China Scene: Central

Running farmer spreads Olympic cheer

Xi Zhanyu, a farmer from Jilin province, received warm welcome from the residents of Changsha when he rolled into the railway station square at the Hunan provincial capital at about 11 am on Tuesday.

Xi, 52, set out from his hometown on a cross-country run to mark the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 8 last year, a year before the start of the world's most important sports event.

Xi has run 9,000 km in the past eight months. He has received a warm welcome wherever he goes, and many people have signed the 3-m-long yellow banner he carries. Many regional governments have also imprinted their seals on it.

Xi's goal is to run more than 12,500 km in a year.

(Changsha Evening News)

Elderly woman gets young scofflaw to drop knife

Rather than panic as the robber Du Feng held a knife to her neck, 70-year-old Zhou kept her poise - and eventually persuaded the young ne'er-do-well to turn himself in to the authorities.

Du, 17, had previously worked for a restaurant run by Zhou's children on Longhai Road in Zhengzhou, Henan province, though he was fired last month.

On Tuesday, he returned to the restaurant with plans to rob it. However, finding no money, he climbed up to the second floor, where he found Zhou sleeping.

He woke her up to demand money, but after listening to an hour of gentle persuasion, he agreed to renounce his criminal ways.

Du, a junior high school dropout, was later brought to a police substation for questioning.

(Dongfang Jinbao News)

Pensioner to pay for son's lack of financial restraint

An 84-year-old man surnamed Zhou has had to dip into his pension funds to help repay the debts of his 50-year-old son in Changsha, Hunan province.

Over the past few weeks, Zhou has received several phone calls a day from people asking him to repay his son's debts, which amount to more than 10,000 yuan. Zhou's son would have to go to jail if he were unable to pay.

Zhou's son, who is unemployed, secured at least four credit cards in recent months and appears to have gone on an unchecked spending spree.

(Changsha Evening News)

(China Daily 04/15/2008 page6)