Beijing Faces Challenge to ¡®Civilize¡¯ Population ( March 13, 2007 , Reuters)

[zero]

Will that be too late for the government to do that? If they had not put all
their effort on economic development but rather keep the balance, they don't
have to have this hard time now....When you get something, you have to lose
something...that's fair...and now the government is afraid of 'losing
face'...what a poor thing!!!

Spitting, pollution, dirty toilets, text messages advertising weapons and a
nationalistic sports media -- Beijing officials admitted on Wednesday they
had many problems to face some 500 days before the Olympics open. One
official criticized the foreign media's "one-sided" reporting on China and
for being only interested in the negative aspects of Beijing 's preparations
for the 2008 Games. The unusually frank comments were made in a gathering of
Beijing delegates on the sidelines of China 's annual meeting of parliament.
Foreign media were invited to listen, but reporters were not allowed to ask
questions. "Everyone has a responsibility to show the world what Chinese
people are like," said Deng Yaping, a former table tennis Olympic gold
medallist, before launching into a litany of complaints about toilets, taxis
and the media. "Everyone knows about our famous food, but the toilets in
many places, including in sports facilities, are not up to scratch.
Sometimes you can't even get in," she told the other 27 people at the
meeting, held in the Beijing Olympic headquarters. "This is unacceptable."
Zip Huayun, a Beijing member of the mainly ceremonial government advisory
body the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said people had
four main bad habits. "One, spitting. Two, not queueing up. Three, smoking
anywhere and everywhere -- something even senior officials do. Four,
swearing in Beijing dialect," she said.