China Scene: East

Autistic woman puts skills to work at a library

Zhang Ge, a 24-year-old resident of Nanjing, Jiangsu province, suffers from autism, but that has not stopped her from finding work as a librarian at a community library.

Zhang can remember the telephone numbers of an unbelievable number of people and has memorized almost all the words in the Chinese-language Xinhua Dictionary. If someone asks her about a word, she can find it in the dictionary within seconds.

Her mother, Xu Xingsu, said she can also say what day a particular date fell on within seconds of being asked.

(Yangtze Evening News)

Rabies scare drives wedge between netizen lovers

A 40-year-old netizen from Xiamen, Fujian province, recently fell in love with a rural high school teacher from the city Nanping.

The two were kissing recently when then woman accidentally drew blood by biting the man's shoulder. The woman said she had been bitten by a vagrant dog 10 years before, which made the man nervous since rabies can lie dormant for up to a decade.

Fearing that the woman carried the rabies virus, he rushed to a local hospital in Xiamen and insisted on being vaccinated.

(www.taihainet.com)

(China Daily 04/03/2008 page6)