Beijingers learn 'civilized behaviour'

The municipal government has launched the first ‘Queuing Day’ on February 11th. This event, on the 11th of each month is part of a campaign for Beijingers to show ‘civilized behaviour’ ahead of the 2008 Olympics.

The 11th was picked because the two figures 1 – 1 look like two people queuing.

At this very first Queuing Day thousands of volunteers were sent to bus-stops and subway train stations to supervise passengers to line up correctly. However after 5.30pm when the official Queuing Day was over everybody rushed to the arriving buses as usual.

Another improvement in public behaviour was observed by the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau. According to its director Zhang, the ratio of people spitting in public declined from 8.4% in 2005 to 4.9% in 2006. And incidents of littering fell from 9.1% to 5.3%. Source: China Daily, February 12th, 2007

I have no idea where the spitting figures come from. It is very amusing for someone living in Beijing and being forced to listen to the ‘throat-nose-cleaning-procedure’ and paying attention to not been hit by the result of it when over passing a cyclist.

Shanghai Weblog refers to Beijing Notebook

Marc, thank you for referring to my blog at Marc van der Chijs' Shanghaied Weblog: Beijing blog.

I am still new to the blogger's world. It is exciting and I like it.

And thanks to a couple of bloggers I get kind advises to find my own way.

Beijing Design Magazine Casa International

My little newspaper magazine vendor at the corner does not have the latest issue yet from: Casa International.

It has the greatest pictures of houses all around the world and it is printed on high quality paper and it cost only 30 RMB (3 Euro). It is somehow a Chinese - Italian co-operation. It is printed in English and Chinese.




Above is the cover of the December 2006 issue (left).

And the picture on the right shows the office in Beijing. I would love to go to work in such an office! It is at Ritan Park.

Skiing in Beijing

Skiing in Beijing is fun! To the nearest 'ski resort' (Nanshang Ski Village) it is about 40 minutes to drive. The weather is great, always blue sky and sunshine. The artificial snow is really okay. The rented second hand gear was not too bad. You can sit outside for lunch like in Austria. The scenery is surreal with all the brown hills and grassland around. The only thing is, you have to be cautious and watch out for all the Chinese skiers that are 99% learners that do not know how to break...