Beijing

Miss Olympics
In Changping, a little town just outside Beijing, 1,250 young women are engaged in intensive Olympic training. They’re not athletes, but they will be on the world’s TV screens handing out medals to the lucky ones on the winner’s podium. What’s it take to be a prize giver for the Beijing Olympics? According to the Culture Activity Department of BOCOG, “They should be between 1.68 meters and 1.78 meters tall and between 18 and 25 years old.” Like some kind of reality show, the contestants get up at 5 a.m. for physical training, ballet and folk dancing, Olympic knowledge tests, etiquette lectures and smiling lessons. The training lasts until March 2008 when 380 will be selected to serve the Olympic Games.

Shanghai

World Financial Center Documentary
PBS has been busy in Shanghai filming the construction of the World Financial Center for an episode of NOVA. When completed in late 2008, it will be one of the tallest structures in the world. The NOVA segment is available on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-do4dEx7A) and features interviews with the principles involved in planning the colossus of Pudong. And check out this YouTube video for a fantastic CGI adventure inside the building.

Foreigner Ripped Off
A Swedish businessman fell for the oldest trick in the book on Nanjing Lu when a couple of female students lured him to a Manabe coffee shop where they proceeded to rack up a ¥5,000 bill in less than hour. This in itself isn't news, but the fact that the guy reported the scam to the cops who subsequently tracked down the two girls and hauled them off to jail certainly is. The Shanghai nightly news even covered the story.

Taiwan

Golden Horse Awards
Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Awards went down on December 8 and, as expected, hometown hero Ang Lee cleaned up. His racy blockbuster “Lust, Caution” won eight awards, including Best Movie, Best Actor and Best Director, while lead actress Tang Wei was crowned New Actress of the Year. Meanwhile, Jay Chou, the pop king of R’n’B, silenced critics when his debut movie “Secret” won three awards including “Best Original Movie Song.”

China

Oly Tix
Going once, going twice: You can still put in a request for Olympic tickets during the current round of ticket buying until December 31. All entries will be put into a lottery with winners announced next year. Check en.beijing2008.cn/tickets.

Macau

Tour Group Riot
Local riot cops were called in to quell a near-uprising by tourists against their tour leaders. News reports say that the tour operator pressured tourists to go to too many shops and buy useless things, a common tour tactic. The tourists went postal after the tour leaders locked the buses and threatened to withhold accommodation and food. The stand-off lasted five hours.

China

Sarkozy Nearly Wifed
French President Nicolas Sarkozy walked away from his whirlwind visit to China last month with a handful of trade deals and one marriage proposal. “Choose me. I will be a perfect wife for you," said Yang Erche Namu in a video Internet proposal, continuing, “I know that he had a wife who did not help him at all. I think that I suit him much better.” The 41-year-old is very good looking, but Sarkozy ought to watch out: Namu is a member of the Masuo minority, a matrilineal society where women never get married, but maintain a series of relationships.

Baidu vs Google
A recent comparative study of top web searches in 2007 on Baidu and Google yielded up some interesting results. Top “What is” searches on Baidu were “What is fund?” and “What is stock warrant?” The top two searches on Google? “What is love?” and “what is autism?”

Asia

World’s Weirdest Restaurants
A list of the world’s weirdest restaurants has been floating around the Net. Not surprisingly, most were in Asia. Topping the list was a toilet-themed restaurant in Taipei, where even the soups come in toilet bowls. Singapore came in at number two with a wheelchair-themed restaurant. An anger-themed restaurant in Nanjing, where customers can smash plates and beat up the servers, came in at number seven.

Digits

21.4%
The amount of elderly people in the world who are Chinese--nearly a quarter of the earth's population!

41,000,0000
The number of Bibles China-based publisher, Amity, has printed since 1979. Demand has grown so much that a giant new plant will open next year allowing Amity to churn out more than a million Bibles a month.

40% It was recently reported that the World Bank had overestimated the size of China’s economy by 40 percent. No worries, though, it’s still the second largest in the world.