Author Archives: EVI

When I walked to my office today, I couldn’t see the building until I was almost at the front door.

My eyesight isn’t the greatest, but that wasn’t the problem. It was Zhengzhou’s dreadful air pollution.

Today was the worst I’ve seen so far. A thick layer of grimy smog blanketed the city, cutting visibility to just a few feet. On our campus at Henan University of Technology, the massive library was nearly invisible. When I checked the weather app on my iPhone, right under the temperature where it usually says clouds, sun or rain, the condition was listed as “smoke.”

Originally I had written the below paragraphs (after this one) a few days ago regarding an ongoing issue with my agent, but just yesterday another issue popped up. After having supposedly resolved the previous issue, my agent suddenly calls yesterday. “The landlord wants to visit so I need to borrow your keys again. Why? I replied, given the agent had brought the landlord over just last week (the agent had borrowed my keys and brought her over when I wasn’t there.)  Why does the landlord want to visit again? Uh, she wants to sell the place. She’s bringing over someone to check it out, said my agent. What? I said. So not even 3 months into my 1-year lease, and the landlord wants to sell the place, and will presumably be bringing people over during this time. “But you can continue living there,” says the agent. The agent is coming…

Following a lacklustre first half performance, the pace of growth appears to have picked up going into the second half of 2013. This is clearly demonstrated by the latest GDP report showing that activity accelerated at its fastest rate this year in the three months to September. Real GDP growth came in at 7.8% (y-o-y), markedly higher than the 7.5% pace registered three months earlier and the 7.7% posted in the first quarter. The latest GDP figure now takes growth for the first nine months of this year to around 7.7%, putting the economy firmly on track to hit the government’s target of 7.5% for 2013. Earlier in the year, the official growth target was considered to be under threat as the economy continued to lose momentum, but even if this figure is achieved it will be the slowest pace of expansion since 1999. Still, our panellists remain confident that…

China Adjusts One Child Policy

The one-child policy officially translated as “family planning policy“) is the population control policy of the People’s Republic of China. It restricts urban couples to only one child, while allowing additional children in several cases, including twins, rural couples, ethnic minorities and couples who both lack siblings themselves