New regulations explicitly ban relatives of recently-deceased patients from conducting a range of traditional mourning rituals on hospital grounds.

Banned activities include displaying funeral wreaths, setting up altars, and burning offerings such as incense or paper money.

A joint statement issued April 30 by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Public Security laid out the new rules in a document addressing questions of hospital safety.  The ban on public mourning was one of several new policies aimed at cracking down on protests by patients’ disgruntled relatives.

In recent years, China has seen an increase in occasionally violent hospital protests, as families seek redress for relatives who have died while receiving medical treatment.

Most recently, a doctor was killed and three other people injured by the disgruntled relative of a former patient in the northern city of Harbin this past April.  Similar murders have occurred in recent years, while many more have been injured in riots sometimes staged by hired thugs.

Last August, a crowd of over one hundred people stormed a hospital in Nanchang in southern Jiangxi province, fighting hospital workers with pitchforks and long sticks.

Other protests are less violent, relying on public mourning to draw attention and disrupt hospitals’ normal operation.

The Beijing Times reported earlier this month that over 73 percent of Chinese hospitals have experienced threats, harassment, or beatings of staff members, and over 59 percent have had normal operation disrupted by actions taken by disgruntled relatives of former patients.

The statistics were gathered in a survey of 270 hospitals across China conducted by the China Institute for Hospital Management.

The survey also reported that 61 percent of hospitals have had families of deceased patients conduct mourning rituals on hospital grounds.

The government’s new directive promised that anyone who participates in public mourning on hospital grounds will be punished according to China’s criminal code.  Exact penalties were not specified.

The directive also called for hospitals to assist patients and their relatives in filing complaints through regular channels by setting up complaint desks and posting telephone numbers of medical dispute mediators.

A new ruling issued Wednesday ordered central government ministries to disclose detailed information on the use of public funds for official vehicles, travel, and receptions.  The document also instructed provincial governments to make similar records available to the public within two years.

The announcement came amid growing criticism of the misuse of government funds for officials’ personal use, and nearly a month after a Beijing academic made headlines with the claim that some officials spent over 70 percent of their time at receptions and banquets.

Recent proposals to fight the misuse of government funds have included a ban on moutai, a staple of official banquets.

Public spending was a particularly hot topic at last month’s annual meeting of China’s national legislature in Beijing.

Zhang Yubiao, a delegate to the National People’s Congress from the southern commercial city of Shenzhen, proposed that the congress ban the use of all luxury goods with a market price greater than 500 yuan (US$79) at official banquets.  The proposed ban would extend to limit the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and delicacies such as shark’s fin and sea cucumbers.

Another politician attracted nationwide attention after he proposed a ban on the use of maotai at official banquets.  Shen Haixiong, a member of Shanghai’s Municipal People’s Congress, called for the government to stop serving the traditional spirit that has become a staple of formal dinners in China.

“The price of maotai keeps soaring and drinking the liquor is considered a luxury,” Shen said. “As far as I know, the government is prohibited from luxury consumption.”

Over 85 percent of Chinese view the misuse of public funds as a serious problem, with 87 percent agreeing that new regulations are urgently needed, according to a recent survey.

The survey conducted last month by the China Youth Daily showed divided opinion on the effectiveness of previous laws enacted to control public spending in 1998 and 2006. Out of the over 10,000 people surveyed across the country, 54 percent said that existing laws were “good” or “average,” while 41 percent rated the laws as “below average” or “bad.”

When asked who should be responsible for enforcing laws regarding public spending and holding officials to account, 77 percent replied that this was the responsibility of ordinary citizens.

In contrast, 48 percent said the responsibility lay with China’s national legislature, 35.4 percent said it lay with the media.

Twenty-four percent of people surveyed said that the responsibility belonged to government officials themselves.

A Beijing newspaper Friday named the men as Zhao Wenbo and Ren Chuankun, originally from Heilongjiang and Anhui provinces respectively but living in China’s capital for the past several years.

Jiang Xinxin, general manager of the Beijing Fusheng Tiansheng Media Company revealed their identity to the New Beijing News.  Jiang said that Zhao and Ren had occasionally worked with his company, but stressed that the two men were not under contract.

The New Beijing News confirmed that Zhao and Ren had acted in a TV series directed by Jiang, and that Jiang had written the lyrics to a song that Zhao had recorded.

Jiang, who described Zhao as a family friend, told the newspaper that he did not know the two men’s motives in impersonating Buddhist monks, but speculated that it was connected to a past grievance.

He said that in 2008, Zhao claimed to have been cheated out of over 100,000 yuan by a Beijing record company.  Zhao described the owner of the company as a devout Buddhist, and told Jiang that he was  considering an “artistic” way to draw the attention of the media and Buddhist authorities to religious hypocrisy.

Fake monks Zhao Wenbo and Ren Chuangkun are confronted by students at Beijing's Fayuan Temple on Apr 7. Pic: ifeng.com

Zhao and Ren grabbed national attention earlier this month after being spotted around Beijing performing a series of un-monastic behaviors.

Netizens in China’s capital posted online photos and video of the two men in orange robes drinking beer while riding the subway and checking into a hotel with their arms around two women.

The two were arrested on April 7, after a group of monastic students called the police during a confrontation at Beijing’s Fayuan Temple.

A spokesman for the Buddhist Association of China denounced the two men’s behavior and promised more stringent regulations for identifying authentic monks.

“Their action seriously damages the reputation and damages the image of Buddhism,” said spokesman Pu Zheng, according to a report by the Global Times.

Jiang Xinxin told the New Beijing News that he had spoken with Beijing police, but that officers had refused to disclose the official reason for Zhao and Ren’s detention or the results of the police investigation.

Pollution in China Pic: AP

The northeastern coastal city of Dalian began releasing new air pollution readings on March 30.  Citizens were invited to watch as environmental protection workers inaugurated the city’s new PM 2.5 monitor, which measures airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

A local government news website reported that the first reading was 12 micrograms per cubic meter, far lower than the maximum limit of 75 micrograms mandated by new regulations.

A plan issued on February 29 by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection calls for cities across the country to meet the new, tougher air quality standards by January 2016.

In Jiangsu province, a PM 2.5 monitoring system was launched in five cities on March 30, with 17 air quality measurement devices collecting data.

Air pollution readings from the 17 stations will be available 24 hours every day on the website of the province’s environmental protection department.

The Jiangnan Evening News reported that on the first day measurements were released, the lowest pollution levels were in Wuxi, a small tourist city on the outskirts of Shanghai.

The highest reading was 141 micrograms, taken in the provincial capital Nanjing.

Nanjing’s PM 2.5 measurement system had earlier attracted criticism for choosing measurement locations in areas with lower levels of air pollution.  Netizens accused local officials of trying to obtain more favorable air quality readings by placing monitoring devices in sparsely-populated green areas.

