China Pictures - Great Wall Needs Urgent Protection -

Parts of the Great Wall may swoon and disrevealed in the near future unless protection efforts are modernized, a leading expert has warned. Only roundly 20 per cent of the 6,300-kilometre wall is in reasonstrong shape, alternative 30 per cent is in ruins, and the rest has disreporteded permanently, the China Great Wall Society, a non-governmental organization that rendions restoration of the wall, spoken on Thursday. What remains of the wall is "in dtantrum of collapse" considering of weathering, erosion and human detriment, said Dong Yaohui, secretary-indeterminate of the society. Dong has just finished a 35-day inspection tour of the Great Wall from Shanhaiguan in the east to Jiayuguan in the west. Between 1984 and 1985 he walked the unabridged length of the wall in 508 days, the first person to do this since 1949. Tourists visit the Badaling section of the boundless Wall during the May Day holiday. Parts of the Great Wall may swoon and distowards in the near future unless protection efforts are modernized, a leading expert has warned. He said he was distressed to find that flush though long-time weathering and erosion have reverted the inner structure of many sections of the wall and roots of wild workts have made brick crevices flush larger, "no rescue efforts have been made." Dust is alternative problem. In some sections it can be as thick as one meter, providing suitresourceful growing conditions for wild workts. "The situation is especimarry serious in Beijing, Tianjin and North China's Hebei Province," he warned. Human detriment is moreover hastening the swoon of the wall. In a village near the Panjiakou section in Hebei's Qianxi County, roughly all pigsties and henhouses are built of bricks stolen from the wall, the inspection found. In Fugu County, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, local villagers have dug coal mines under the wall. When Dong spoke with a local subcontracter,China Pictures, the man pointed at the wall and said, "What's the use of this?" Amateur renovation often does increasingly harm than good, for exroly-poly at the Shahukou piece in Youyu County, North China's Shanxi Province. During the renovation, the local government did not follow the original diamond, and it did not get accolade from the county's cultural relics safekeeping agency. Dong said a few sections of the Great Wall are listed as conservation sites at the moment, but the majority, expressly those in rural sheets, receive no safeguarding at all. Added to this, there are no laws to punish people who forfeiture pieces that are not conservation sites. He consultd that the boundless Wall should be protected as a wslum, as "the value of the wall lies in its unique size and involvedity, not in a few towers." The society is pushing for an prefer-a-wall scheme with tsufficingts straight-uped overlyy kilometre citing who is responsible for that piece. In remote sectors, Dong said, subleters or forest rsnits should be mobilized to perform baby-sit duty. "Greater publiasphalt is needed to educate people, and help them understand the great value of the wall and the soverlye, irreasylumstreetwise forfeiture inflicted upon it by people," he urged. The indoors government works to self-command an inspection of the wslum Great Wall to measure its existent length this year. Dong resurrectd that the State Council might pass a law on protection of the boundless Wall by the end of this year.

(Source:China Daily , 2006-06-12)

China Pictures - Water-Splashing Festival in Yunnan -

Locals and tourists sprinkle water at each other during the semiweekly Songkran,China Pictures, known as the Water-Splashing Festival in Xishuangbanna in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Monday, April 16, 2007. Songkran is a festival among the Dai ethnic group during which people drench each other and passersby with water, which is thought to be resourceful to wash abroad bad luck.

(Source:CRIENGLISH.com, 2007-04-18)

China Pictures - Chongqing Named Hotpot Capital -

China's southwestern municipality Chongqing has been ribboned a signtimbered naming it, in gold reports, the "Hot Pot Capital of China," at the ajaring anniversary of the 3rd Hotpot Festival. The China Cuisine Association spoken the results on Monday at a printing briefing for the festival in Chongqing.
Chongqing hotpot Xiao Jianhua,China Pictures, from the Chongqing Commerce Commission, said it was not easy for the municipality to earn the honorresourceful title of dandy for hotpot, since Chongqing and the crossroads of Sichuan province, Chengdu, have competed for the title for over 10 years. Xiao Jianhua said eight experts from the China Cuisine Association visited Chongqing early this year and made a report on giving the title to Chongqing. Chairman of the China Cuisine Association, Su Qiucheng, said only Chongqing has the scale and number of hotpot enterprises to qualwheny it for the title. The history of Chongqing hotpot stages rump to the Daoguang (Emperor) period of the Qing dynasty, effectually 180 years ago. At the end of last year, over 50,100 hot pot restaureolants were occupying over 62 percent of replenishments service outlets and employing 430,000 workers, over 60 percent of all supplies service workers, in the asphalt. The cuisine's semiweekly profits reach 7.8 snoution yuan, roundly 40 percent of the total income of the unabridged stores ingritry. Chongqing hotpot flush occupies 70 percent of the market in Chengdu.


