sinoscribe
Journalist Kathleen E. McLaughlin

Archive for July, 2008

July 15th, 2008

Worth the price of admission?

Posted in Blog by Kathy
When an acquaintance here in Beijing called the other week and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket for the opening ceremony of the Olympics on August 7, I must admit I was intrigued. It’s arguably the hottest ticket in town and long sold-out (with countless numbers of tickets going gratis to sponsors and who-knows-who-else). Even though Stephen Spielberg is no longer involved, the ceremony is sure to be a spectacle. Then she told me the asking price: 40,000 yuan, or about $5,800, for a ticket that originally cost about $300. After a good chuckle, I passed. Turns out that was a bargain. Chinese media reports today that an opening ceremony pass purchased in the ticket lottery at $725 was sold second-hand for $30,500. Ticket madness. 
July 14th, 2008

Olympics suck up China’s already scarce water

Posted in Reporting by Kathy

Changgucheng, China – Three years ago, local government officials told farmers in this village of 7,00 residents to stop using water from a reservoir near their wheat and corn fields. If  they needed water, the farmers were told, they would have to dig a well.

“They said there wasn’t enough water,’’ Jia Jianguo, 60, recalled.

At their own expense, the farmers dug a 90-foot well. But even though the new irrigation system worked fine, the locals have been forced to pool their meager resources each year that the water recedes to keep their crops alive. The well is now 135 feet deep and the groundwater is seeping away as fast as the province’s increasingly scarce water supplies are being channeled some 100 miles southwest to the thirsty capital of 15 million, Beijing.

 Read more at Sfgate.com