The city’s Environmental Monitoring Center replied that they were acting according to national regulations, and had chosen a diverse array of measurement sites.

Dalian and Jiangsu are only the most recent cities and provinces to launch new air pollution monitoring systems in recent weeks.

On March 24, Zhejiang province inaugurated 16 measurement sites in five cities.  The provincial government says it plans to install a total of 153 sites over the next three years.

The southern province of Guangdong began releasing PM 2.5 data collected in the heavily-populated Pearl River Delta on March 8.  Data for other areas in the province will be made public starting in June.

PM 2.5 monitoring has become a major issue in China over the past months, with experts and ordinary citizens calling for more accurate and widespread air pollution measurements in cities across the country.

On March 16, one of China’s leading health authorities called for greater public awareness and government attention to the problem of air pollution.

In an interview with The Guardian, Zhong Nanshan, president of the China Medical Association, warned that “if the government neglects this matter, it will be the biggest health problem facing China.”

Zhong, who rose to prominence in 2002 by breaking official silence to reveal the full extent of the SARS epidemic, said that “the situation now is better” and expressed confidence that authorities were becoming more transparent in dealing with the problem of air pollution.

“At the very beginning of that [SARS] epidemic, it was really terrible,” he said.  “We have learned a lesson.”

A majority of Chinese believe that health authorities’ reluctance to address concerns over corruption and mismanagement in the country’s blood banks has led to a recent decline in blood donations.

A Chinese girl flinches as a nurse inserts a needle to draw blood during blood donation at a mobile blood center. Pic: AP.

Fears over the safety of blood donation and frustration with a complex and often ineffective system of compensation have also contributed to donors’ reluctance, the survey found.

The survey was conducted last month by China Youth News, the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League, and included 2083 respondents.

When asked what factors were responsible for China’s current blood shortage, 57.3 percent of those surveyed said that blood supplies were being wasted on “numerous and trivial” medical procedures.

In addition, 56.2 percent cited difficulties in obtaining benefits for blood donors.

Since monetary compensation for blood donation was outlawed in 1998, China’s health authorities have promised free use of blood for donors and their families in the event that they require a transfusion themselves.

But specific compensation plans differ in each of China’s provinces, and a donor who has given blood in one province is ineligible to receive free blood in a different province.

A substantial majority of respondents said that the blood shortage reflects a “confidence shortage” in China’s health authorities, with 88.3 percent saying that distrust of blood banks and the Red Cross has contributed to the decline in blood donors.

Many of those surveyed expressed concern over the effects of donation on their own bodies.

Of those surveyed, 48.2 percent feared contracting disease or other “pollution” as a result of donating blood, and 37.6 worried that donating blood would have a negative effect on their overall health.

Misgivings over the safety of blood donation date back to a series of blood contamination scandals in the 1990s, when HIV-AIDS infections were spread among donors and recipients in several rural areas in central China.

Chinese medicinal beliefs have traditionally held that loss of blood leads to a long-term weakening of the body, leaving a person more vulnerable to illness.

Fewer than half of those surveyed said that they were willing to donate blood themselves, with 45.5 percent saying that they would consider donating in the future and 37.7 percent responding that they were unwilling.

But the percentage of willing potential donors among those surveyed is far higher than the 0.1 percent of actual donors in 2011, according to statistics from China’s Ministry of Health.

When asked how the blood shortage could be solved, 77.5 percent said that more openness and greater accountability in collecting and distributing blood would restore confidence and lead to an increase in donors.

In addition, 70.8 percent agreed that a unified nationwide system for compensating blood donors would increase donation rates.

But one high-end salon in northern China gained nationwide attention by announcing that it would only give three haircuts that day, each for a price of over 7,000 yuan (US $1,100).

A sign posted outside the salon in Shijiazhuang, capital of the Hebei province, announced that “shaving the head of the dragon” – as haircuts on this day are traditionally known – would be provided for the “heavenly price” of 18,888 yuan.

One stylist told a local newspaper that this price was for the first haircut of the day.  The second and third customers would be charged 8,888 and 7,777 yuan respectively.

After that, he said, no other customers would be served.

The second day of the second month in the Chinese lunar calendar is traditionally known as “the dragon raising his head.”  Getting a haircut on this day is considered to bring good luck.

The prices charged by the Hebei salon feature the number eight, which is also linked to good fortune and wealth.

Several members of the salon’s VIP club signed up to receive the “heavenly price” haircut, according to the Yanzhao Evening News, with the three recipients chosen at random.

The first haircut was given to a man surnamed Zhang, a 30-year-old store owner.

“This year is the Year of the Dragon, the second day of the second month is the ‘dragon raising his head,’” Zhang explained to the newspaper.  “And I got the first ‘dragon head,’ so I have a whole year of good luck.”

The recipient of the second haircut was a restaurant manager surnamed Gao, who said that he had gotten his hair cut on this day every year since he was a child.  This year had special meaning to him, though, as he had been born in the Year of the Dragon.

In addition to the lucky haircut, the salon also promised Thursday’s three customers an unlimited number of free haircuts for the following year.

Zhang, who received the first haircut, was also told that anyone he recommended to the salon would also receive a free haircut.

“No matter how many of his good friends he sends us, we’ll welcome them all!” declared one stylist.

Outside the salon, the sign advertising the “heavenly price” attracted attention from passersby, with some commenting that such a haircut would cost more than half their annual income.

After news of the haircuts was posted online, it attracted criticism from many netizens as well.

“Getting your hair cut for over ten thousand yuan just isn’t rational,” one Sina Weibo user wrote.  “Besides wasting money, it makes it easy for people to peg you as a rich show-off.  Is it really worth it?”

“Spending this much money on an expensive haircut is really just meaningless,” wrote another.  “It can’t compare to a donation to help the poor.”

On Feb 19, a Sina Weibo user claimed to have personally measured the air quality inside a railway car while traveling the high-speed line from Beijing to Shanghai.  His measurements showed the car’s PM 2.5 levels to be over 130 micrograms per cubic meter, almost double the average yearly level in Beijing.

In an interview with the Shanghai newspaper Dongfang Zaobao, Ran, who owns an air purification technology company in Suzhou, said that he had taken the measurement about an hour after the train had left Beijing.

“I had mistakenly thought that the air quality inside the high-speed rail cars couldn’t be lacking,” he told the newspaper.  “Who knew that an investigation would show the levels to be about the same as in Beijing before we left.”

Beijing’s average PM 2.5 level – a measurement of fine particulate matter in the air – is approximately 70 micrograms per cubic meter, according to official Chinese statistics.  But the city’s government has recently announced plans to lower the amount to 50 micrograms over the next eight years.

Railway officials in Beijing did not respond to Ran’s claims, but Shanghai’s Bureau of Railways asserted that air quality inside railway cars was in accord with national standards.

