China Scene: East

Students find it is hard to please employers

Employers can be a tough lot to please, as some Nanjing students found out recently. Although all 18 passed a survival test that they were put through last weekend, employers were unimpressed.

The students from a financial university in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, were asked to spend the weekend with only 5 yuan (0.65 cents) in hand. They had to find temporary jobs to pay for their food and accommodation. By Saturday night, all the students had found jobs, mainly as leaflet distributors, salespersons and as restaurant hands.

One of the employers said he appreciated the hard-working spirit of the students but did not think much of their performance, saying they did not seem confident and also did not try to challenge themselves with difficult jobs.

(www.zjonline.com.cn)

This big ox ate all the grass - and some more

An ox with a hearty appetite in Linyi, Zhejiang, is believed to have eaten all the money its owner earned last year, along with two baskets of grass.

The owner Liu put 5,000 yuan ($641) the family earned from selling grain last year, in a plastic bag and hid it in a pile of dry grass on April 7. When she found the money gone two days later, she called in the police, who found some small pieces of banknotes in the ox barn. They said the notes may have been eaten by the ox.

This reminded Liu's husband that he had fed two baskets of grass to the ox on Saturday night and this may have accidentally included the plastic bag of money.

(Qilu Evening News)

Company boss buys 22m-yuan yacht

An IT company president in Shanghai got himself a luxurious yacht for 22 million yuan ($2.82 million) at an international yacht exhibition that concluded last weekend.

The yacht, about 20 meters in length, is now parked at a port near the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. All the rooms in the three-storey yacht are spacious enough to hold 25 persons at a time. Its rear deck can be lowered by 60 centimeters below sea level and can be used as a private swimming pool. According to the seller, the well-known British yacht brand name Sunseeker, a bigger yacht was sold to a private company boss in Beijing at 34 million yuan ($4.36 million), at the exhibition.

(The Oriental Morning Post)

Pup scares off king cobra with spirited barking

A puppy in Taiwan scared away an extremely poisonous king cobra and rescued its owner on Monday.

The dog's master Lin was on his way to an open field, when he heard the pup behind him barking ferociously and stopped for a look. Following its gaze, Lin spotted a black king cobra, a meter long, just a few steps from him, poised for attack.

The dog kept barking and scared the snake away. Later, the cobra was caught by a professional snake catcher.

(www.chinataiwan.org)

(China Daily 04/12/2007 page6)