The US transportation department revealed that there are some people using the pastiche ticket to take tube for free. The pastiche ticket could allow people to pass the underground entrance with no limitation. The US transportation security department announced that they have confiscated 33 pastiche tickets last year and 15 this year. The average price for this kind of ticket is around 27 US dollars.
Merritt Wilson of Madison, Wisconsin prepared for her trip to Tibet by taking the stairs to her 18th story apartment for three months before departure. While sitting in a Tibetan foot bath, she gives pointers for surviving the 52-hour train ride from Beijing to Lhasa and dishes on everything from debating monks to the joys of drinking yak butter tea..
From this month (September) elementary and junior high schools in China - which together make up the nine year compulsory education period - will provide free textbooks for students. To help out, textbooks will be re-used - being passed on from one year to the next. In addition the only fees charged to students in these grades will be so called "optional extras" such as school lunches and uniforms. With the importance attached to education in Chinese society this must be good news for ordinary Chinese parents. So how do they feel about the new rules? Our reporter Julia Wang went out on the streets of Beijing to find out.