Shu Jiong, professor of environmental science at East China Normal University told Dongfang Zaobao that he was skeptical of the accuracy of Ran’s measurements.  But Shu told the newspaper that he believed excessive pollution in a small, enclosed space such as a rail car is “not unusual.”

“With passengers coming and going, they’re certainly going to bring dust particles into the train car,” Shu said.  “If the wider environment isn’t improved, it will be hard to keep a smaller environment free of pollution.”

China’s high-speed rail network has been bombarded with accusations over mismanagement and corruption since July 2011, when two trains collided near the eastern city of Wenzhou, killing 40 and injuring almost 200 passengers.

The day after Ran posted his air quality measurements on Weibo, the magazine Century Weekly published an investigative report claiming that China’s railway authorities had paid extravagant sums for simple toilet fixtures in high-speed rail cars.

Automatic sinks in one train had been bought for almost 70,000 yuan each, while tissue dispensers had cost over 1,000 yuan, according to the report.

“At that time, we said we wanted to use the very best materials,” a railway official told the magazine.

On Feb. 20, a netizen under the name “Rice Dad Is Coming” posted photos on his blog showing his 3-year-old daughter playing the violin.  Captions identified the girl as Xiao Mi, or “Little Rice.”

Xiao Mi holds her violin in a photo taken by her father. Pic: China Daily

The photos quickly became an internet sensation, with many drawing parallels with the self-proclaimed “Eagle Dad” who rose to infamy earlier this month after posting a video in which he forced his 4-year-old son to run almost naked through the snow.

“Studying the violin isn’t easy , and for a child who isn’t even two years old [sic], it’s a bitter hardship,” wrote one netizen.  “Parents don’t need to start teaching their kids so early.  Isn’t it better for them to have a happy childhood?

Others supported the apparent attempt to teach music at such a young age.  “For a child to be skilled in this way, they need to start training early on,” read another comment.  “What star athlete didn’t start practicing from childhood?”

The “Rice Dad” was quickly identified as Shi Bingning, a salesman from Nanjing.  In an interview with the Yangtse Evening News, Shi said that his daughter had begun playing the violin at age 2, and currently took lessons from a tutor every Saturday afternoon. Shi said that he hoped to cultivate Xiao Mi’s interest in music in order to boost her intelligence.

But Shi was quick to distance himself from the Eagle Dad and others parents who have garnered media attention for their strict, demanding approach. He told the Yangtse Evening News that Xiao Mi’s violin lessons were her favorite part of the week.  He added that every night before bed she asked to watch a few minutes of a training video that Shi had filmed, and would cry if Shi refused.

Li Zhong, the reporter who interviewed Shi at his home, described how Xiao Mi grew excited when her father brought out the violin and repeatedly asked him to hand it to her.

“She’s not practicing the violin, she’s just playing with it,” Shi said of his daughter.  “It’s just like a toy to her.” He told the newspaper that his daughter had not yet learned to play any songs, but was only working on proper posture and other basics.

Shi’s comments in the interview led many to praise his approach to parenting as a welcome departure from the trend represented by the Eagle Dad and Tiger Mother.

In an editorial featured on the website of the official Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily, the essayist and social critic Qu Zheng commended Shi for encouraging and guiding his young daughter’s love of music. “Enthusiasm is the greatest teacher,” Qu wrote.  “As for parents, if their child shows interest in music, they must actively train her without the slightest hesitation.”

Ophthalmologist Ray Tsai was a key figure in the development and popularization of laser eye surgery in the 1990s.  On Tuesday, he announced that he had decided to stop performing the surgery after hearing reports of numerous patients who had lost their eyesight years after receiving the procedure.

Tsai’s announcement attracted widespread attention and made headlines across mainland China.  Health authorities have sought to reassure the public that the risks of laser eye surgery are minimal.

"Success not included, my dear!" A surgeon wields a knife reading "loss of vision, corneal damage" in this cartoon from Shenzhen's Jing Bao."

The newspaper, Jing Bao in Shenzhen, contacted several of the southern coastal city’s major hospitals, with each responding that they would continue performing the surgery as normal.

Sima Jing, an ophthalmologist at Shenzhen’s No. 2 Municipal Hospital, told Jing Bao that the hospital had performed over ten thousand laser eye surgeries and had received very few reports of any negative after effects.

She said that the hospital did not keep statistics of such complaints because they were so few in number.

Health authorities in the Shenzhen municipal government similarly told reporters that they had never received complaints of laser surgery patients going blind, but promised to observe the matter closely.

Jing Bao quoted a Shenzhen resident who had received the surgery in 2002, and had neither complaints nor concerns.

“If there were some cases of bad results, that’s perfectly normal,” said Luo Yun.  “It’s surgery, after all, how can it be 100 percent without any risk?”

Nanjing’s Yangtse Evening News featured similar reassurances from both doctors and past patients, along with a side article on famous people who had undergone laser eye surgery, including NBA star Dwayne Wade and England’s Prince William.

But the newspaper also suggested that there was a dark side to laser eye surgery, saying that the procedure has become an “important source of income” for many hospitals.

“We’ve already had almost 80,000 patients, and during summer and winter vacations, we can get as many as 40 to 50 students each day,” said Zhao Dandan, an eye surgeon at the Dongnan Eye Hospital.

The newspaper went on to note that different types of laser eye surgery can cost patients anywhere from 3,000 to 20,000 yuan, while the machines used to perform the surgery cost roughly 120 million yuan.

“If the number of surgeries isn’t high enough,” the article concluded, “it’s not easy to recoup the cost.”

And while dozens of popular shows are pulled off the air for being “vulgar” and “overly entertaining,” this show has the Communist Party’s seal of approval.

‘Who Is the Ultimate Hero?‘ pits members of China’s People’s Liberation Army against one another in a series of competitions ranging from marksmanship to rappelling.

The show aims to “demonstrate the tenacious will and intense training of our army’s crack troops and to impart a rich knowledge of the modern military,” according to its website.

It is only one of several shows in which the government has adapted popular TV formats to send across a political message.

The hosts of "Who Is the Ultimate Hero?" introduce the latest episode. Pic: CCTV

The awkwardly-named ‘Legal Editorial Department‘ features weekly episodes of adultery, fraud, and murder, with enough shouting matches and tearful confessions to rival any soap opera.

But at the end of each week’s program, a legal expert appears on-screen to review the various crimes committed in the episode.  Pointing viewers to the relevant sections of China’s legal code, he reminds them of the penalties that such behavior incurs.

Both ‘Who Is the Ultimate Hero?‘ and ‘Legal Editorial Department‘ are broadcasted on Sunday nights on CCTV-7, the state-run broadcaster’s channel for military and agricultural programs.

