Online auction for romantic dinner

Chutian Golden Post
November 10, 2008

A Hubei newspaper called Chutian Golden Post reports that a 24 year old woman has been running an online auction for a private “romantic dinner” for the highest bidder.

The dinner was set to be in a restaurant in Wuhan, Hubei Province in November 11, a day dubbed by young single Chinese as “bachelor’s day” (光棍节) because it is represented by four ones, symbolizing being single.

The woman, who identifies herself as He Zexiu (菏泽秀), said during an interview with the newspaper that the auction had received 37 bids and the highest offer was 50,000 yuan. The winner is going to be announced tomorrow.

According to Ms He, all the money she raises through the auction will go to a private orphanage called Sensen Orphan College (森森孤学院) in Sichuan Province. It is reportedly run by a former convict who is seeking redemption by helping the orphans.

Ms He said she that is just an ordinary girl who wants to help the orphans, and welcomes all kind of social supervision for how the money is spent.

Also on the front page: Baidu facing anti-monopoly investigation

A Hebei-based company called Quanmin Medicine Net (全民医药网) has applied to State Administrator of Industry and Commerce to launch an anti-monopoly investigation into Chinese language search engine, Baidu.com because Baidu’s search results do not show the company’s website. The company is also demanding 170 million yuan in damages from Baidu.

According to the article, many companies pay Baidu to have their websites list on top of their search results. But after some of them stopped paying the fees, their websites do not appear on Baidu at all.

Baidu, which accounts for about 70% of the online searching market in China, has earlier been suspected of accepting 3 million yuan from Sanlu to leave out negative online information about the company’s melamine dairy products from its search results.