David Pierson, Young, educated and jobless in China; With millions
graduating from college each year and few jobs awaiting them, the country's
central planners worry that a mass social experiment that created a class of
professionals is backfiring. Los Angeles Times, Feb. 18, 2010.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-grads19-2010feb19,0,4022980.story
Quote:
"Money is so tight at times that he has learned to suppress his hunger with
a single steamed bun a day
"The ants' story began a little over a decade ago, in 1999, when the Chinese
government launched an ambitious plan to boost university enrollment by 30%
annually. * * * Undergraduate enrollment quintupled to 20 million students
by 2008; last year 6.1 million Chinese earned diplomas, up from 1 million in
1999.
Note:
(a) Ant Tribe 蚁族
(b) Fushun 辽宁省抚顺市
(c) Fuyuanmen, or Gate of Fortune and Destiny 北京市海淀区福缘门
(d) hutch (n): "a pen or coop for an animal"
tatty (adj): "rather worn, frayed, or dilapidated: SHABBY"
www.m-w.com
(e) The Shawshank Redemption
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption
----------------Separately
Lily Kuo, Beijing's National Stadium is on thin ice; Some call the $450-
million 'Bird's Nest,' built for the Olympics, a white elephant. Over the
winter, management hoped to generate revenue with a snow park, but
attendance has been sparse. Los Angeles Times, Feb. 15, 2010.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-china-birds-nest15-2010feb15,0,550814.story
Quote:
"With a price tag of $450 million, the world's largest steel structure has
been called a potential white elephant, a big, expensive building that no
longer serves a purpose. Its maintenance costs are $15 million a year.
"In the first year after the Games, 20,000 to 30,000 visitors, mostly from
out of town, toured it daily. But as the memory of the Olympics faded, the
number of visitors dropped by almost half.
"On opening weekend [of snow park], journalists outnumbered visitors. The
park now gets about 300 to 400 visitors a day. The hope was to bring in at
least 5,000.