China is in the midst of a campaign to overhaul the content of its TV programming.  Late last year, the State Administration for Radio Film and Television (SARFT) ordered regional broadcasters to limit the amount of entertainment programs shown during primetime, replacing them with news and educational shows.

SARFT called upon broadcasters to “oppose money worship, hedonism, and extreme individualism” in policing shows’ content, and to promote “refined and inspiring” programs instead.

While talent shows have become a particular target of China’s censors, it is unlikely that CCTV-7’s ‘The Great Glorious Path‘ will get the axe anytime soon.

This glitzy variety show aims to “assist migrant workers along the path of entrepreneurship and prosperity.”

Migrants from China’s countryside – often young and attractive – sing, juggle, and carve flowers out of vegetables, accompanied by strobe lights and techno music.

A migrant worker shows off his talents on "The Great Glorious Path." Pic: CCTV

But despite the government’s best efforts, such morality-building programs may still have a hard time attracting viewers.

On ‘Who Is the Ultimate Hero?‘ many competitions center around mundane tasks rather than death-defying stunts, with long interludes filled by technical explanations and patriotic speeches.

One recent episode featured paratroopers racing to fill canisters of oxygen and replace the light bulbs in an airfield searchlight.

Slick camera angles and dramatic music did little to heighten the excitement.

The policy aims to alleviate the growing blood shortage in China’s capital, but has quickly generated fierce opposition from around the country.

The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau announced on Jan 30 that blood donation history would be included in assessing students’ and teachers’ performance, but said that the specifics of the plan were still being decided.  The bureau did not say when the new policy would be implemented.

A doctor writes "excellent" on a student's evaluation sheet in this Jan. 31 cartoon from the Shenyang Evening News.

“College students are always the main source of blood donations,” explained Health Bureau spokesman, Ma Yanming, in an interview with Global Times.  “They are young, more willing to join the cause, and also more easily recover, while donating helps them learn to care for others.”

Many students, however, have criticized the policy, saying that it is unfair to students whose poor health prohibits them from donating blood.

The policy has also garnered widespread opposition from China’s media, with newspapers across the country condemning the move as misguided and even dangerous.

An editorial in Nanjing’s Xiandai Kuaibao said that Beijing’s Health Bureau had overstepped its authority, and that any decision affecting the lives of students properly belonged to the city’s Education Bureau.

Many critics faulted the policy for singling out students to bear the burden of donating blood. Dazhong Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper of Shandong province, accused the Health Bureau of shirking its responsibility to promote blood donation among society at large.

The newspaper said that health officials should focus on increasing the transparency and accountability of blood collection and distribution, and address widespread concerns over corruption and mismanagement in China’s blood banks.

"Student teacher evaluation" is weighed against "voluntary blood donation" in this Jan 31 cartoon from Shandong's Dazhong Daily newspaper.

Other opponents of the policy predicted that it would only worsen China’s blood shortage in the long term.

The Shenyang Evening News opined that forcing students to donate blood in college would dampen their enthusiasm for blood donation, leading them to stop donating altogether once they had graduated and entered the workforce.

The chorus of critics even included Guangming Daily, one of China’s largest and most influential Communist Party newspapers.

In an editorial, the paper called upon Beijing’s health authorities to find more “humane” methods of boosting blood donations, and said that including donation in university evaluations impinged upon students’ human rights.

But the Beijing Health Bureau has shown no signs of backing down or altering the new policy.

On Feb 4, the head of Beijing’s municipal blood bank, Liu Jiang, defended the policy in a radio interview. He reminded listeners that donation would be only one of many factors in assessing students’ and teachers’ performance.  He said that blood donation would be neither a strict requirement for all students nor the deciding factor in any evaluations.

This quote comes from an anonymous member of China’s “crush-crush tribe” (nie nie zu, in Mandarin), young white-collar workers who release their pent-up frustrations by sneaking into supermarkets and crushing packages of food.

Introduced to the West in the Jan 28 issue of The Economist, the crush-crush tribe has infuriated store owners and caused hand-wringing moral panic across China since they first emerged in the summer of 2009.

The phenomenon began in China’s largest cities and spread through the internet.  Posts on popular internet message boards recounted solitary late-night visits to the supermarket to smash packages of food or pop open bottles of soda.

The stories gained an eager following and a host of imitators in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

“Every day, the cookies on our shelves suffer varying levels of damage,” said a Guangzhou storekeeper in a report by the state news agency Xinhua. “It’s especially bad in the evenings and on weekends.”

A shopper looks at packages of instant noodles, a favorite target of the "crush-crush tribe." Pic: Wanjia Rexian

By August, members of the crush-crush tribe began to appear in less developed, less cosmopolitan cities.

In Heilongjiang province in China’s far northeast, one supermarket told a local newspaper that they were losing as much as 4,000 yuan (US $634) worth of merchandise per month because of damage caused by the crush-crush tribe.

Many grocery store managers complained that most crushers were able to get away unnoticed, and that those who were caught could only be made to pay for the damaged goods and then let go without any further punishment.

The social networking site QQ even devoted a special topic page to covering the crush-crush tribe.

“To crush or not to crush, that is the question,” read the page’s headline.  Below, articles featured a range of opinions from netizens, including members of the crush-crush tribe themselves.  “It’s not instant noodles that I’m crushing,” read one title, “it’s loneliness.”

Most observers agreed that the cause of the crush-crush phenomenon was the high stress faced by young college graduates in demanding, low-paying jobs.  But some dismissed it as simply the latest fad embraced by a fashion-conscious generation.

“Young people like to imitate and follow trends,” said Wang Hongjiao, a Shanghai psychologist.  “If there’s something new, they have to go out and try it.”

"I'll crush you to death!" growls this member of the crush-crush tribe in an Aug 2009 cartoon. Pic: ifeng.com

Therapists and other experts have offered a variety of alternative ways for young workers to vent their frustrations, from hobbies and exercise to popping balloons and tearing up sheets of paper.

For those unable to control their urges, one Beijing psychiatric hospital advised crushers to shop at the supermarket as infrequently as possible, and then only to go with a friend.

By the end of 2009, the crush-crush epidemic began to subside.  But stories of smashed cookies and crumpled packages of instant noodles periodically continue to appear in China’s newspapers.

However, most members of the crush-crush tribe appear to have moved on to other “tribes” who engage in their own signature brand of stress relief.

Unfortunately for China’s shopkeepers, these include the “switch-switch tribe” who mix and match different products in similarly-sized boxes, and the “rip-rip tribe” who tear open packages of socks and underwear.

In Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan province, the city’s main maternity hospitals have reported a large increase of births in comparison to previous years.  Officials at the Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital say that 294 babies were born in the first seven days of the Chinese New Year, one-third more than in the same period in 2011.

Other hospitals have given similar numbers.  The Sichuan University Huaxi No. 2 Hospital reported 128 births in the same period, including four sets of twins and one set of triplets.

