News You Might Have Missed: Beida, Grannies, and Airports
If you don’t, can’t or won’t read the Chinese newspaper, there are a few stories you might not have caught about Beida regulations and certain Beijing grannies.
Our perusal of the Chinese news has turned up some interesting developments at Peking University. The university’s amazing tourist draw has forced the school to place a daily quota of 5,000 tourists allowed in each day. Suggested ways around the clampdown include posing as a student, getting a student to bring you in, or purchasing non-tourist tickets from Centennial Hall. And wherever there are limited tickets, scalpers are sure to follow. A few days after the news of tourist limitations, reports are coming out that scalpers have made themselves at home at Beida’s gate selling admission for RMB 10 a pop.
Sometimes wishes do come true. Last week we posted about an 85-year old woman whose story has been circulating around Weibo in an effort to improve her fruit and vegetable sales. Two of her three wishes – to get a hearing aid and a pair of glasses – have come true thanks to TongRen Hospital. We’ll keep you posted when her third wish, dentures, comes true.
A doctor in Hebei is trying to find a medical cure for bad driving by screening for risk taking and slow reaction times. He believes he can find a gene that accounts for poor driving. While studies are useful and informative, we find the average person prefers stereotyping, as proven below.
If you like to keep on top of airport news, a few developments have been occurring in Beijing. The new airport, set to open in 2017, is rumored to be the size of Amsterdam city and will be “trendsetting for future mega airports,” placing emphasis on sustainability and public transport from high speed trains, metro and inter-airport trains.
While you are still stuck using the much smaller Beijing Capital Airport, there’s a free service now available to you. You will now be able to make free calls to local numbers – including cell phones – from airport pay phones. The catch, you can only talk for three-minute segments. There is, however, no limit on the number of three-minute calls you can make.
