Need2LearnChinese Blog

The 31-year-old sales manager works in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, and has posted a notice on a bulletin board of cnool.net, the largest Web portal in the province.

The offer: 6,000 yuan ($878) for five days.

The reason: to present her before his parents in his hometown of Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, to stop them from pestering him to find a girlfriend and get married.

"My parents have been pushing me for a long time to find a girlfriend and asked me to bring her home for Spring Festival," Liu says.

He has left his personal information and blog address on the website. "It's always better to be honest," he says. "My price is competitive," though.

Nearly 400 applicants have responded within three days, he says. "Many girls have contacted me and want to meet me."

As for his blog, it has attracted more than 20,000 browsers.

Liu says the ideal candidate should have "a kind heart, high level of personal integrity, and good communication skills".

He has worked out an agreement, too, which includes "project" content, daily schedules, payment method and safety precautions. "Both parties should act according to the provisions of the agreement," he says.

The Lunar New Year holiday is the most important family holiday. It can be the most trying times for some eligible singles, too.

Just how desperate youths become to please their parents during the festival can be gauged from Liu-like advertisements. Many Internet forums are already flooded with such ads.

But instead of men, it's women between 25 and 40 who have posted most of the ads.

More than 20 such ads have been posted on Tianya.cn, a popular website among youths. Almost the same number of such postings can be seen on Xici.net, another popular website.

"For China's 'lonely hearts club', Spring Festival can be a nightmare," says Xing Yun, who is graduating in history. Xing is among those single men who have to face inquisitive relatives, overtly concerned with their love or marital life.

"With increasing social pressures and busy work schedules, more and more people are finding it difficult to find a life partner. That's why some people devise ways (such as hiring a 'girlfriend') to ease the worries of their parents," says Yang Liang, who teaches sociology in Zhejiang University.

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Chinese New Year is the longest and most important celebration in the Chinese calendar. The Chinese year 4707 begins on Jan. 26, 2009.

Chinese months are reckoned by the lunar calendar, with each month beginning on the darkest day. New Year festivities traditionally start on the first day of the month and continue until the fifteenth, when the moon is brightest. In China, people may take weeks of holiday from work to prepare for and celebrate the New Year.

An Obstinate Year

Legend has it that in ancient times, Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. He announced that the people born in each animal's year would have some of that animal's personality. Those born in ox years tend to be painters, engineers, and architects. They are stable, fearless, obstinate, hard-working and friendly. Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Walt Disney, and Anthony Hopkins were all born in the year of the ox.

Fireworks and Family Feasts

At Chinese New Year celebrations people wear red clothes, decorate with poems on red paper, and give children "lucky money" in red envelopes. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck. The fireworks that shower the festivities are rooted in a similar ancient custom. Long ago, people in China lit bamboo stalks, believing that the crackling flames would frighten evil spirits.

The Lantern Festival

In China, the New Year is a time of family reunion. Family members gather at each other's homes for visits and shared meals, most significantly a feast on New Year's Eve. In the United States, however, many early Chinese immigrants arrived without their families, and found a sense of community through neighborhood associations instead. Today, many Chinese-American neighborhood associations host banquets and other New Year events.

The lantern festival is held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Some of the lanterns may be works of art, painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. People hang glowing lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the light of the full moon.

In many areas the highlight of the lantern festival is the dragon dance. The dragon—which might stretch a hundred feet long—is typically made of silk, paper, and bamboo. Traditionally the dragon is held aloft by young men who dance as they guide the colorful beast through the streets. In the United States, where the New Year is celebrated with a shortened schedule, the dragon dance always takes place on a weekend. In addition, many Chinese-American communities have added American parade elements such as marching bands and floats.

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According to the China Internet Network Information Center, China's internet population continued to boom in 2008, ending the year with some 298 million among its ranks. That's up from the 253 million figure that was released mid-year, and is 88 million more than the end-of-year figure from 2007. Much of this growth can be attributed to the rural areas of the country, which saw a 60.8% increase in numbers (compared to a growth rate of "only" 35.6% growth among us city-slickers).

Of the 22.6% of the country that now has access to the Internet, 162 million blog, while 234 million log on to read up on the news.

NetEase also released their annual top 10 Internet "Hot" lists for the year yesterday, and not surprisingly, "Sichuan earthquake", "Olympic Games" and "Naked Picture Scandal" were at the top of the report's "Hot Keywords List". Edison Chen, Gillian Chung and Cecilia Cheung finished atop the list of entertainers, while Yao Ming and Liu Xiang were the year's most popular sports stars.

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A panda at the Beijing zoo bit his third tourist in two years - and this time, his jaws had to be forced open to free the man, who had jumped in to retrieve his son's toy.

Gu Gu, a 240-pound (110-kilogram) panda, mauled the man's legs and refused to let go until zookeepers pried his jaws open with tools, said a zoo spokeswoman surnamed Gong. She would not give her full name, as is common among Chinese officials.

Gu Gu first made news in 2007 when he bit a drunken tourist who jumped into his pen and tried to hug him. The tourist retaliated by biting the panda in the back.

In October, Gu Gu viciously bit a teenager who climbed into his exercise area out of curiosity.

The Beijing News said the latest victim, Zhang Jiao of central Anhui province, suffered damage to major ligaments and is recovering from surgery.

The newspaper quoted tourists as saying Zhang appeared to first look around to see if pandas were nearby before jumping in to get his 5-year-old son's toy.

Pandas, a national symbol of China and often seen as being cute and cuddly, can be violent when provoked or startled. Zoo officials have considered unspecified measures to prevent further incidents.

Police were investigating, and it was not clear yet if Zhang would face criminal charges, Gong said.

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If you are stumped for things to do for Chinese New Year and the thought of Siberian-like cold and a hot bowl of borscht seem more appealing then the beaches of Boracay, perhaps Harbin is a city you might consider visiting. Harbin's annual ice and sculpture festival started this week and runs until the end of February, weather permitting.

Established in 1985 as a simple festival, the Ice and Snow Festival has now transformed into one of the biggest winter attractions in China and the fourth largest ice and snow festival in the world, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Ski Festival.

In the evenings, the sculptures are lit up and ice-lantern park touring activities are held in many parks throughout the city. A number of other winter events take place in the city at the same time as the festival: fireworks display, ice hockey competitions, winter swimming, skiing and speed skating events, football games on expansive snow grounds, poetry jamboree, and ice and snow cinematic festival.

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We noticed this interesting art installation by Chinese artist Liu Jianhua who recreated the Shanghai skyline from dice and poker-chips. This was exhibited at the Galleria Continua in San Gimignano, Italy. A close-up shot follows after the jump.

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