An increase in births during the Year of the Dragon has long been expected by Chinese health authorities and experts.

In December, the state news agency Xinhua reported that the country was preparing for a 5 percent increase in births in the coming lunar year.   Officials in Shanghai predict 180,000 births in the city over the next twelve months.  Beijing expects an estimated 200,000 dragon babies.

Pic: New York Times

Children born during a dragon year are traditionally believed to receive good fortune and high prospects for future success.  But health authorities are attempting to dissuade future parents from putting too much stock in the power of the cosmos.

Chen Hong, director of the Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital said in an interview with the West China Metropolis News that parents should pay less attention to their baby’s astrological sign, focusing instead on raising their child in the best possible environment.

And other experts have raised the likelihood that the two choices will be mutually exclusive.  Many have pointed out that an increase in children born in a single year will lead to increased competition for an already small number of spaces in China’s school system.

The dragon baby boom has already resulted in a shortage of midwives and nannies.  West China Metropolis News reported that salaries for these two sought-after occupations, which typically range from 4,000 to 7,000 yuan a month, have risen over 20 percent in recent weeks.

To meet the growing labor shortage, several large childcare companies are offering employees an “introduction fee” of 200 yuan for each friend or family member they recruit.

The controversy began with a Jan 29 microblog post by film director, Zhang Zhou.  “Eating Goubuli dumplings in Tianjin,” Zhang wrote on his Sina Weibo account, “eight small dumplings for a hundred yuan.”

Goubuli is one of the oldest and most well-known restaurants in Tianjin, a major port city in northeast China.  Steamed dumplings, or baozi, are the restaurant’s signature dish.

Zhang’s post also included a photo of a portion of Goubuli’s menu.  The photo showed a dish of eight pork dumplings for 96 yuan (US $15), as well as a dish of shrimp dumplings for 128 yuan ($20).

Despite the high prices and the restaurant’s fame, Zhang commented: “They taste just like you’d buy off the street, and the atmosphere is about average.”

The post quickly became one of the most talked about topics on China’s microblogs, with many netizens expressing outrage at the high prices.  One post charged that Goubuli was taking advantage of visiting tourists, “just like the hotels at Sanya,” referring to China’s most famous beachside resort.

But others sided with the restaurant, saying that high prices were justified by the restaurant’s status as an historic Tianjin landmark.

In an interview with China National Radio, Goubuli’s manager explained that the controversial dumplings did not represent the restaurant’s overall pricing.  The 96 yuan dumplings were a specialty item, with fillings that included Kobe beef.

He added that Goubuli also offered a dish of eight pork dumplings for 36 yuan, and said that customers were free to choose a meal that fit within their means.

Zhang Zhou later admitted that he had never actually eaten at Goubuli, and said that the photo had been taken by a friend, who had complained to him about the prices.

Less than a week after Zhang’s post, a similar controversy was sparked by a photo of a carton of cigarettes priced at 10,000 yuan ($1,587).  The photo, posted by another Weibo user, shows a gold-colored carton of Yellow Crane Tower brand cigarettes on sale at an airport in Hubei province.

The packaging notes that the cigarettes are a special edition commemorating the 100^th anniversary of Tsinghua University.  The prestigious Beijing university celebrated its centenary in April of 2011.

Both Tsinghua and the Wuhan Cigarette Factory, which produces Yellow Crane Tower cigarettes, said that no such commemorative cigarettes had been produced, and that the carton in the photo was a counterfeit product.

The week-long festival saw hospitals flooded with patients laid low by holiday stress, accidents, or overindulgence.

The number of patients checking into the emergency room increased by about 30 percent during the holiday, according to one estimate from a major hospital in Nanjing, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province.

Nanjing’s Gulou Hospital treated an average of 400 patients in its emergency room each day during the Spring Festival, up from around 300 during the rest of the year.  On the evening of Jan 27, the last night before many revelers returned to work, the hospital’s ambulance team responded to 14 calls for help.

The nearby Jiangsu Provincial People’s Hospital reported similar numbers, saying that the greatest daily volume was 500 patients on Jan 24, the second day of the Spring Festival.

With rooms crowded with people and hallways lined with extra beds, hospital staff often struggled to cope with the influx of patients.  “When things get busy I only wish I had three heads six arms,” one nurse told the newspaper Xiandai Kuaibao.

Asked when she had last taken a break for a drink of water or use the restroom, she replied “I don’t have time to think about these things.”

Many patients arrived at the emergency room suffering from what health workers have dubbed “holiday syndrome.”  This catch-all diagnosis includes a range of stress-related problems, such as heart and lung ailments.  Sufferers of the “syndrome” tend to be older, while the most frequent complaints of younger patients usually stem from overindulgence.

“During the holiday season, alcohol-related issues are especially prevalent,” said Huang Ping, a urologist at Gulou Hospital who had been transferred to the emergency room for the week of the Spring Festival.

Huang told Xiandai Kuaibao that the most frequent cases were of injuries from fights and car accidents where one or both parties had been drinking.

Other common seasonal injuries included burns from fireworks mishaps and accidental knife wounds from busy cooks preparing New Year’s dinner, according to doctors at the People’s Hospital.

Photos showed the 7-foot-6 Yao towering over his elderly, rumpled colleagues during a Jan 15 meeting of the Shanghai committee of the Chinese People’s Consultative Congress (CPPCC).

Yao’s spokesman told reporters that the former basketball star hoped to advocate for issues relating to sports education and charity, but for the moment was content to simply “listen and learn because he is new to the organization.”

Yao Ming attends a meeting of the Shanghai CPPCC. Pic: Xinhua

But the news was neither surprising nor unexpected in China, where star athletes, TV personalities, and other celebrities routinely make their way through the country’s halls of power.  And while they wield little real influence in this system dominated by career bureaucrats, their presence on the political stage has generated widespread controversy and criticism.

One athlete turned politician who has gained attention in recent years is 2008 Olympic gold medalist Liu Xiang, who has been a member of the CPPCC’s national committee for the past four years.  While his annual appearance at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People has provided colorful photos for China’s media, his job performance has attracted less glowing coverage.

In 2010, Liu earned widespread criticism in the press and on China’s internet forums for lacking dedication to his official responsibilities.  He was frequently absent at committee meetings, and admitted that a proposed bill he had submitted to the body had largely been written by aides.

The bill, which called for an improved welfare system for sports coaches, was also taken to task by the official English-language China Daily. The newspaper said that Liu’s proposal was too trivial, and that “only serious topics for the nation and the world should be addressed.”

Liu Xiang attends the 2011 session of the CPPCC in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Pic: Xinhua

Liu’s actions are not uncommon among celebrity politicians, and many in China have wondered whether or not their continued presence on the national stage is beneficial to the country.

