Help Save the Sparrows

There aren't as many Eurasian Tree Sparrows around in HK

 

According to the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, the city's sparrow population has dropped by around 30 percent in the past five years.

In May the group counted 211,100 Eurasian Tree Sparrows, the lowest figure since 305,000 were spotted in the first annual survey in 2016.

They easily adjust to living in urban areas

Pang Chun-chiu, an ornithologist with the society, said further studies needed to be carried out to find out why there has been such a drastic decline, but says it could be due to a lack of nesting space and food shortages.

"They nest in crevices which used to be abundant in a modern city like Hong Kong... [so] the glass [facades] of the buildings might reduce the nesting spaces for sparrows," he said.

Pang explained the decline of the sparrow population might also reflect a worsening urban environment in Hong Kong.

"Sparrows are a tough species, actually. They adapt to changes very quickly, and they eat a wide range of food -- from plant seeds, insects to human leftover food. There might be something getting worse here which is affecting the sparrow population," he said.

In order to protect the birds, he called on people to help, adding residential areas are their favourite spots.

For example, people should not disturb sparrows if they see them making nests in buildings during their breeding season between March and June.

They feed on seeds, insects, and also human food

It's also possible a number of the birds have died or been seriously injured from crashing into glass buildings that confuse them, though one would think they would still be able to find food with Hong Kong's garbage situation not sorted yet.

There is also the possibility of the sparrows suffering from bacterial and viral infections that can cause the failure of eggs to hatch or nesting mortality.

Hopefully these birds can be helped along to increase their survival in the coming years. These sparrows are part of the ecosystem and help with pollination, crucial for flowers, plants, trees and crops.

Nearly 90,000 Left HK in One Year

Almost 90,000 people left Hong Kong in the past 12 months

It was revealed nearly 90,000 people left Hong Kong in the past 12 months after the national security law was implemented, a 1.2 percent drop in the population to 7.39 million.

The govt says more people left than entered HK

A government spokesman attributed the drop to various factors, including the number of deaths (50,400) higher than births (38,500), and more people leaving for work and school than coming in because of the Hong Kong government's Covid-19 restrictions preventing domestic helpers, students and workers from entering.

"Net movement, which includes the movement of Hong Kong residents into and out of Hong Kong for various purposes including work and study, is conceptually different from immigration and emigration," the spokesman said.

Trying hard to spin the fact that people are leaving in droves as being "conceptually different".

"Being an international city, Hong Kong's population has always been mobile," the spokesman continued. "During the past 10 years, net outflows of Hong Kong residents other than One-way Permit holders were recorded for most of the years."

HK$6.6 billion was taken out of MPF accounts

Meanwhile another sure sign of mass migration is the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority's latest annual report. Almost HK$6.6 billion worth of funds [for retirement] have been withdrawn from April 2020 to March this year by people who claimed they were leaving Hong Kong permanently.

The figure is 27 percent higher than the previous financial year, and the highest on record.

How do you spin a fact like that?

Paul Yip Siu-fai, chair professor in social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong calls the trend "alarming".

"Of course many people could be leaving Hong Kong to work and study, every year there are people doing so. But what is the reason that this year saw such an increase [from 20,900 to 89,200], the government needs to find out," Yip said. 

Yip says govt needs to know why ppl are leaving

"Some people are worried about changes in freedom of speech, as well as the city's education system, while the [red lines] are unclear. Amid fears, if they had a choice, they might choose to emigrate. The government should try to address their concerns."

He believes there will be a steady stream of emigration beyond the next one or two years and says the government should consider offering incentives to young couples with newborns like prioritized housing.

But it seems Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor isn't too fussed about people leaving, perhaps it's a minor detail in how to keep the city functioning...

 

Lam Disregards Seniors in HK

Lam says move elderly to China, young mainlanders to HK

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has no sympathy for seniors -- even though she herself is one at 64 years of age.

When asked in the Legislative Council earlier this week what to do with Hong Kong's growing aging population and the birth rate rapidly declining, Lam suggested manipulating the numbers by shoving the elderly up across to the mainland and enticing young people from the mainland to the city.

