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Letters and Blogs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-29 07:53 Making ladies of women As society undergoes transition, China seems to be losing its values and aesthetic standards. Some colleges and universities have felt impelled to set up programs for training young women to be ladies. The Vocational College of Wuhan Institute of Technology is the pioneer in having a special program for this sort of training. Its purpose, as stated by its president Hu Qiusha, is to bring up ladies with elegance and nobility, externally and internally. The college chose 50 good-looking girls from among applicants. Such programs cannot be commended. In the eyes of critics, the hidden agenda of the program is not to groom women as ladies, but prepare wives and mistresses for the rich. Their arguments in support of the program are flawed. Confucius maintains that education should be provided for all without discrimination. Cultivation and beauty are goals for all, the female and others, too. However, this program only provides opportunities to girls who appear charming. What's more, this program seems to make appearance the prerequisite for being a lady. It is long-term family education and influence of society and culture that make ladies of women, not short-term training programs. Some trainees may expect this program lead to an ideal marriage. Thus, training ladies may actually turn out to be training women to become wives and mistresses. Luo Ju http://blog.sina.com.cn High prices crowd out needy house buyers In 2008 when housing prices fell in many Chinese cities, it gave hope to many families, which were bent on buying their first homes but put it off by daunting prices. However, the surge in prices in the first half of this year has dashed their hopes. A friend told me that he had lost hope of buying a flat because of the steep rise in housing prices in Beijing in recent months. Despite having 200,000 yuan ($29,400) in deposit, he cannot afford the down payment for a flat. Though he can avail himself of his parents' savings, he does not want to use his parents' hard-earned savings to pay the ridiculously high price for a house. When many white-collar workers and middle-income families have lost hope of owning a flat, the imbalance between the property prices and people's incomes becomes alarming. While a few extremely rich persons own tens of houses and flats, ordinary families that really need housing are crowded out of the market by the sky-high prices. This poses challenges to social harmony and order. Han Lingguo http://blog.sina.com.cn (China Daily 07/29/2009 page8) |