“Chinese politics needs real stars of its own, not celebrities playing as such,” said an editorial in the state-run Global Times in the wake of Liu’s lackluster 2010 performance.

Others have suggested that celebrity seats in China’s legislature should be ceded to disadvantaged groups in society.

“Why does the CPPCC have so many delegates from literary and artistic circles?” asked one microblogger on Sina Weibo. “What’s the ratio for representation for rural teachers, migrant workers, and citizens who cannot afford housing?”

But China’s star-studded legislature shows no signs of fading away.  Delegates at local CPPCC sessions earlier this month included director Zhang Yimou, well-known in the west for his 2002 film Hero, and Song Zuying, a singer famous for her glitzy performances in the annual Spring Festival Gala.

The national committee of the CPPCC holds its annual meeting in March 2011. Pic: Xinhua

The CPPCC is one of China’s two legislative bodies that meets annually at local and national levels.  The body is responsible for advising the country’s other legislature, the National People’s Congress, and providing a voice for groups and individuals outside the ruling Communist Party.

In reality, the CPPCC wields little real power, and is often described as a “flower vase,” with little substance behind its impressive ceremony.

But membership remains a badge of honor for many delegates, and China’s government is known to use the prospect of a seat on the CPPCC to co-opt rebellious voices.

The dissident artist Ai Weiwei was twice offered membership in late March 2011, according to a report by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Ai told fellow artists about the offer, but did not mention any further details.  He was arrested on April 3.

But a growing number of voices are speaking out against this ancient custom.  Criticism of the nuisance caused by the nightly fireworks as well as their environmental impact has been expressed by celebrities, citizens, and even the ruling Communist Party.

Pic: AP.

Many have complained about the loud noise given off by fireworks.  On Jan 22, hours before celebrations were set to begin at midnight, actress Ma Yili wrote on her Sina Weibo microblog that she pitied the small children who would be forced to endure the hours-long midnight barrage.  “How awful for little kids to be suddenly blasted awake!” she wrote.

Her comment quickly drew support from many netizens, particularly young mothers, according to the Beijing Morning Post. “I strongly agree!” one Weibo user later wrote.  “On New Year’s Eve, my son was scared and tired, frightened to tears.  He couldn’t fall asleep to save his life, and spent the whole night on my shoulder.”

Others were less sympathetic.  “We all grew up like this,” read another reply.  “We can’t let our kids get too delicate.”

A large number of complaints against Spring Festival fireworks have focused on their environmental impact.  In Henan province, netizens circulated an online pledge to refrain from setting off fireworks during this year’s celebrations.  The pledge listed several benefits to a fireworks-free new year, including cleaner air and less discarded packaging littering city streets.

The pledge also spared a thought for one surprising segment of the population.  “Birds need their rest, too,” it read.

The anti-fireworks movement gained a powerful endorsement in the southern coastal city of Ningbo, Zhejiang province.  The city’s official Communist Party newspaper featured an editorial on Jan 21 calling on citizens to “reform the custom of New Year’s Eve fireworks.”

The editorial said that while fireworks were harmless in China’s sparsely-populated agricultural past, they have no place in densely-packed modern cities.

“If we continue this custom, it will be harmful to the rights and interests of the public,” the editorial said.  It called for more propaganda and greater regulations against fireworks, and encouraged citizens to be more considerate towards their neighbors, “especially the elderly and children.”

But this year, some local authorities are distributing new year’s couplets with a very different message.

In Nanchang, capital of China’s southern Jiangxi province, several of the city’s prominent calligraphers gathered last Sunday at a major shopping center to write Spring Festival couplets for shoppers.  Such events are a common scene in the days leading up to the festival, but the Nanchang calligraphers announced that couplets would only be given to people who had recently donated blood.

The event was jointly organized by the calligraphers and the Jiangxi provincial blood bank. A representative from the blood bank explained to a local newspaper that hospitals have a greater need for blood during the holiday season and that health officials hoped to encourage more donors through the event.

“The people of this city donate their blood, we donate our ink,” one calligrapher told the Jiangxi Daily.  “Everyone gives a little piece of their heart.”  He explained that he and his fellow calligraphers had volunteered to write couplets for blood donors every year since 2004.

Even the couplets themselves carried the theme of blood donation.  One donor who had just given 400 mL of blood showed off a pair of scrolls that read: “The cloudy morning sky is a blood-red hue”, and: “A generous loving heart spreads many blessings.”

A similar campaign was held on Monday in Weihai, a coastal city in the Shandong province.  Couplets were distributed outside several clinics and bloodmobiles, available not only to recent donors but to anyone who could show a certificate verifying that they had donated in the past.  Over a thousand pairs of couplets were distributed during the first day of the campaign, according to the Qilu Evening News.

Volunteers distribute Spring Festival couplets to blood donors in Nanchang. Pic: Jiangxi Wenming Wang

A calligrapher inscribes a Spring Festival couplet encouraging blood donation in Nanchang. Pic: Jiangxi Wenming Wang

But the country’s press is offering some relief and holiday cheer amid the frustration.

Over the past two weeks, newspapers across China have run front page stories featuring smiling travelers returning home free of charge, often with tickets provided by the newspapers themselves.

“A warm return home” read the main headline of the Nanchang Evening News on Wednesday.  The newspaper printed in China’s southeastern Jiangxi province reported that a train dubbed the “Reunion Special” left the previous morning carrying migrant workers returning to Sichuan province.

“Every year, migrant workers have two major worries,” one worker surnamed Liao told the newspaper.  “The first is whether after a whole year of hard work, we’ll get our salaries or not.  The second is whether or not we can get train tickets back home.”

Liao was one of many workers who had applied for a free ticket at the newspaper’s main office beginning Jan 15.

Migrant workers arrive in Changsha, Hunan province, after their free flight from Fuzhou. Pic: Haixia Dushibao

Also on Wednesday, the Straits Metropolis News reported that 150 migrant workers in Fuzhou received free plane tickets from the city’s labor union.

In one of the largest giveaways, over 3000 workers at Shandong Meijia, a food processing company in the coastal city of Rizhao, received a free trip home in an event cosponsored by the company and a local newspaper.

Photos in the Qilu Evening News showed workers boarding the bus grasping colorful decorations printed with the character fu, meaning “good fortune,” distributed by bus station attendants.  Others showed off poetic couplets written by members of the bus company’s calligraphy club.

But some have had to fight for their free ticket home.  Huang Qinghong, a truck driver in Zhejiang province, wrote an open letter to railway authorities complaining that new ticket purchasing procedures put migrant workers at a disadvantage.  The letter was published by the Wenzhou Metropolis Daily, and the newspaper’s editors bought him a plane ticket allowing him to return home to Chongqing.

Huang told the newspaper that he was grateful for the gift, but asked readers to remember those who were not so lucky.

“I can go home for the spring festival, but many colleagues still do not know whether they can make it,” he said.

