News from China

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:56 am

I read so many strange stories in the press here that I thought it was time to share some - so from time to time I will drop an article from the paper. here is today's offering....

Teacher throws student out 4-story window

A TEACHER is being accused of killing an 11-year-old student at a school in south China by throwing her out of a fourth-floor classroom window as her terrified peers watched, the Associated Press said.

Witnesses say Li Hengyi, 28, kicked and punched Zhang Yaoyi and then threw her out of a window on Wednesday at No. 12 Middle School in Yongzhou city, Hunan province, said Xinmin Evening News.

It didn't say what triggered the history teacher's attack but said that Li and Zhang may have argued in the past and that Li was known for hitting his students.

The paper said students watched in terror as Li slammed Zhang's head against a desk and beat her with his hands, feet and a steel bar, and then threw her out the window.

"The whole class ran out of the room by the back door," the post quoted a student witness as saying. "Many girls were crying. Then we saw the Mr. Li walk out of the classroom."

An officer at the scene from Yongzhou police station confirmed that Li was detained as a suspect in Zhang's death but had not been charged. An investigation is under way, said the officer, who would only give his surname, Wu.

The school suspended classes after the attack, the paper said.

Richard Ruck · Post by **Richard Ruck** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:09 pm

Perhaps she had a cheese sandwich for lunch and her lactose intolerance did for her.

Everything else may heve been coincidental!

UserRequestedRemoval · Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:22 pm

And I thought Killer Fry was a teacher to watchout for

Great Plum · Post by **Great Plum** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 2:43 pm

I remember Mr Husband throwing your pencil case out of the window of the New South Block if you kept playing with things in it but this is going a little far...

UserRequestedRemoval · Mon Sep 25, 2006 2:53 pm

All of the incidents of mal treatment at CH fall into insignificance when you read Rory's post

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:33 am

I don't think the teacher's behaviour was in any way symptomatic of the Chinese education system - but on a lighter note - here's another for you.....

Man bites panda, finds thick skin

A DRUNKEN Chinese tourist bit a panda at the Beijing Zoo after the animal attacked him when he jumped into the enclosure and tried to hug it.

Zhang Xinyan had consumed four pitchers of beer at a restaurant before "stumbling to the zoo" nearby and stopping off at the pen holding a sleeping 6-year-old male panda, Gu Gu, on Tuesday, the Beijing Morning Post said yesterday.

"He felt a sudden urge to touch the panda with his hand" and jumped over a waist-high railing down into the enclosure, the newspaper said. "When he got closer, he reached out to hug it."

Startled, Gu Gu bit Zhang in the right leg, it said.

Zhang, a 35-year-old migrant laborer from central Henan Province, got angry and kicked the panda, who then bit his other leg. A tussle ensued, the paper said.

"I bit the fellow in the back," Zhang was quoted as saying in the newspaper. "Its skin was quite thick."

Other tourists yelled for a zookeeper, who soon got the panda under control by spraying it with water. Zhang was hospitalized.

Newspaper photographs showed Zhang lying on a hospital bed with blood-soaked bandages and several seams of stitches running down his leg.

The Beijing Youth Daily quoted Zhang, a father of two who was visiting Beijing for the first time, as saying that he had seen pandas on television and "they seemed to get along well with people."

"No one ever said they would bite people," Zhang said. "I just wanted to touch it. I was so dizzy from the beer. I don't remember much."

Ye Mingxia, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Zoo, confirmed the incident happened but would not give any details. She said Gu Gu was "healthy and uninjured."

"We're not considering punishing him now," Ye said in a telephone interview. "He's suffered quite a bit of shock."

UserRequestedRemoval · Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:01 am

The news really is different over there isn't it. Is drunkeness a problem over there then?

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:33 am

It's not a problem - its positively encouraged. If a man goes to a restaurant and doesn't have to get carried out by his wife / girlfriend / secretary, he hasn't shown good face by getting absolutely pis**d. I've been in restaurants where a guy actually throws up on the floor before carrying on drinking - the waitresses just smile - sweep it up a bit and pour tea onto the carpet and everyone carries on. The dangerous stuff is called baijiu (a white spirit) that smells and tastes like diesel fuel. If you drink that at night - when you wake up the next morning you smell like an old car (in a not good way...)

UserRequestedRemoval · Sat Sep 30, 2006 7:19 pm

Which leads to the rather obvious question of how many times have you politely barfed into the restaurant lilies?

Next question, how much does it cost to fly out to china so I can start being very polite and flying the flag for GB?

UserRequestedRemoval · Sat Sep 30, 2006 7:21 pm

This baijiu, are you totally sure it isn't actually diesel fuel in disguise and you really are drinking fuel?