Spring Festival's starring role on the European stage

While Chinese are required to return to work on Wednesday after their Spring Festival break, for most the festive mood will extend until after they celebrate the Lantern Festival, which is the first significant fete day after the Spring Festival. This year it falls on March 5.

Long overdue appeal against discrimination

It certainly is embarrassing to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

New Year traditions lost

Besides the nationwide festive revelry, the Spring Festival is another chance to witness and reflect on the waning of tradition, says an editorial in thepaper.cn.

For better air, more people have said 'no' to fireworks this year

This year, China has welcomed its least smoky Spring Festival for years. As of New Year's Eve, sales of fireworks in Beijing were 34 percent lower than the previous year, and there was a similar trend in many other cities. Comments:

Shopping stewardess at fault for misbehavior

On Feb 21, a passenger complained on Sina micro blog that an Air China stewardess did not appear at the boarding gate of her flight from Seoul to Chongqing until five minutes after the boarding time, with large quantities of purchased goods in both hands; the incident delayed boarding, he said. Air China apologized at first, then insisted that the flight took off and landed on time. Comments:

How to cure 'home phobia'

An increasing number of Chinese youngsters, especially college students and migrant workers from rural areas, are choosing not to go home for the Spring Festival, because they don't want to face questions about their not-so-perfect careers or marital status. Comments:

Hot words

People's livelihoods account

Cartoon

Pragmatism can lead Silk Roads to success

The Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives of President Xi Jinping are aimed at promoting regional economic cooperation. Being supplementary to the existing world economic order, the initiatives will help boost regional economic cooperation and development through infrastructure construction based on China's successful experiences over the past decades.

How cities can go for the new normal

A new Deutsche Bank study says that last year, China's 300 cities faced a 37 percent drop in their land-sale revenues - which is a major setback given that land sales accounted for 35 percent of total local government revenues. Such revenues had risen at an average annual rate of 24 percent from 2009 to 2013.

Asian triangles may not prove eternal

With the very welcome announcement by US President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser Susan Rice of separate state-visit invitations to the leaders of China and Japan, the much-discussed but so far amorphous US "pivot to Asia" policy looks to be taking on the shape of a triangle.

Small steps by individuals are big strides forward

In response to a local initiative, some residents in Hefei in central China's Anhui province exchanged the fireworks they had bought for plants so they could reduce the air pollution rather than add to it.