Many Chinese have also expressed shock and dismay over the stamp, but for another reason: it’s too expensive.

In the two weeks since it went on sale Jan 5, the stamp has more than doubled in price.  The face value of a set of 20 stamps is 24 yuan (US$4).  But in the coastal city of Qingdao, a local newspaper reported that many vendors began selling the stamps at around 170 yuan ($27).

By Wednesday, one seller told the Chengshi Xinbao that the average price for a set of stamps was over 320 yuan ($ 51).

Pic: AP

The high price seems to have deterred many potential buyers.  Another vendor said that while many customers came to ask about stamps, very few actually bought them.

“I wouldn’t dare sell this stamp,” one shopkeeper told the newspaper, explaining that too much risk was involved.

In Qingdao’s cultural market, out of 20 stores that sold stamps only two offered the dragon stamp.

While the dragon stamp has attracted widespread interest in China, it has also drawn criticism from several prominent figures who say it promotes an inappropriate message for the upcoming Spring Festival.

Many critics have focused on how the stamp presents China to the international community.  “Will the Foreign Ministry be sending this stamp on its gifts to its old friends or to old rivals?” asked Hong Kong TV presented Chen Yang.  “Does the dragon stamp suggest a peaceful 2012?”

The stamp’s designer Chen Shaohua explained his choice by noting that dragons have traditionally been used in China “to exorcise evil spirits and offer blessings, so we need a tough image.”

On his microblog, Chen contrasted his design with gentler images used for previous dragon years in 1988 and 2000.  In those years, Chen said, China maintained a low international profile as focused on economic development.

But this year, “as one of the most influential major states in the world, China is rebuilding its national confidence,” Chen said.

China’s official English-language media has defended the stamp in the face of unfavorable coverage abroad.  A January 7 editorial in the China Daily contrasted China’s “revered” dragon against the fearsome monsters of European folklore.

“Such an image of the dragon is thought to be frightening and aggressive, not in accord with the perception of a dragon that Chinese people have,” the editorial said.

Increased restrictions have discouraged many vendors from seeking the permit required to sell fireworks in China’s capital, and industry  insiders estimate that the number of firework sellers has declined almost 20 percent from the previous year.

But those who were not deterred say that business has not been affected by the tighter regulations, and predict that sales will remain consistent with previous years.

A fireworks vendor sets up shop in Sichuan province. Pic: Huaxi Dushibao

This year’s Spring Festival will be the first since Beijing’s municipal government banned the sale and use of bound-cylinder fireworks.  This category of fireworks, which go off in a two part sequence both on the ground and in the air, was deemed to be a safety hazard.

The absence of the popular fireworks caused unease for some vendors.

“We were worried that after the ban on bound-cylinder fireworks, sales would decline somewhat,” a seller in the southwestern suburb of Fangshan told the Legal Evening News.  “But as you can see today, sales have basically stayed the same as in past years.”

The initial pessimism was shared by major distributors, and the supply of fireworks sent to Beijing has declined for the first time in five years.  By early January, warehouses around the capital were stocked with approximately 810,000 packages of fireworks, 140,000 fewer than in 2011.

Fireworks have been on sale in suburban areas outside the Fifth Ring Road since Jan 1.  Vendors in the city center will be allowed to open for business on Jan 18.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported last Thursday that the December consumer price index (CPI) had increased 4.1 percent from the previous year, the lowest rise in 15 months.

Many observers abroad saw the news as allowing Beijing more leeway in making monetary policy and addressing other economic concerns.

“The easing inflation pressure is good news and provides further room for policymakers to shift their focus towards growth concerns,” said analysts at JP Morgan Chase, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

“The inflation story will move out of the limelight this year,” predicted analysts at IHS Global Insight.

But for now, inflation remains center stage.  The new CPI figures made headlines across China, and though many newspapers agreed that the slowdown was a reason for optimism, others warned consumers of continued hard times ahead.

A shopper inspects prices at a market in Anhui province. Pic: AP

“Last December’s CPI is the lowest in 15 months,” reported Tianjin’s Chengshi Kuaibao.  Similar headlines appeared on front pages throughout the country.

Xibu Shangbao, an economic paper in western Gansu province, was even more hopeful.  “The price of goods recedes, becomes the dominant trend,” read the bold yellow headline, superimposed over a photo of a woman walking through a supermarket filled with colorful packages of food.

The news received a more pessimistic spin in several morning tabloids, which emphasized the continued burden faced by consumers.

In Yantai, a coastal city in Shandong province, the newspaper Jinchen Liudian ran the headline “CPI rises” in large red characters, accompanied by an image of a basket of goods being lifted in the air by balloon.  An infographic showed the particular inflation of various goods, from  cigarettes to housing.

The headline of Anhui’s Jianghuai Chenbao was a single word: “Inflation.” Below was a cartoon of a young man struggling to carry a basket of goods over a red arrow rising above the letters “CPI.”

Front page of Jianghuai Chenbao, Jan. 13 Pic: abbao.cn

The CPI report was given little coverage in Communist Party newspapers, which devoted most of their attention to the meetings of local city legislatures now in session.

But the economic news made the front page of Wuhan’s official Changjiang Daily.  The paper reported that the inflation rate for all of 2011 stood at 5.4 percent, while Wuhan’s inflation rate was 5.2 percent.

The newspaper also noted that food prices had risen by over nine percent.

But for one profession, it is the employers who are clambering to snatch up the rare young graduates with the skills to fill a very in-demand position:  kindergarten teachers.

The phenomenon reflects rapidly expanding enrollment numbers in kindergartens across China, as well as parents’ rising demands for quality education in the earliest years of their children’s schooling.

The country’s desperate need for kindergarten teachers was evident at a recent job fair in the northern Hebei province.  Four hundred twenty-one kindergartens took part, offering a total of 8,986 positions, according to Hebei Youth News.  Only 810 students attended.

“Right now, I’ve had three kindergartens agree to sign me,” said Lin Li, a soon-to-be graduate who had been at the job fair for little over an hour.  “Which one should I choose?”

Kindergarten teachers demonstrate childrens' exercises at a school near Wuhan. Pic: Chutian Dushibao

Local schools at the job fair competed with employers from neighboring provinces and regions as far away as Guangdong.  Kindergartens from China’s wealthier cities advertised monthly salaries and benefits far above the ability of Hebei schools.

“Job seekers only need to match our requirements,” said a teacher from Beijing’s Guangming Pre-School Education Center. “3000 yuan ($475), plus insurance, room and board.  We can make good on it.”

By the time the job fair closed at 2pm, all but nine students had walked away having accepted a job offer.

For many of their peers, these are chances they could only dream of.

A 2010 study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that 89.6 percent of college graduates had found employment within six months of graduating.  Many students devote their entire senior year to the job search, and employed graduates frequently complain of underemployment and miserable working conditions.

