School offers lessons in the chemistry of love

A special love school is gaining popularity among students in Beihai, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

In addition to outlining the skills needed to communicate, the school teaches students how to appear more attractive to the opposite sex.

And the teachers, most of whom are psychologists, usually focus on helping singles find a good husband or a wife.

Mock love scenes include student participation. Most students are office workers with well paying jobs and education.

(www.chinanews.com.cn) (China Daily) Updated: 2009-03-24 09:34

Kocka and Loki, cats and relationships

Kocka and Loki 090213 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

Click on image to enlarge!

What is more appropriate than posting a cat picture on Friday the 13th? For more than two weeks now we've been responsible for two cats while our friends are away on vacation. The cats have stayed at their own home and we have gone there everyday to feed them. Today was the first day when the cats actually showed themselves more than a streak of fur flashing by to hide under the sofa. Or to stick their nose out when it was meal time. We've tried everything to lure them out to play but they've had none of it. Actually I could only find one of the cats. Couldn't figure out where the other one was and looked everywhere until Burton found it perched in the windowsill hiding behind a curtain. 

I've got a dear friend who's been having trouble lately, faulting herself for the failure of a long relationship even though it was the partner who had wandered off with someone else. She keeps asking herself what she could have done to make it not happen, what she did do that caused it etc etc. She owns both cats and dogs so I told her to stop blaming herself, that we women are like dogs, always desperate to be liked and win approval, wagging our tails with our tongue hanging out, hoping that someone will pay us a crumb of attention and make us feel loved and included. Men are like cats, couldn't care less what people think of them and do any damn thing they please. Now how's that for a blatant generalization? Made my friend laugh and feel a little better though. As for Kocka and Loki their Mum and Dad are coming home tomorrow so I don't have to keep sucking up to them any longer, dog that I am. 

Chinadaily.com.cn 090124 #2

Wanted: boyfriend for 2 days, acting skills a plus

A female student at Peking University didn't want to go home alone for the Spring Festival so she's seeking a man to pretend to be her boyfriend.

She is offering to pay up to 10,000 yuan ($1,460) a day to the person who accepts the role.

She wrote that her family won't let her go home for the holiday "unless I bring home a boyfriend with me."

The ad triggered debate on the Internet with some saying they understood her situation while some psychologists said it could cause trouble for her and possibly put her in danger if dishonest men answered her ad.

(news.sohu.com)

chinadaily.com.cn 090124

There's so much "serious, pointing a big finger" news reporting about China that often I think the rest of the world has a very skewed understanding of this country. It's enlightening to read about the "other" China, the China that's like any other place in the world, peopled by real, everyday people. I'll be posting things from the China Daily in the coming months. I'm the first to admit that most of them will be on the humorous/absurd/frivolous side:

090124:

Emergency workers had to use heavy equipment to lift a man and his girlfriend out from a deep pit in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, on Sunday.

Zhang and his girlfriend, who were on a date on Haiyan road in the city's Haizhu district, fell into the pit when the soil suddenly collapsed.

Local police called in the firefighters who used a crane to rescue them 90 minutes later.