TV

People’s Court

Alongside China’s race to become the largest economy in the world, comes the pressure to reshape the rules of society into a fair framework of laws. And in an effort to convince citizens to take their grievances to the courtroom instead of the streets, nearly 400 law schools have opened in the last quarter century to hastily train hundreds of thousands of lawyers and judges in the new individual rights based law. Watching all this happen is PBS’ “Wide Angle” series, which gained exclusive access to film in Chinese courts. “The People's Court” broadcasts real cases unfolding through out China’s countryside, with makeshift courts set up on dirt fields among quaking ducks. Catch an episode on www.pbs.org.

Shanghai

Fat and Bald

“Fat and bald expats boost plastic surgery,” read an early July Eastday News (via the Shanghai Daily) headline. The story states that hair transplants and liposuction are the cosmetic surgeries of choice in China’s expat communities and that hospitals specializing in plastic surgery have seen a rise in the number of foreign patients. "My hospital has seen a 5 percent annual increase of foreigners wanting hair transplants," Dr. Li Guihai, director of hair transplants at Meihe Plastic Surgery Hospital, told the Shanghai Daily. "Currently, about 20 percent of my patients are expatriates, who work in the city or fly here for plastic surgery."

Nationwide

Safety Alert

Reports surfaced this month in China saying that almost a fifth of the food and consumer products that it checked in a 2007 nationwide survey were found to be substandard or tainted. This news comes at a time when China's exports are under strict scrutiny in the international community (and follows a number of U.S. imposed recalls of Chinese products). Domestics products such as agricultural tools, clothing, children’s products and foods were all found to have quality and safety failures. Canned and preserved fruit and dried fish contained excessive bacteria; 20 percent of the fruit and vegetable juice surveyed was called substandard. Regulators said, in effect, that goods sold in China were far more hazardous than the exports that are driving the country’s economic growth and that are now partly the subject of safety and quality debates.

Guangzhou

Calling All Storks

Single-child families in Guangzhou, Guangdong province are being encouraged to have a second child, in a move seen as a relaxation of the country's "one child" policy. The Guangzhou commission of population development and family planning said it was seeking ways to tackle the problems caused by the city's aging population. By 2010, Guangzhou will be home to more than 1 million people aged 60 or over, the commission has estimated. But the rest of the country should take note that the government confirmed early this month that they will stick to its family planning policy for the foreseeable future. While the family planning policy is popularly referred to as the "one child policy," it in fact limits only 35.9 percent of the population to having one child, reports the government.

Shandong

Claim to Fame

A 16-year-old in Shandong province, named Xu Haojia, claims to have the largest breasts (she wears an E cup) in China and will auction her massive bosom online. Xu, once web celeb Sister Lotus’ assistant, said via her blog at Sohu.com that she hopes that five male Chinese celebrities will bid for her breasts, with bidding opening at ¥200,000 for each. Xu believes the male stars will be able to use her breasts to play female roles in films. The logistics of a temporary female to male breast transplantation have yet to be worked out.

U.S.

Acrobatic Slaves

Three men enslaved more than 20 members of a Chinese acrobatic team In Las Vegas, feeding and paying them little, U.S. authorities said. A woman who worked as an interpreter for China Star Acrobats escaped late last month and contacted authorities. She told police there were 20 teammates, including five teens ages 14 to 17, being held against their will. You Zhi Li, 38, Yang Shen, 21, and Jun Hu, 43, were arrested this month on slavery charges.

Beijing

The Never-ending Scandal

Actress Zhang Yu, who became widely known for revealing the "sex-for-work" scandal in the showbiz industry, is back. Accompanied by a reporter from the Beijing Morning Post, Zhang went to the office of Discipline Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of China, and submitted a letter which listed her sex deals with 13 directors. However, she was told the case was out of their scope of administration. Zhang claims she will not give up, and may even report the directors to the police.