July 20, 2009
A program aimed at measuring the happiness level of residents of six cities was launched on July 6. Poll machines that allowed people to choose buttons representing either a “happy” or “unhappy” mental state were set up at bus stops in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kunming, Chengdu and Xi’an.
The Beijing News announced the results today: Beijing was crowned China’s happiest city with 56.06% of respondents claiming to be “happy.” Beijing’s ten machines received a total of 820,000 votes over two weeks’ time, with 460,000 “happy” votes.
The cover image of today’s paper shows a China map marked with purple bands of diminishing intensity, information about the solar eclipse coming up on Wednesday, July 22.
Beijing is in the lightest band, representing a fairly unimpressive partial eclipse. A total eclipse will be visible to people in the the deepest purple bands, which includes Shanghai and Hangzhou, but there is a high likelihood that it will rain in many of the major cities in the area on Wednesday.
The paper’s top headline announces that the victims who died in the July 5 Urumqi riot will receive no less than 400,000 yuan in compensation. The latest statistics say that a total of 197 have died in the riot.
200,000 of the compensation will be footed by the government, while the rest will come from the charity donations. The decision was announced by the Autonomous Region chairman Nur Bekri at a media conference on July 18th.