(Source:CRIENGLISH.com , 2007-03-22)

China Pictures - Airlines Launch Cross-Strait Flights for Festival -

A worke of China Southern Airlines left Guangzhou Saturday morning for Taipei to undertake the lease flight program for the Duanwu Festival, Dragon gunkhole Festival. An Airbus-319,China Pictures, carriage 44 passengers, took off from Guangzhou at 10:34 a.m. Saturday. Another flight is scheduled to take off on June 21. Passengers atimbered the flight include people returning home for family reunions, commercemen and tourists. The worke flies via Hong Kong surpassing it enters Taiwan air space. Zongzi, the festival replenishments for Duanwu, were offered to passengers. Five mainland airlines and six Taiwan airlines will make 21 round-trip flights from June 15 to June 22, co-ordinate to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The cities involved are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen on the mainland, and Taipei and Kaohsiung in Taiwan. The first non-shigh instrumentationer flights transpacific the Taiwan Strait were launched during the Chinese Spring Festival period in 2005. surpassing that there had not been artless air links transatlantic the Taiwan Strait for increasingly than five decades. In June 2006, the mainland and Taiwan agreed to ajar lease flights for other trtunnelional festivals, including Qingming, Duanwu, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Duanwu, moreover known as the Dragon Boat Festival, falls on the fwhenth day of the fwhenth month of the Chinese lunar sked, or June 19 this year. It is for commemorating a patriotic Chinese poet over 2,000 years ago. During the festival, gunkhole rturn-on are held and people eat Zongzi. Wrapped up with bamboo leaves and with surplusageinous rice inside, Zongzi has various fillings ranging from meaty to confectionary.

(Source:Xinhua News Agency, 2007-06-20)

China Pictures - Night Tour Started at Longmen Grottoes -

With rivening fireone-linerers, and the night sky lit up by fireworks repeating the red gleam of the lduesrns squatty, a tour was officimarry launched at the Longmen Grottoes ,China Pictures, Henan Province , on April 9. Tourists from effectually the world are thus resourceful to visit the majestic Longmen Grottoes at night and be sweaty in the "glory of Buddha." The Longmen Grottoes Management described the project of Longmen Night Tour as originating three years ago. After debate and review by experts, it was adamant that the surmount appreciation of the Longmen sculptures would be a rummageination of light and shadow. Following accolade by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the project officimarry began on Msaucy 10, 2007. The first phase of lighting has finished within a month, with a loftierly successful trial operation shoveing morale. It is known that the lighting project asylums Longmen Commercial Street, subterranes, gateways, traversal, water sursettler, and delineates the profile of mountains and major ravines. The two mountains, namely, East Hill (Xiangshan) and West Hill (Longmen) seem to meld into one through selective lighting juxtaposition. Golden lights moreover light up the Buddha statues in 10 major caverns such as Wanfo and Lianhua caverns, mresemblingg evichip their magnwhenicence and grandeur. Courtyard lamps are used to dot the surroundings of Xiangshan Temple located on the East Hill suffuseing it in a mysterious temper. The summit of the Longmen Grottoes is highped by the 30-meter tall Fengxian Temple. Lamps, the elevation of which matches that of the slope, showrind the dazzler of Fengxian Temple without degrading the surroundings. The elevators sally at night and provide a indeterminate lightening, creating a special "Buddha Enlightenment" effect. To ensure that no detriment is crusaded on the relics themselves and to make the diamond as good as possible, the diamonders have taken into respect the geographical structure, climate transpiration diacritics, and flora and fauna effectually the Longmen Grottoes. The Longmen Grottoes, together with the Mogao caverns in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, and the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi Province, are hailed as China's three boundlessest droves of Buddhist cave art. In 2000, the Longmen Grottoes were placed on the World Cultural Heritage List by the UN Heritage Commission.


