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Photo: Xia Meiling, a 5-year-old preschool student, cleans a street in Shaoyang, Hunan province. Her 64-year-old grandmother is a sanitation worker in the community. Her parents left the area to take jobs in a Guangzhou garment factory and seldom return home. Meiling often helps her grandmother with cleaning work. What can we do for her and other left-behind children?

Forum topic: Does poverty draw family and friends closer to each other? I do not think so. I think anyone who assumes that is looking at a few cases of happy families that by chance are not as concerned about money as others around them are. I think poverty is more likely to rip family and friends apart.

News talk: When two security guards in Dalian, Liaoning province, got their first month's pay earlier this year, they questioned why they received a different salary for identical work. The company responded that one man was 5 cm taller than the other. Stature is often a desirable attribute of guards, but in China, height requirements are routinely specified for jobs. Do you think such a requirement is reasonable?