Elderly need affordable, quality healthcare

Hong Kong experts accused Lam about being cavalier about the crisis, and that she needs to come up with better solutions than her simplistic suggestion.

They said it was not easy to lure talent to an expensive city like Hong Kong, while also pointing out that elderly people intending to retire on the mainland needed assurance they would get affordable and quality health care while being separated from loved ones.

The experts urged the government to also roll out more incentives to boost fertility rates and improve local child care services.

On Wednesday Lam said Hong Kong needed to attract more talent. "We need to lure more young people to come to Hong Kong, and offer our elderly people better locations to retire," she said.

Experts say Lam needs better solutions to ageing

"If we close the door and work on our population policy, that will be difficult. But if we make this city, with a population of more than 7 million, part of the country's 1.4 billion people, I will not be too worried about our demographics."

What is she saying? That she wants Hong Kong to be completely absorbed by the mainland so that the city's population doesn't matter anymore because it's part of China and that it's not her problem anymore?

It's as if she's given up on trying to find ways to keep Hong Kong going and wants to chuck grey-haired folks across the border without missing a beat.

Wan (right) holding up book

She herself is a senior citizen but has no clue what elderly people want, which is quality healthcare and their family members nearby.

On Monday there was a picture on Twitter of Andrew Wan Siu-kin, former vice-chairman of the Democratic Party and former lawmaker being shuttled to jail and he held up a book to show reporters what he was reading in his cell.

It was a copy of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A counter intuitive approach to living the good life by Mark Manson.

Maybe Lam has also been reading this book too?

Will Chinese Families Have Three Kids?

China now allows families to have three kids, but will they?

 

China is now encouraging families to have not just two children but three in an announcement made today due to a significant drop in the birth rate in the world's most populous country.

Xinhua reported the change was approved by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a politburo meeting. 

"To further optimize the birth policy, [China] will implement a one-married-couple-can-have-three-children policy," Xinhua said.

The cost of raising children is very expensive

Five years ago China finally scrapped its one-child policy that dates back to 1978, and allowed couples to have two children, but that didn't lead to a significant baby boom thanks to the rising costs of having children, as well as housing and education.

The announcement today was short on specifics in how it would give support and incentives to families to have more children.

Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank (China), said the government would have to offer subsidies, and maybe even set up a new tax system for companies to have the incentive to hire women of childbearing age.

"The high costs of housing and education, as well as a lack of job protection for women, are strong economic constraints on having children," she said, adding the cost of having a third child would be too high for most middle-class families.

This decision comes soon after the release of a summary of census data that pointed to a decline in births in China, and Yi Fuxian, a specialist in China's demographics, said the timing of the announcement so soon after the census summary suggested the detailed data to come would be extremely worrying.

Women's job prospects are low after childbirth

"Maybe it's because the real population data is too scary. Even if they have not published it, it probably frightened the decision makers," Yi said.

The once-in-a-decade census showed the population grew at its slowest rate during the last decade since the 1950s to 1.41 billion.

But the reality of the situation is that young, educated and ambitious women do not want to be baby-making machines. Many are happy to be single let alone married, and prefer having a successful career than the thankless task of looking after a husband and children.

While the government has tried to scorn these women online, that is not going to help the situation, as the ratio of women to men is much smaller, so the pool of women willing to have children is even smaller.

Company policies and attitudes are sexist and need to change -- during job interviews young men are usually chosen over young women because it is assumed the latter will get married soon and have children and then may quit the job. 

Maybe Peng can tell Xi what women go through?

If the government wants to boost the population, it must force employers to find ways to accommodate women before, during and after having children, to keep a job for them or at least give them the opportunity to come back from maternity leave, otherwise how are they going to afford their mortgage, childcare, and pay for education? 

It would be beneficial for companies to retain these workers too; many mothers just want a steady pay cheque, though it is less than what a man would earn in the same position.

So it's all very well and good for the government to tell families to have more children to increase the country's population, but there needs to be specific incentives, services and tax breaks to give couples the financial confidence to have children. 

Grandpa Xi really needs to step up on this issue and look at it from the women's perspective before deciding what carrots he will dangle in front of them.

Perhaps his wife Peng Liyuan, or his daughter Xi Mingze can give him suggestions...

Review: One Child Nation

Just a few of the supposedly abandoned babies advertised in the newspaper

I am still trying to process One Child Nation, a documentary I saw today as part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

China's one-child policy began in 1979 and was only relaxed in 2015, but since then there hasn't been the baby boom the government was hoping. After one of the filmmakers, Wang Nanfu has a baby boy, this prompts her to delve into the how this family-planning policy impacted her family and others.

Filmmaker Wang Nanfu with her son

Wang narrates and explains that when she was born, her parents were expecting a boy, as she has the word 男 nan, or "man" in her name. But the baby was a she and they gave her the name anyway, hoping their daughter would become a strong person.

They lived in a rural area, and local officials wanted to sterilize her mother right after she gave birth, but Wang's grandfather prevented it from happening; that's because there was a rule that those living in rural areas could have two children as long as they were five years apart.

And indeed she did have a brother, much to her parents' and grandparents' delight.

But having grown up bombarded with propaganda everywhere saying how the one-child policy was great, how it was a sin to have more than one child, Wang felt ashamed of having a brother.

She then tries to find out what happened to the women who were sterilized or were forced to abort. Wang interviews the midwife who helped with her birth. The elderly woman claims to have done at least 50,000 abortions and sterilizations.

Wang finds this hard to believe, but then the woman tells her she now focuses on helping couples who are infertile to get pregnant. She shows Wang two rooms in her home filled with maroon-coloured banners with yellow embroidery showing their thanks to the midwife and pictures of the babies taped on each one. She explains she is doing this to try to atone for her sins for killing so many fetuses, as she believes in karma.

Then Wang manages to coax her uncle and aunt to tell about their personal experiences of losing their baby girls because of the draconian policy. Her uncle doesn't want to look into the camera and seems numb talking about it over 20 years later.

Zhang and Wang win at Sundance

There is also an artist by the name of Peng who has painted fetuses on every page of Mao Zedong's little red book, for every unborn child that has been murdered under his leadership. The artist was originally doing research on garbage when he found lots of plastic bags with dead fetuses in them labelled as medical waste.

People in the audience started sniffling after seeing those disturbing scenes. But Wang doesn't end her research there.

She also tracks down a man surnamed Duan and his family who were jailed for selling babies to orphanages. He, his mother and sister picked up abandoned babies and then sent them to orphanages who gave them money for them -- this was in 1992 when China began to allow overseas adoptions. The demand was so high that they needed more babies and would pay for them. Duan was just trying to give these babies a home, and why not make money out of it too?

These overseas adoptions were done under sketchy circumstances too. Brian Stuy and his Chinese wife Long Lan live in the United States and adopted three Chinese girls. When they adopted the first girl, Stuy tried to find out as much information from the supposed "baby finder" where she found the girl.

Later Stuy finds out the story was completely fabricated and the couple begin creating extensive databases to see if there is a pattern. They also interviewed Duan and his mother before. But how would they remember where exactly they picked up which baby if they sent some 10,000 of them to orphanages?

Also disturbing are revelations that some children were taken away from their families by local officials and adopted overseas to make some money. One case features a girl who lost her older twin sister to an overseas adoption against her and the family's consent. The Chinese journalist who reported the story was immediately fired and he fled to Hong Kong where Wang interviewed him. He wrote a book about his research but no one wanted to publish it in Chinese. Eventually it was printed.... in English.

Throughout One Child Nation, Wang shows people's anguish at what they did, and how a government policy will drive people to do inhumane things. She also questions why she was so naive, believing that the one-child policy was the right thing, but she shouldn't be so hard on herself, when that was the only thing she knew.

I had many more questions about Wang -- her father died when she was young and was forced to give up school and work so that her younger brother could study instead. So how did she manage to go to the United States without much of an education? And does she know that after making this film she will probably make life difficult for her family in China because One Child Nation is critical of the government?

At the end of the film the audience clapped in appreciation for the film. One Child Nation was not at all what I had expected. It was deeply personal about Wang's extended family, but at the same time we wondered about the millions of babies who were "abandoned" and what happened to them.

One Child Nation (2019)
Directed by Wang Nanfu and Zhang Jialing
85 minutes
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the US Documentary competition at Sundance

China's Overwhelming Online Numbers

Some 829 million people use the internet in China

China's 1.3 billion population is mind-boggling large, so what about the numbers of people using the internet in the Middle Kingdom?

Here are some interesting statistics from China's Internet Network Information Centre:

- Since the end of December there were 829 million users;

Half of China's population makes online purchases

- There are 648 million who watch short videos, which is 78.2 percent of China's total internet users:

- The national internet availability rate is 59.6 percent, with 26.7 percent of internet users of 222 million living in rural areas;

- People in China spent on average 27.6 hours per week online;

- 601 million people shop online, 592 million of whom use mobile phones to make their purchases;

- 610 million people make online payments.

The numbers are staggering, particularly half of the population shopping online and using their smartphones to buy goods and services.

Almost 600 million use their mobiles to make payments

It just goes to show foreign companies are still desperate to penetrate the Chinese market, believing that if you just sell something to them for US$1 each, you'll be a multimillionaire in no time...

China's Demographic Crisis

China is projected to have less than 15 million babies born in 2018

The projections are becoming a reality for the Chinese government -- 2018 was indeed the turning point for the country's population to drop significantly since 2000. Some economists are already calling it a "demographic crisis" that threatens China's currently struggling economic development.

The final figure for the number of births in 2018 will fall below 15 million, well below the government's estimate of 20 million.

While China's National Bureau of Statistics has yet to release the countrywide number, provinces have already recorded lower births.

Yi Fuxian says this is a turning point for China's population

A paper co-authored by Yi Fuxian, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a long-standing critic of China's family planning policy, and Su Jian, an economist at Peking University, say this will have long-lasting effects on the country.

"The year 2018 will be remembered as a historical turning point for Chinese population," Yi and Su wrote in the paper. "The Chinese population has started to fall, the ageing problems has accelerated, and economic vitality has weakened.

"A great nation, which once upon a time accounted for nearly a third of the world's total population, is gradually degenerating into a small group of the old and the weak thanks to wrong demographic policies."

Hua Changchun, an economist with Guotai Junan Securities, wrote a research note saying the number of births across China could be as low as 14 million if there is a 20 percent drop in births nationwide.

Less births will impact China's economic development

He said the drop in births would not only impact China's social and economic development, but also lead to a drop in demand for property.

This last point led Ren Zeping who is the chief economist for property developer Evergrande Group, to be very concerned about the birthrate dropping and urged China to lift all birth controls "and encourage people to have babies". 

China had hoped lifting the one-child policy in 2016 would lead to more births, but there was only an initial spurt, as many, especially in big cities cannot afford to raise another child, nor do they care to heed the call of the government to do their patriotic duty to procreate for the country.

Reality Check on "Ethnic Cleansing"

Fewer mainlanders are immigrating to Hong Kong each day

The same day Hong Kong National Party convenor Andy Chan Ho-tin spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club yesterday, decrying China was performing "ethnic cleansing" in the city by having 150 mainlanders move here everyday, the statistics show otherwise.

According to figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Tuesday, some 41,000 mainlanders moved to Hong Kong in the past 12 months ending on June 30, which is a drop of 14,700 compared to a year ago. It is the biggest drop in a decade.

The last steep decline was from 2005-06 and 2006-07 when the number fell by 14,900 to 44,700.

The one-way permit scheme allows spouses and children born across the border to be reunited with their families in Hong Kong.

Andy Chan claimed China was doing "ethnic cleansing"

Paul Yip Siu-fai, chair professor of population health at the University of Hong Kong, says it could be due to several factors, but one possibility could be the city becoming less desirable from before.

"For married couples that want their kids to come to Hong Kong, it must mean that the city has something better to offer to them," Yip said.

"But it's become more expensive to live here, especially housing, so it is worth looking into whether people are less willing to come because Hong Kong is less attractive to them," he said.

Anti-mainland sentiment is another possible factor deterring mainlanders from settling here, with the lowest number of people using the one-way permit scheme totaling 34,000 from mid-2013 and mid-2014, just before the Occupy protests.

Sze Lai-shan, a veteran social worker from the Society for Community Organization who helps new immigrant families settle in Hong Kong, said some mainlanders might not be as eager to move to the city, in part because of the improved living standards across the border. 

"It is especially the case for Hong Kong women getting married to mainland men. The husband won't want to come to Hong Kong. Usually the Hong Kong wife will go settle in the mainland," Sze said.

Accumulated there are over 800K mainlanders in Hong Kong

This is the trend Marion Chan Shui-yu, deputy commissioner for census and statistics is seeing. Such partnerships rose from 19 percent of all cross-border marriages in 1996 to 33 percent in 2016. In an interesting twist, the number of mainland women marrying Hong Kong men in cross-border marriages dropped from 81 percent to 66.7 percent in the same period.

It used to be that mainland women would marry much older Hong Kong men in the hopes of hitting the jackpot, but now it seems they have wised up after hearing many stories that not every Hong Kong man is rich. There are also many financial problems once the women and children move to the city -- the women cannot work right away and even then they are typically not well educated and can only find low-paying jobs.

So while there may be fewer mainlanders moving to Hong Kong each year, they are accumulating. There are over 800,000 since 2004, it's not a small number -- and growing.

China Wants Baby-Making Machines

China is trying to encourage couples to have more children... without success

Over 10 years ago when I was working in Beijing, a local colleague admitted his parents were severely fined for having another child -- him. They were anxious for a boy, and finally had one, but his parents were punished because they were senior Communist Party members.

He said their punishment was a very high fine and being socially looked down upon for not obeying the one-child policy that was implemented in 1979. In the end he managed to leave China to study an MBA at Duke University and now runs his family's company.

A financial penalty can make life difficult to make ends meet, but what about the horrific stories of women in rural areas who were forced to have abortions in their second and even third trimester because local officials wanted to keep the birth rates down in order to have good job performances?

A Chinese stamp showing a family with three piglets

The physical and psychological scars are indelible.

But now the Chinese government is doing away with the draconian policy and allowing parents to have not only two but more children. There are even propaganda posters of families of pigs, supposedly a metaphor that the more you procreate, the happier your family will be.

However, women aren't buying it.

Since the one-child policy, more young women are getting a higher education, focusing on careers and getting married later. There's also the rising costs of having a child; many can only afford to have one.

There is also the statistical problem of fewer women in the population thanks to the one-child policy, as families preferred boys of girls in almost 40 years.

According to He Yafu, a demographer and author of a book on the impact of China's population controls says the number of women between the ages of 20 and 39 is expected to drop by more than 39 million over the next decade, to 163 million from 202 million.

China needs more children for the workforce and pensions

"Without the introduction of measures to encourage fertility, the population of China will drop sharply in the future," he said.

This is a huge looming problem because the shrinking workforce won't be able to support the elderly not only in terms of manpower but also pensions.

As a result different provinces have their own incentives or punishments in order to get couples to have more children. For example, in Liaoning, one of the provinces with the lowest birthrates, is proposing several benefits for young families, including tax breaks, housing and education subsidies and longer maternity and paternity leaves, as well as investments in clinics and preschools.

Meanwhile in Jiangxi province, the government has reissued guidelines on when women can get abortions. There is a concern the rules will be strictly enforced, such as requiring a woman who is more than 14 weeks pregnant to obtain three signatures from medical personnel before an abortion.

Two other provinces have made it harder for couples to divorce, in the hopes that they will stick it out and have children.

The one-child policy from 1979 is over

Talk about not having control over one's body.

"Women cannot decide what happens to their own ovaries," one person complained on the microblogging platform Weibo, after Jiangxi announced its abortion guidelines in July.

The one-child policy has been slightly modified since it was instituted in 1979. Rural couples were allowed to try for another child if their first one was a girl, while ethnic minorities could have as many children as they liked. In 2013, if the husband and wife are only children, they were allowed to have more than one child. Then two years later, all couples could have two children.

This latest policy change didn't get the big baby bump the government was hoping for -- in fact the birthrate last year dropped, causing Beijing to worry.

On the one hand the government wants women to be educated and contribute to the work force, and on the other to pump out babies and look after aging parents. However, women get discriminated at work if they become pregnant and lose out on the career track if they don't go back to work after a period of time.

What about the men in all of this?

With a patriarchal government and society no wonder they think they can tell women what to do. But if they are having children, it's not to benefit the state.

PLA Recruits Not Making the Grade

More and more PLA recruits aren't able to pass the fitness exams

The People's Liberation Army is having trouble recruiting young soldiers because more and more are failing the physical exam.

In one unnamed city in Hubei province, more than 55 percent of the 1,233 young people who tried out for the PLA failed to make the cut because of vision and weight issues, the PLA Daily reported.

However, that was better than in Jianghan Plain, in central and southern Hubei, where the pass rate was 25.6 percent last year, down from 30.8 percent in 2011, the report said.

Many young people applying are overweight and aren't fit

Li Xianggui, chief director of a hospital in Jingzhou said he had seen a significant decline in fitness levels in the 20 years he had been involved in the military's physical exams.

He said although living standards are rising, many young people had unhealthy diets and more were overweight.

According to the medical journal The Lancet, some 43 million men and 46 million women in China are overweight -- 10.8 and 14.9 percent of the population respectively.

"In general, the physical condition of young people wanting to sign up is not ideal, but we can't lower our standards when it comes to finding troops," said Gao Jindong, a division commander in Jingzhou.

Although more young have been applying to the PLA in the past two years, many weren't able to pass the physical exams, according to Liu Deming, a military political commissar in Jingzhou.

PLA doesn't want to lower its standards to get more recruits

The problem of finding new recruits is so widespread that the PLA Daily even posted on social media 10 reasons why many recruits failed the fitness test -- including too many  video games, not enough exercise and too much masturbation.

How the last reason has anything to do with fitness levels is bizarre, but maybe has to do with focus?!

Many are keen to join the army because of the benefits for them and their families, though with Chinese President Xi Jinping cracking down on the PLA as a corporate entity, taking from the trough will get harder in the coming years.

And then there are also recruits who pass the exam, but are later discharged because of "hidden" conditions that emerged during the rigorous training process.

Does this mean the world's largest army is going to shrink soon?

Fact of the Day: 61 Million Left-Behind Children

There are 61 million left-behind children like these ones in China

In China, the latest survey by the National Health and Family Planning Commission reveals there's a staggering 61 million left-behind children, a third of them younger than 17, who are not raised by their parents.

The mothers and fathers have gone to mostly coastal cities to find work to send money home and only see their children once or maybe twice a year.

The lack of hukou or residence permit in big cities prevents parents from bringing their children with them because they don't have access to decent housing, schooling and health care.

Many are raised by grandparents or relatives in hometowns

So these children are left to mostly grandparents or relatives to care for, and there are many sad cases of them dying.

Last June, four left-behind children from the same family, ranging in ages from give to 13, committed suicide together by swallowing pesticide in Bijie, Guizhou province. And in November 2012, five boys died from carbon monoxide poisoning after starting a charcoal fire to keep warm inside a dumpster.

Experts believe these incidents happened because the parents were not around to raise them.

But at the same time, where else can these parents go to try to make a better life for their families? Provinces like Anhui, Henan and Sichuan are the sources for the most migrant workers, as 44 percent of rural children in these areas are left behind, way above the national average of 35.6 percent.

What is the central government's response?

In February, the State Council, China's cabinet, issued a guideline to local authorities to improve the physical and psychological health of such children. But there are no details on exactly how they would do that. And would Beijing come to check on the the local authorities to see if the have implemented any programs to benefit left-behind children?

They only have access to basic education which isn't enough

They are the most neglected people in society next to orphans.

Sixty-one million children is not a number to dismiss -- it's almost the population of Britain. And yet they barely get basic education and health care, let alone the emotional support they need to grow up to be confident and relatively happy people with decent jobs.

The government needs to do more for these children, but anything effective and immediate doesn't seem to be a priority. Beijing likes to parrot how it has lifted more than 800 million people out of of poverty.

But what about these 61 million children? They are the next generation who deserve at least a chance to thrive.

No More "Weird" Architecture

Does the CCTV headquarters qualify as "weird" architecture in China?

More directives are being issued by Beijing these days and the latest one was an interesting edict -- no more "weird" architecture, gated communities or illegal structures are to be built in China.

The directive from the State Council came two months after leaders met for the Central Urban Work Conference -- which was left held in 1978! One wonders why they procrastinated this long.

One of many "White House" replicas in the mainland...

Forty-eight years ago only 18 percent of the population lived in towns and cities, compared to 55 percent as of last year at 750 million people.

Nevertheless, the directive says urban architecture should be "suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye", in contrast to the "oversized, xenocentric, weird" buildings with no character or cultural heritage, that Chinese President Xi Jinping said reflected "a lack of cultural confidence and some city officials' distorted attitudes about political achievements".

One big building that might fit the bill is the CCTV tower, the Rem Koolhaas-designed building that locals nickname da kouchar (大裤衩) or "big underpants". Others are replicas of famous landmarks like the White House, Eiffel Tower, and London Bridge.

... Oh and Eiffel Towers can be spotted in around China too

Liu Shilin, head of the Institute of Urban Science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said while "weird" has yet to be defined, the new policy was heading in the right direction.

"These buildings do not have much value in terms of use, and cost a lot to operate and maintain. Quite a few were torn down soon after completion," he notes.

However, the big concern is the opening up of gated communities that were built for expatriates and the wealthy to keep the riff raff out.

"Residents have all paid their share to use the roads in these communities. How can you open them up just like that? Opening them up will bring in noise pollution, air pollution and security risks. How can residents' safety and health be ensured?" said one online commenter.

Residents of gated communities are worried about opening up

By the way -- does Zhongnanhai also qualify as a "gated community"? Or perhaps it's in a category of its own...

Toilet Relief for Women -- Coming Soon

"Dick and Jane" by Tim Yankosky at the washrooms in Nordstroms, Vancouver

Hong Kong women may not be making as much money as their male counterparts, but hey at least newer buildings in the city will have more bathroom stalls for them.

Yesterday Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po wrote on his blog that there was an amendment to the law last week to increase the ratio of male to female toilets in Hong Kong.

There will be a change in the building regulations which will come into effect next week specifying there should be 1.6 female toilets for every male toilet. Currently it's one-to-one.

Excuse me -- how did they come up with the ratio of 1.6? Doesn't seem to make much sense. Why not make it two-to-one?

"It is not uncommon to see long queues of women waiting for their turn to use the toilets in public places," wrote Chan. "Even men might sometimes have to wait for their other half to use the toilet."

No, really?! Maybe because he has had to wait for his wife that prompted Chan to make this observation. Why couldn't this regulation of more female toilets been in place earlier? It's not like long lines for the loo is a recent phenomenon.

And if one looks at the population statistics, Hong Kong has slightly more women than men, so that alone should mean we should have more toilets for them...

This new regulation only applies to new buildings and not expect existing buildings and venues to retrofit more stalls.

Chung Yuen-yi is not that impressed. She's an advocate for women's rights for the past 20 years.

"It's better than nothing," she said. "But I think the ratio of male to female toilets should be one to three. Anatomy differences between men and women mean women have to spend longer in toilets than men.

"Also, women often have the responsibility of accompanying children and the elderly to the toilets. So the demand for female toilets is far greater than for male toilets."

Another advocate, Luk Kit-ling, chairwoman of the Association for the Advancement of Feminism, thought the law reform "had come a bit late".

She said the government should have encouraged owners to add more toilets to existing buildings.

That would be admittedly difficult, but in the meantime we're still puzzled by the 1.6 ratio...

China's Shifting Demographics

Posters like these may be obsolete soon - what's with the red-eyed panda?

Breaking news this afternoon -- China has lifted its one-child policy and now couples are allowed to have more than one without any preconditions.

This is a stark change from when an ex-colleague of mine in Beijing told me quietly that he was the second child born illegally and his parents paid dearly for it.

They were previously quite active in the Communist Party and then they were shunned. Not only that but they had to pay a massive fine.

So this latest announcement is a big step foward in liberalizing family planning restrictions. For the longest time no one could have more than one child except for ethnic minorities. And then it shifted slightly with both only children could have another child, then only one parent who was an only child was necessary to be eligible to have two children, and in the countryside if the first born was a girl, the family could have another child.