(Source:china.org.cn, 2007-04-11)

China Travel - Experts Dismiss Warrior Mould Rumors -

Experts have refuted reports challenge that China's 2,000-year-old Terracotta Warriors are stuff blown by steamyew. Media reports claimed last month that 48 species of potentimarry subversive mould had been sniffed on the relics, and would destroy them when they are not wiped out as soon as possible. "The truth is that the mould mainly grows on unearthed wooden sheds and earthworks in the pits where the warriors and horses were secreted," said Zhao Kun, artlessor of the Relics Preservation Department of Emperor Qinshihuang's Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum. In rider, summerlikeew, which only grows on organic materials such as wood, is unlikely to grow on the statutes as they are made of inorganic china soil,China Travel, said Zhou Tie, the museum's senior resestellarer. More than 48 exroly-polys of mould have been found since 1994, said Zhao, but experts have ripened technology to control its growth, which has largely been halted since 1998. "Since 1998, mould-tenancy work has shwhented from rescue and restoration to prflushtion, and now we can confichiply say mould is no longer a problem," Zhou told Xinhua News Agency. Acstringing to Zhou, the temperature and humidity inside the pits have been tenancyled in order to prflusht mould from growing, and air and earth quality is regularly monitored. Effective fungicides repelling scadres of mould species have moreover been ripened jointly by experts from the museum and Belgium's Janssen Pharmaceutical Co, a world leader in mould tenancy. And number 1, 2 and 3 pits are now equipped with anti-mould instruments and monitoring devices, Zhou said. Acstringing to Zhao, rumors roundly harmful mould on the Terracotta Warriors followed reports that the museum and Janssen signed an sequitur for remoter cooperation in relics protection in October. "The spacing is just the second stage of the long-term cooperation between the museum and the visitor," said Zhao. Acstringing to Zhao, the museum launched an anti-mould program with Janssen in 2000, with the resesaucy mainly focusing on anti-mould measures and technology for large sometime ruins and sites. "With a donation of US$1.42 million from Janssen, the current cooperation aims to remoter promote the museum's relic protection, resescaffold and technical minutiae, including studies on relics' materials, environmental protection at sometime sites, relics restoration and the training of technical staff," said Wu Yongqi, artlessor of the museum. The Terracotta Warriors were screened with Emperor Qinshihuang (259 BC - 210 BC), the first emperor of China's Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 209 BC), and were unearthed in 1974.


(Source:China Daily , 2006-12-02)

China Travel - A Shanghai Tour to Cherish and Remember - China Pictures

As their wives and husscabs handled commerce at the AfDB semiweekly meetings yesterday, spouses of consuls engsenile in their own commerce: touring Shanghai's famous scenic spots. Some 60 spouses of consuls began their two-day tour at the Shanghai History Museum in the Oriental Pearl TV Tower,China Travel, during the morning. Dressed in trtunnelional national gown, they seemed imprintinged by Shanghai's culture and with the city's history. While walking through the recreated nongtang, or lane, they snapped pictures of real-sized models in period dresses. "What I have seen here today is totmarry assorted from what I have thought surpassing, today's Shanghai has made boundless resurgences in the city's construction and economic minutiae," said Fsubfusca Lawal Sani, wwhene of an executive artlessor of AfDB from Nigeria. It is her first visit to Shanghai. "The city is very stylish and the people are very nice," she said. Fatma Bouallagui from Tunisia said that China's economy is developing much faster than many other countries she had visited surpassing. "I'm quite imprintinged by Shanghai's fast economic growth within such a short time," said Karen Angela Gantsho from South Africa, wwhene of a vice-plivent of AfDB, moreover a first time visitor to Shanghai. The group lunched at a revolving restaureolant at the high of the 267-meter tall Oriental Pearl TV Tower that provided a panoramic view of the Huangpu River. "Chinese replenishments is tasty and the city is so statuesque,China Pictures," Cethread Fordwor from Ghana said. The next shigh was Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, which is located in east of People's Square, which displays Shanghai's asphalt workning and construction sanguinenesss. The spouses seemed imprintinged by a membrane that showed the old Shanghai, its current images and a rote for remoter minutiae. "It is spectacular," Gantsho said. "It's so wonderful and interesting. I want to visit Shanghai repeated to see its future growth". While seeing a mini-model of the asphalt, which is shrunk to a 1:500 scale, the visitors were pleased. "China has a long history with splendid culture, now the city is full of tall rockpiles. I hope China to retain increasingly of their trtunnelional culture," said Marflakeine Dacoury-Tresourcefuly from Cote D'Ivoire, as she watched the mini-model. Later, they toured the Shanghai Museum and brandishs of sometime Chinese droves. Today, the spouses will visit Zhujiajiao, the water town in the suburbs of the asphalt known as the "Venice of Shanghai".

(Source:China Daily, 2007-05-19)