Road to Europe
Forty-six teachers and students from 12 middle schools in Beijing's Xuanwu District will soon embark on a two-week trip to Greece, Italy and Switzerland to discover the roots of Olympics.

The group will learn about the history and development of the Olympic Games by visiting its birthplace, the competition venues of former Games and the IOC headquarters. In addition, they will meet overseas Chinese and officials from Chinese embassies to learn about their aspirations for the Beijing Olympics.

www.2008beijing.cn

CCTV have it covered

As the sole TV broadcaster station for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in the Chinese mainland, China Central Television (CCTV) launched its overall Olympic plan on Tuesday.

CCTV-5, the sports channel, revised its line-up this year launching a series programs every night in the week time to cover every aspect of the Beijing Olympics, such as the preparation process, personal Olympic stories and other cities' efforts in China for the Games.

China Daily

English-language hutong

"All of Beijing's hutong and small alleys will get a standard English name before next June," said Yang Liuyin, director of the Foreign Affairs Office of Beijing Municipality, last Wednesday. About 10,000 road signs will be replaced with new English names.

Last December, Beijing formally adopted the word "hutong" as a standard way to describe the small, narrow alleys mostly seen in Beijing. According to Yang, the city is going to use the pinyin of the streets' original Chinese names as their English name. As for other Beijing-specialty words, such as li and qu, which both mean "community", the English translation will also adopt the pinyin.

Beijing Daily

Cartoon capers

The organizers of a 100-episode cartoon drama starring the five Fuwa mascots decided on the final script last Wednesday after reviewing a total of 193 scripts from professional and amateur writers throughout China.

The winning script, written by Xia Shangzhou, a member of the Hubei Writers' Association, is about how the Fuwa fight against villains and bring peace back to the Olympic Games and the Earth.

Beijing Evening News

Painted greetings

Hundreds of children from local schools teaching Chinese language and painting in Houston, Texas, gathered at the city's culture center on Saturday to paint their greetings for the Beijing Olympics on five cloth scrolls dyed in five different Olympic colors.

The painters, aged between 5 and 18, painted Chinese dragons and Fuwa on the scrolls, and some famous Chinese artists now staying in Houston and officials from the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston also wrote down their dedications to the Games.

www.chinanews.com