Liu Shinan is China Daily's assistant editor-in-chief. He writes commentaries on social and cultural issues.
When the media reported that Nanjing Forestry University had advised its students not to "overtly or excessively" express love on the campus and Wuhan Polytechnic University threatened to disqualify "student cadres" who hugged or kissed their lovers in public, I knew that commentators were bound to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Last week, I learned from online reports that the nearly century-old Xunlimen Railway Station in Hankou, Hubei province, had been demolished for commercial development. The news saddened me, for I spent my childhood in its vicinity.
The photograph is the most heart-wrenching, and at the same time disgusting, I have ever seen: An old man on a boat holding a rope tied to the arm of a dead person submerged in water with one hand and gesticulating to people on the bank with the other...
After the death of giant of scientist Qian Xuesen over the weekend, millions of comments have been posted on websites, mourning the loss of the "father of China's space program"...
I have written several columns on today's high school and college students, expressing my worries over their being pampered by parents and their susceptibility to hedonism.
China now seems to have an over-abundance of "experts". Whenever an event arouses public attention, experts jump on the scene to address or offer "professional" advice to people, which is often contrary to public sentiment and common sense.
China Daily carried four photographs yesterday that showed a few teenaged boys torturing a schoolmate in a classroom in Shanxi province.
Chinese parents are strange beings. On one hand, they rarely show mercy when they force their children to "study" 10 hours a day seven days a week. On the other, they shower them with every care and comfort, and exempt them from attending to any household chore.
The world media reported last week the successful sailing of two German cargo ships through the fabled "Northeast Passage" from South Korea along Russia's Arctic coast to Siberia and reaching Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
On Monday, most Chinese newspapers and news websites carried a photograph of Premier Wen Jiabao sitting in a classroom in a high school in Beijing, listening attentively to the teacher and noting down what the teacher said. The photograph was on Friday, when he was investigating into China's schools.
The Regulations on Protection of Minors, passed recently by the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of the People's Congress, says parents have the obligation to stop their minor children from getting embroiled in love affairs. The regulations have triggered widespread debates. Most parents support the rule, but high school and university students, education and legal "experts" and some netizens oppose it.
A commentary in People's Daily last week said some media outlets still take pleasure in churning out false news.
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