Number of the Day

Pretty much every day, we get an email with some statistic about China from someone in the company. It comes under the header 'Number of the Day' and is broken down by different categories - social, economy, media etc. It's a fabulous idea - it gets everyone's mind pondering some aspect of China, however briefly, at the same time every day. I'd like to see something like it in the U.S.

Anyway, today I'm feeling lazy, so I'm going to share a random selection of Numbers of the Day from the past few weeks. Enjoy:

Gender Imbalance
18 million more males than female amongst those aged 0 to 15 according to a poll by the China Youth Daily and QTick.com across 2,603 respondents from 29 provinces and municipalities.

Source : China Daily , 18th July 2007

Over 15% of respondents said many of their relatives and friends had used ultrasonic scanning to select the sex of their babies even though this is illegal in China.

Getting On Line
162 million netizens by end June 2007, according to the 20th report on the development of the Internet in China issued by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). 75% of them have broadband access.

Source : China Daily , 19th July 2007

The survey showed that 76% of Internet users got information from web news and search engines, and 70% utilized instant messaging and 55% sent e-mail. Online music was listened to by 69% of netizens, while 47% played games online.

Global Top 500
22 companies on the mainland are in the 2007 Fortune Global 500 List, three more than last year.

Source: Crienglish.com July 13, 2007

Most of them are state-owned enterprises in energy, steel, automotive, telecom and bank industries.

Double Income Homes
53% of all Shanghai children under the age of 3 were looked after mainly by their grandparents according to a survey conducted by Shanghai population and family planning committee.

Source: China Daily, 13th July 2007

Grandparent generally focused well fed and warmly dressed the babies or toddlers, not much on the emotional and sensory development. Children raised by grandparents have difficulties on learning and adjusting to their environment.

Subway
4 billion Yuan (US$526 million) has been spent on upgrading Beijing’s old subway system for Olympics. The average waiting time will be reduced to 2.5 minutes from current more than three minutes.

Source: XinhuaNews, 9th July 2007

Beijing now has four lines totaling 114 kilometers, carrying 2.1 million passengers a day. The city will have nine lines totaling 200 km by 2008, and 19 lines totaling 561.5 km by 2020.

Social Circle of Migrant Workers
Only 3.7% of the migrant workers claimed they had a social life outside their working site according to a survey conducted by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences across 5,000 construction workers.

Source : China Daily, 9th July 2007

Most of the migrant workers felt that they were “looked down on” by the urban residents.

IN OTHER NEWS:
A number of you sent me the article about cardboard dumplings, and I want to say, that was TOTALLY false. Everyone knows you need to use newspaper to get that good 'mouth feel.'

But I was interested to see the following headlines, in this order, on the homepage of the China Daily web site:

Fake cardboard bun story tarnishes image of Chinese media
China warns US against "smear attacks" on imports
China vows to improve food safety
White Rabbit denies 'contaminated candy' claim

So we've got denial, anger, bargaining... They're almost through the five stages of grief! Good for them!

So anyway, I'm going out for dinner. Later!