reaching out to comfort each other.

Here in China, people understood the women were Han Chinese, victims of an attack by rioting ethnic Uighurs. State-run television endlessly ran film of the women, dazed and stumbling on the streets of Urumqi.

But by the time that image reached the Evening Standard newspaper in London, it was a different story.

"Blood and Defiance," the caption beneath the photo read on the newspaper's website, "two women comfort each other after being attacked by police."

"Their action reveals not only moral degeneration," proclaimed China Daily, the state-run, English-language newspaper, "but blatant betrayal of journalistic ethics."

In London, the Standard's managing editor, David Willis, said Wednesday the caption was simply "an interpretation" by a copy editor of information supplied by the Associated Press, which had transmitted the photo. Nevertheless, the news agency had said nothing about who attacked the women.

"If that interpretation was wrong," said Willis, "it was a mistake. In any case, we took it off the site when it was put in doubt." Readers had complained, he said.

This week popular Chinese newspapers such as Beijing-based China Youth Daily lashed out at virtually all Western media, saying riot coverage showed Western prejudice, accusing some of "intentionally" changing facts.

However, the Evening Standard was not the only target. The BBC, Al-Jazeera, The New York Times, the Daily Telegraph and even The Wall Street Journal came under siege.

- Now it is my opinion that all media is biased, and therefore used for the editor’s motives and that most public relations include a lot of spin. However having scanned through several sites for information and not just the English Broadsheets, the information came through rather chaotically and seemed fairly unanimous and this coverage seemed a lot more open than last year’s coverage of the Tibet protests.

This all said the Chinese government has also admitted to killing 12 Uighurs in the recent Urumqi protests, which is highly unusual admission from the government. This also questions the position of some criticism of the Western Press.


News Source:
The Star

Photo Source:
Day Life

Similiar to David Blaine's infamous sit in, in London, an Artist at the Venice Biennale has locked himself in a box in protest of China's one child per family policy. The box is 6 1/2 feet long by 3 feet high and 3 feet wide and Xing Xin is staying there for 49 days. It features special contraptions to allow Xing to be fed and to relieve himself.

To take up his time he has decided to count the characters used in all 150 books used in China's nine year compulsory education system. There are cameras inside the box to track Xing's movements and two waterproof televeisions outside this box, so that passers-by can see Xing's movements.

He plans to redo this protest in a glass box next time, when director of the Spazio Berengo creates a new glass museum that is set to open in the autumn, on the site where Xing's iron box currently stands. With Berengo's continued sponsorship, the artist plans to repeat the demonstration in a second box made of glass.

As for how much this protest will affect China's Decision making, I would say, it's not the biggest protest or the most life changing, I've seen and would have to be repeated by by several hundred within China to make any true political waves.

News Source:
LA Times
Art Info

Picture Source:
http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=367568

A rare admission from the Chinese government sees officals acknowledging having shot dead 12 Uighur protesters in last week in Urumqi, Xinjiang province.

Police shot dead 12 armed Uighurs attacking civilians and ransacking shops after they ignored warning shots fired into the air, said Nuer Baikeli.