China Scene: North

Blind man left on curb as taxis refuse to stop

A blind man was repeatedly refused by taxis as he tried to get home after a doctor's appointment in Changchun, capital of Jilin province, on Wednesday.

A bystander helped Zheng, 65, hail the cabs, but none would take him.

Eventually he called police, who drove him home.

Media reports labeled the taxi drivers unprofessional. But drivers said passengers like Zheng create difficulties for them.

"It causes trouble for us to take people who have difficulty getting into or out of our cabs. We can't take full responsibility for them in case there's an emergency," a driver said.

(New Culture View)

Bloody vision scares cabbie into the night

A female taxi passenger was left bewildered and alone when her driver parked the car next to a graveyard and fled into the night.

The woman, surnamed Wang, called police.

The taxi driver, from Baodi in Tianjin municipality, said he thought she was a ghost because she had "blood" all over her face.

"As I approached the graveyard on Sunday night, I braked hard. I looked back at the passenger and saw she had blood all over her face," the driver, surnamed Li, said. "I was scared witless - thinking she was a ghost - so I ran away."

Wang said: "I was rummaging in my grocery bag looking at what I had bought when he braked suddenly. I had just opened a bottle of tomato sauce and it exploded all over my face."

(Metro Express)

Sow gives birth to two-headed piglet

A sow gave birth to a two-headed piglet in a village near Jilin city, Jilin province, on Sunday.

"The sow gave birth to 13 other piglets - all were normal except this one," Fu, the sow's owner, said. "The two-headed piglet has two mouths and can eat with both of them. But it can't stand up by itself because it's not strong enough to raise both its heads."

"An abnormal piglet like this is unlikely to live very long because this is the result of an abnormal cell division, or possibly an unknown adverse environmental factor that affected the sow's pregnancy," an expert told Fu on Monday.

(City Evening News)

(China Daily 04/11/2008 page6)