Chinese Passion: Back to China - but when?,
Prospects for Macao, Portugal's casino colony
Will all this picturesque decadence be the same under Peking's straight-laced government: the gambling in the ornate casinos and on the greyhound track, the trotting horses and the jai-alai games, the highly available almond-eyed girls in the hotels?What awaits the pastel-coloured baroque churches, the Catholic festivals, the incense-filled Buddhist temples, the Portuguese language, the free press? Now that the agreement on Hong Kong's return to China in 1997 is...
Chinese Passion: Quotas rule China as residents live fill-in-the-numbers lives
BEIJING - This is the time of year that Zhao Jiaying dreads. As deputy director of Beijing's Traffic Management Bureau, his performance for the entire year will be judged on one issue come Dec. 31: Did the city exceed its quota of traffic deaths?"If during December we don't have any big accidents, we'll come under quota," he said. China's most widely known quota is for child births, limiting each family, in most cases,...
Chinese Passion: The People's Game
In Haikou, a city off the southern coast of China, a team of junior Olympic hopefuls drilled their way through another 40-hour workweek in the municipal arena. It was a warm day, like every day in Haikou. Outside the gym, walkers and cyclists in straw hats weaved sluggishly among the palm trees. Inside, the future of Chinese basketball couldn't stop himself from yawning.Chen Jianghua had just turned 14. At 6-foot-1 and 165 pounds, with a vertical shock of black hair and a face...
Chinese Passion: TIME OF TRANSITIONS FOR PNB'S LI
Beijing, a year ago. He led a life of privilege: big house, world travel, frequent invitations to palace parties of the powerful, the likes of Deng Xiao Ping and Li Peng.As the country's top Chinese classical dancer and choreographer, Li Heng Da enjoyed fame and the highest status. At 27, he was at the pinnacle of his career.Not that he'd wanted to dance.Math and science had been his loves at school. He dreamed of being an architect.The government had...
Chinese Passion: Keeping Taiwan free
A new war of words has erupted over Taiwan. President Chen Shui-bian has committed the unpardonable sin of suggesting an option for his people to hold a referendum on independence. This is a problem because communist Beijing holds that there is only "One China" and that Taiwan is part of it. The Taiwanese, who are happy with their free, capitalist democratic system, think otherwise. On Wednesday, Chinese Maj. Gen. Peng Guangqian warned that "Taiwan...