Attention! Labor Day Holiday in China Readjusted!

This year, the Labor Day holiday will be expanded to four days, general office of the State Council said in a news release on Friday    The pre-planned one-day break falling on May 1 will be adjusted to a four-day holiday starting from May 1 to May 4, according to the release, while April 28 and May 5 will be work days.   Tourism-related departments are urged to get fully prepared for transportation support and tour products supply to secure travelers a safer holiday.   The Labor Day holiday, used to be a seven-day break, was shortened to three days in 2007.             Wish you have a good Labor Day! Share to let your friends know! SOURCE |China Daily ?These Articles May Help You Guidelines: Transfer Money Overseas Via Alipay! RMB With These Numbers Are All Fake! Pay Attention! How Much Money Can I Bring When Entering China?

Horrible! These APPS Were Accused of Spying on Users?!

In China, two of the country’s biggest takeout food apps Meituan and Eleme stand accused of monitoring actual conversations of users and using speech recognition tools to then recommend certain restaurants. Whether you meticulously sift through what information you allow websites to access about you or just shrug and click “accept all”, cookies have become an inevitable part of our internet experience.  © Image | Wechat 01 Really? The hashtag “Meituan & Eleme deny eavesdropping” viewed more than 190 million times on Sina Weibo and over 12,000 netizens posting comments.  © Image | Weibo A resident in Shanghai complained late last year that after she mentioned a yearning for a certain brand of milk tea to a colleague, she was immediately hit with advertisements for said milk tea brand as soon as she opened the Eleme app.    02 Truth? Well, despite generating a whole host of eye-catching headlines, after three months of research IT Times admitted that the findings were not conclusive.  © Image | Google However, they did say that it appeared that conversations about food items or restaurants taking place within “earshot” of devices with delivery apps running in the background would result in recommendations for related outlets “60-70% of the time”. © Image | Google If it all sounds a bit arbitrary, the reporters were careful to talk about restaurants and cuisine types they hadn’t previously ordered via the apps and to compare the results to test cases. In the case of Meituan at least, the report found it was more likely influenced by user searches in browsers, similar to how cookies work on most websites. 03 Denials Eleme and Meituan have both issued strenuous denials when it comes to “listening in” on their users.  Although both apps can request access to devices’ microphones, both companies have stated that this is solely for the purpose of users inputting voice commands and not for some Watergate-like mic tapping.   © Image | Google Whether or not the allegations are unfounded, the story has reawakened conversations about data privacy in China. 

Good News! HIV Could be Cured?

HIV continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 35 million lives so far. In 2017, 940 000 people died from HIV-related causes globally.  © Image | Google 1 Severeness An estimated 37 million people in the world live with HIV, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.   In China, around 1.25 million people are infected, and there are about 80,000 new cases a year, according to the National Health Commission. © Image | WHO The WHO African Region is the most affected region, with 25.7 million people living with HIV in 2017.       2 Hope   Although HIV/AIDS cannot currently be cured, many patients infected with the virus can live mostly normal lives with anti-viral treatment that suppresses the virus to keep it at a low level. © Image | NEWS(Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the Berlin patient, was the first person to be cured of HIV infection, more than a decade ago.)   On March 4th, an HIV-positive man in Britain became the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV-resistant donor, his doctors said. © Image | NEWS Almost three years after he received bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection – and more than 18 months after he came off antiretroviral drugs – highly sensitive tests still show no trace of the man’s previous HIV infection.     3 Chance   Besides, Chinese scientists have identified a new protein that restricts HIV infection, a discovery that could pave the way for the development of new drugs against the virus. © Image | Google   Further research is underway to develop a drug that can inhibit HIV protein. Chinese researchers say further work is necessary before clinical trial possible.   The expert said intensive research efforts are being carried out worldwide to find a cure, but many challenges remain.

Blogger “English Useless” Starts A War of Words!

A Chinese blogger’s post “English for most Chinese is a rubbish skill” on Monday sparked a row on social media.   1  Hua Qianfang, who has about 1.6 million followers on Sina Weibo, wrote that learning English not only costs Chinese people a lot of money and resources, it robs their children of their happy childhood.    People who defend China’s “English craze” are either in the industry or “mental slaves” degrading themselves, suggested Hua as English translation can be done online or by a team of professionals.    © Image | Weibo   2  While some netizens agreed that the importance of English has been overemphasized in the school curriculum and the workplace, others sharply refuted Hua’s opinions.    © Image | Google   A second language offers people a window into the outside world, and people who depend on translation could receive inaccurate or even deceitful information, noted many netizens.     © Image | Google   Scientists who have to wait for a professional translation of academic papers in their discipline are like people left smelling the exhaust from the tailpipes of cutting-edge scholars, one Net user said.    “Without English, how can I shop on overseas websites?” another netizen wrote with a hint of humor.     3  Hua later explained that he did not mean that people should stop learning English, but he’s worried people are spending too much money and time on it.    © Image | Weibo   Children are being required to take extra English courses at a younger and younger age. “My institute just started to offer a pre-school program,” a Beijing-based language tutor surnamed Yao told the Global Times.    Yao has witnessed her company adding a primary school- and kindergarten-level programs into their business.    © Image | Google   Parents don’t want their kids to fall behind and some send their children to bilingual kindergartens while others turn to training centers and online courses.