The 2014 FIFA World Cup has kicked off, making soccer-crazy China even crazier. The tournament, which is held every four years and is one of the world's biggest sporting events and money spinners, is ubiquitous. Soccer-related articles dominate the Internet, television, radio, newspapers and social networking sites, and the competition is the main topic of conversation in cafes, bars, offices and factories across the country.
It's something of a cliche to say that soccer is fun to watch or play, but it's true nonetheless. China Daily spoke to a number of fans to find out what soccer means to them.
Li Wenqing, deputy head of promotion at the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region tourism bureau, is eagerly looking forward to the opening of the region's new railway.
Adi Turdi, the first bullet train driver in China from the Uygur ethnic group, said his daughter will be among the passengers on the maiden journey of Xinjiang's bullet train.
Fu Guoqian spends most of his time sitting in his 6-square-meter room in a traditional part of southern Beijing that is dominated by nondescript, age-old one-story buildings and narrow, well-trodden alleyways. Fu's room, the only space that belongs to the 94-year-old, is half-filled by a bed that faces directly toward the dilapidated wooden door.
Whampoa Military Academy, established by Sun Yat-sen, one of China's most revered revolutionaries, was officially opened on May 1, 1924, with the first lessons beginning on June 16 of the same year.
In the run-up to the FIFA World Cup 2014, Chinese soccer fans have been attempting to wrap their tongues around some of the exotic names from the national squads, with Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Lazaros Christodoulopoulos of Greece, and Reza Ghoochannejhad of Iran among those that have proved the most perplexing.
As an expert on amphibians and reptiles, it's hardly surprising that Rao Dingqi's 15-square-meter office at the Kunming Institute of Zoology is packed with weighty tomes relating to turtles, snakes, frogs and other creatures. Several glass cases that sit on and under his desk contain a menagerie of stuffed animals, most of them collected earlier this year.
Chen Xin, who works for an academic institute in Beijing, said he is experiencing the hardest time of his life because the "perfect" house exchange he has spent a long time planning has been ruined by the recent slump in the price of residential property.
Lu Su, 32, an architect at a company in the west of Beijing, was disappointed when friends told him that he had bought his home at the wrong time and, consequently, had paid far too much.
Saturday morning signals the start of two days of grueling activity, both mental and physical, as students take the national university entrance exam known as gaokao. Because success in the exam can open the door to a well-paid job and high social standing, the pressure on the students can be overwhelming.
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Op Rana
Berlin Fang
Zhu Yuan
Huang Xiangyang
Chen Weihua
Liu Shinan
