You Have to Laugh

Being in a foreign country you are faced with things that just seem to be strange or just simply odd from our perspectives. There are some really good stories that come out of China that I will share with you occasionally. Our daily English language paper (actual newspaper that I get in the morning and read on the way to work) has a section called "China Scene" that has great local obscure stories.

Sometimes stories end up in the international news services too. The one below is from Reuters:

Chinese Airline Fined for Selling 13 Cent Tickets
Monday , December 18, 2006
Reuters

BEIJING — Chinese authorities have fined a low-cost airline almost $20,000 for selling tickets for 13 U.S. cents in a promotion, saying they broke national pricing rules, a newspaper said on Monday.
Spring Airlines, set up last year by travel agent China Spring International, sold more than 400 tickets on a new route between Shanghai and the northern city of Jinan for just 1 yuan ($0.13), the Beijing Times said.
But that went against a 2004 rule — designed to help carriers' bottom lines after a vicious price war — that the maximum discount an airline can offer is 45 percent off a government-set base price, the report added.
A standard one-way ticket between Shanghai and Jinan costs 760 yuan ($97.10), excluding tax and fuel surcharge.
The Jinan government said it would fine Spring Airlines' local travel agent branch 150,000 yuan ($19,160) as a punishment, though the company denies wrongdoing and will appeal, the newspaper said.
The case underscores the difficulty facing Chinese low-cost airlines, which are trying to model themselves on the likes of Ireland's Ryanair in bringing cheap no-frills travel to the world's most populous nation.
China's airline industry is dominated by three main state-run carriers, with which a clutch of low-cost airlines are trying to compete. ($1=7.827 Yuan)

Then there are stories that we encounter in our everyday life. Here is an interesting sign in the suburbs of Beijing: