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Foreigners beating the chunyun rush
With her long curly blond hair, Michel McGrath stands out from the crowd of Chinese passengers in Beijing South Railway Station, waiting to begin their long New Year journeys home. “It is hard to imagine how our government would handle it if ‘chunyun’ happened in Ireland,” she quipped. The “chunyun” she mentioned is 40 days of holiday travel rush around Spring Festival. More than 257 million of those trips will be made by train.
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Tencent’s WeChat meets challenges overseas
China’s Internet giant Tencent is pushing WeChat, a mobile messaging application, worldwide with the latest tryout in U.S. Tencent announced on January 25 an arrangement with Google in a promotion to invite more U.S. users. Established in China on January 21, 2011, WeChat is now one of the nation’s hottest messaging apps with more than 279 million active users worldwide.
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President Xi visits border troops ahead of Lunar New Year
President Xi Jinping visited soldiers stationed along the Chinese-Mongolian border ahead of the upcoming traditional Chinese New Year. Xi left Beijing early on Sunday morning of January 26 for the city of Arxan in Inner Mongolia by plane, which is about 1,000 km away from the Chinese capital.
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Li Na finally wins Australian Open title after beating Cibulkova
After losing two Australian Open finals, Li Na of China eventually lifted the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup after beating Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 7-6(7-3), 6-0 in Saturday’s final in Melbourne. Li, who turns 32 next month, became the first woman to claim an Australian Open crown over the age of 30 since Margaret Smith Court won in 1973.
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Chinese enterprise helps power India
Power HF, based in Weifang City, east China’s Shandong Province, has exported 38,500 engines to India for use in telecom base stations across the country. If those base stations break down, more than 100 million Indian mobile users will be affected. The firm has also set up a network of 174 service stations employing more than 1,500 local people across India to provide 24-hour maintenance services.
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Chinese ATV maker seeks overseas acquisitions
China’s biggest all terrain vehicle (ATV) producer, Taotao Group Co., Ltd., is searching for overseas acquisitions to promote sales in the West. Acquisitions are expected to help enrich the private company’s product variety and upgrade technology management, said Chairman Terry Cao in an exclusive interview. The company is targeting acquisitions of U.S. firms in the same industry, but no other details have been revealed yet.
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TCM companies eyeing global market
Headquartered in a traditional courtyard in downtown Beijing, Tongrentang (TRT), a pharmaceutical giant with a history of more than 300 years, is increasing its international reach with its legacy products: traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). TRT began expanding abroad in 1993 and currently runs 90 stores in 17 countries and regions around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Southeast Asia.
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Yu’E Bao deposits exceed 250 bln yuan
Yu’E Bao (Leftover Treasure), an Alibaba personal finance product, now has 49 million users with aggregate deposits of 250 billion yuan (41 billion U.S. dollars). Six million new users have signed up in the past fifteen days and deposits are up by 64.7 billion yuan, 35 percent, compared with the end of 2013.
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Guarding an 800-year-old tree
It’s not the oldest tree in China, but the 800-year-old pine on Huangshan in Anhui Province is certainly the most celebrated tree in China – and perhaps the world. The 10-meter-tall tree is not only a tourist attraction, but also the only tree known to have a 24-hour “bodyguard”, involving 19 guardians since 1983.
