Chongqing Evening News, March 5, 2010
While most of the nation’s newspapers are busy covering the legislative sessions currently underway in the capital, the Chongqing Evening News features a front page with no direct mention of the “two meetings” (两会).
True, the lead headline, in which mayor Huang Qifan describes taking to his cooperation with party secretary Bo Xilai as “a fish to water,” is taken from an interview conducted at the sessions, but the rest of the page is a rundown of rougher news items:
- Who’s got the guts to dump into the Yangtze?: Dump trucks, at a rate of 40 per hour throughout the night, poured gravel into the Yangtze River. “We’re constructing a landing,” they said. The Waterway Bureau called the project illegal.
- “If anyone says the Lei Feng story is made-up, I’ll fight him like hell!”: Hu Rong’ao, who knew Lei Feng back in the army, talks to the newspaper about his experiences with the model soldier. Lei Feng helped him learn to read and taught him “The Clear-The-Fuel-Circuits Song.”
- “Beat him! I’ll accept responsibility!”: A branch party secretary included an overloaded tractor in his niece’s wedding procession and got stopped by the traffic cops. He was not pleased: “You dare conduct a traffic stop on my turf?!”
- Man falls 10 stories and only breaks his ankle: Looking for the bathroom, a man stepped into an electrical shaft and fell ten stories. He was discovered six hours later when clanging pans in the kitchen next to him allowed rescuers to pinpoint his location.
- Spicy Chongqing girls get hurt easily: Zhou Xiaoyan, a “marriage expert” and a professor at Chongqing Normal University, says that women in Chongqing share four traits that increase their risk of getting hurt: (1) They’re too forthright and unguarded; (2) They’re too pretty and stylish; (3) They’re too impulsive, a result of Chongqing’s spicy cuisine; (4) They’re too open and ambitious and want to get rich too quickly.
Trucks lined up to dump their load into the Yangtze River