But for kindergarten education majors, many of whom are graduates of vocational schools rather than four-year universities, employer-applicant ratios like those in Hebei are nothing out of the ordinary.

A job fair held the same day in the eastern province of Anhui was attended by 413 students, with over 3500 positions available.  Starting monthly salaries went as high as 5000 yuan.

In contrast, the 2010 CASS study found that recent college graduates earned an average of 2,500 yuan per month.

After scandals in Sichuan province drew attention to the widespread recycling of used cooking oil last summer, authorities in nearby Chongqing responded by banning the practice in the city’s hotpot restaurants.

But connoisseurs of hotpot, Chongqing’s signature dish, criticize the move as stamping out an ancient and harmless tradition.  And many restaurant owners have complained that the ban on recycled oil has led to higher costs and empty tables.

“I feel like the flavor of Chongqing hotpot has lost its soul,” said Shu Mingwu in an interview with the city’s official Communist Party newspaper Chongqing Daily.

Last November, Shu helped to organize a conference on food safety in which the ban on recycled oil was sharply criticized.  A keynote speech by the former vice-president of the Agricultural University of China defended the reuse of old oil as “fundamentally different” from the infamous “gutter oil” that has recently made headlines across China.

Diners in Chongqing enjoy a meal of hotpot Pic: Hualong

Scandals involving the use of “gutter oil” have raised the ire and disgust of Chinese consumers throughout 2011.  Photos posted on popular online forums have revealed in detail how used oil is collected from drains and sewers before being recycled for cooking a second time.

In Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, a chain of Chongqing hotpot restaurants was shut down in April after the city’s Food and Drug Administration discovered it served recycled oil to customers.  The oil was taken from diners’ bowls after their meals, strained, and mixed with water, according to the Global Times.

Amid the negative publicity that followed, a meeting of the Chongqing City Hotpot Association banned the use of recycled oil by all restaurants under their jurisdiction.

But by the time the ban went into effect on Aug 18, the decision had already sparked heated controversy throughout China’s largest city.

Many critics defended the use of recycled oil as a century-old Chongqing tradition, claiming that the flavor left over from the meat and vegetables cooked by previous diners gives the city’s hotpot a unique taste that distinguishes it from other varieties of hotpot.

In this city whose name is synonymous with hotpot throughout China, the use of recycled oil was neither a secret nor an aberration.  The Chongqing City Hotpot Association estimated that as of August of last year, about 80 percent of Chongqing’s nearly 20,000 hotpot restaurants reused oil from customers’ meals.

An online survey posted on Aug 4, the day after the ban on recycled oil was announced, attracted over 13,000 respondents in one day.  The survey showed 66.5 percent of Chongqing residents opposed the ban, while 33.5 supported it.

A cook fills a hotpot bowl from a vat labeled "single-use oil" in a Chongqing restaurant Pic: Hualong

In the five months since the ruling against recycled oil, customers have found other reasons besides a change in flavor for opposing the ban.  “They charge several tens of yuan for a broth fee,” complained one recent diner, according to the Chongqing Daily.  “Before, two people could spend 50 or 60 yuan for hotpot.  Now, they need to spend over a hundred.”

“Eating hotpot is becoming a luxury,” he said.

The ban on recycled oil has been bad for business, with many smaller hotpot restaurants being forced to close their doors, critics say.  Restaurant owners report that higher prices and the unfamiliar taste of “single-use oil” has driven away customers.

“In the first month after we switched to single-use oil, the flow of customers dropped by half. After two months it got back up to 70 percent, and has stayed like this since then,” said one restaurant owner.  “We’ve been under a lot of stress.”

But the ban on recycled oil has its share of prominent supporters, who argue that it will improve food safety and boost the city’s image.

“Old oil hotpot may be cheap, but it’s not healthy,” says Li Dejian, president of one of Chongqing’s largest hotpot chains and one of the earliest and most vocal advocates of the switch to single-use oil.  In interviews with local and national media, he had admitted that the transition will be “painful.”

“Chongqing hotpot is facing a difficult threshold,” he told the city’s official Party newspaper.  “But after stepping over this threshold, Chongqing hotpot will enter a bigger and wider world.”

Beijing rang in the New Year with an extravagant sound-and-light performance at the Temple of Heaven, which included hundreds of local students riding green bicycles to symbolize the city’s commitment to environmental protection.

While celebrations at the Temple of Heaven were off-limits to all but a select number of invitees, according to the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report, other festivities were open to all.  A public show at the China Millennium Monument, originally built to ring in the year 2000, featured musical performances ranging from opera to electronica.

In Shanghai, the new year began with a 3D light show on the city’s historic Bund.  Across the Huangpu River, giant TV screens showed ordinary citizens sending their best wishes to the city and its people.

Meanwhile, revelers in Shanghai’s fashionable Xin Tiandi shopping district were treated to fireworks and a display of over 60,000 LED lights spelling out “2012.”

Primary school students welcome the new year in Jiangxi province. Pic: Xinhua

Across the country, crowds flocked to Buddhist temples, waiting in long lines for a chance to ring the giant bells believed to absolve sins and bring good fortune in the coming year.

This year, believers had an additional reason to celebrate Jan 1.  As the eighth day of the twelfth month of the traditional lunar calendar, Sunday also marked the yearly anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment.

In Beijing, monks at the city’s Lama Temple distributed free bowls of rice porridge, a customary food eaten to celebrate the feast day.  Devotees began lining up outside the temple gates hours before they were scheduled to open.  Many brought their own containers, hoping to share the porridge and its blessings with family members waiting at home.

Monks distribute free porridge at Beijing's Lama Temple. Pic: Xinhua

On China’s newsstands, festive spirits were dampened slightly by the morning’s headlines.  On the last day of 2011, the country’s Red Cross released the results of its investigation into the Guo Meimei charity scandal.

While the investigation concluded that there were no links between the Red Cross and the high-flying party girl, the organization admitted to mismanagement of its commercial operations, which it plans to shut down.

In  the southern city of Shenzhen, a man diagnosed with bird flu, the first reported case in over a year, was reported to have died Saturday.

And for travelers in Sichuan, the new year got off to an aggravating start when twelve major highways across the province were closed for nearly nine hours because of heavy fog.

Nevertheless, China’s press was determined to ring in 2012 on an optimistic note.  Chengdu’s East China Metropolis News greeted the new year with a  front page showing ten people who has been chosen as outstanding persons of the past year because of their selfless contributions to society.

Among the ten honored by the paper were two police officers who had died trying to save a woman from drowning and a struggling businessman who had sold his own house to pay his workers’ wages.

An article profiling the honorees said the newspaper hoped the ten would serve as an inspiration to others.

“We hope that the new year will see even more people of strength, heroism, integrity, and dedication,” it said.