The one-child policy has been in place since 1976

But now every family will be allowed to have two children, in the hopes of easing labour shortages and caring for the elderly.

China will "fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an aging population", the Communist Party said in a statement today during the fifth plenum, where party elites are discussing the next five-year plan.

It's caring for the elderly that has made young people stressed out. When I was in Beijing eight years ago, they would talk about how they would have to look after two sets of grandparents and parents. And if they married that would be doubled.

That is too much of a burden for one child, not just financially which is already a huge cost, but physically being able to care for so many people.

Also sad is their lack of experience in having a sibling, of learning to share, and having relatives like cousins, uncles and aunts.

While that all changes soon, though no time frame was announced today, babies won't be popping out overnight.

That's because the cost of having a child, particularly in urban areas, is so expensive, that financially parents are not keen on having another one to raise.

As a result, some critics say the measure is too little, too late.

Having more than one child is too expensive for many families

William Nee, a researcher with China Rights Watch, sees this as an important political and social issue.

"China should immediately and completely end its control over people's decisions to have children. This would not only be good for improving human rights, but would also make sense given the stark demographic challenges that lie ahead," he said.

It really is a human rights issue -- being told you can or cannot have children by the government seems strange to the rest of us, but for the Chinese, it will take time (and money) to get used to this new idea.

What will be interesting to watch is that if this easing with stop the widening sex ratio between men and women. Currently it's at around 118 men for every 100 women which is not good. There are remote villages of single men.

I had previously thought this would give women the edge in choosing their mate, but it's the exact opposite -- females have become commodities in high demand and treated as such, rather than as humans.

There are studies showing higher numbers of kidnappings and sexual assaults against women which is very troubling because there aren't enough of them to marry. And women in the cities with careers aren't necessarily interested in settling down either.

So hopefully with the family planning policy being lifted, there will be a more normal ratio of men to women. Hope demographers will be pressing the reset button when this happens to record this latest change in China's population shift.

French Factoids, Touring Paris and Centre Pompidou

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most visited landmarks

This morning we had a city tour given by a local guide and he gave us a lot of interesting factoids. Here's a random selection:

The population of Paris is 2.2 million.

Les Invalides where Napoleon's body is laid to rest

Notre Dame is 852 years old.

There has been no skyscrapers since 1977 after the one at Montparnasse was built in 1973 at 59 floors.

The French pay 75 percent in taxes in gasoline.

There are five weeks of paid vacation each year.

A pack of cigarettes costs 10 euros.

Napoleon crowned himself emperor

Every year France receives 83 million visitors, 15 million of which go to Euro Disney.

To rent an 800 square-foot flat it costs around 2,300 euros a month, but the average wage is 1,600 euros.

We made a quick stop at The Invalides, Napoleon's final resting place. Twelve kilograms of gold leaf was used to reguild the dome on top of the Invalides and the place was originally a home for soldiers.

Napoleon's body is placed in seven coffins, and his actual height was 5 feet 6 inches, so he wasn't that short. He was originally from Corsica, half French, half Italian. He grew up speaking Italian and didn't learn French until he was older.

He worked hard, some 15 hours a day and graduated from the Military College that was passed by. There are still some bullet holes from World War II on the façade of the college that can easily be seen.

The interesting "inside outside" design of Centre Pompidou

Another point of interest we saw was the Eiffel Tower. It was built in 1889 by Gustav Eiffel for the World's Exposition and was meant to be a temporary building to be taken down in 20 years. Many protested it, but at the last minute the structure was saved, mostly because it had military uses in sending wireless messages from the top.

It took 26 months to build the tower and it has four elevators, one in each leg. They now have double-decker elevators, each carrying 50 people at a time. The second floor of the tower is Jules Verne Restaurant, which was taken over by Alain Ducasse about a year ago. No food is actually "cooked" on the tower – it is brought up there – not even candles can be placed on a birthday cake.

Le Corbusier looked at things in terms of geometry

Eiffel was a well known civil engineer at the time and also assisted in the infrastructure of the State of Liberty that was a gift from the French to the Americans.

There's a giant gold "eternal flame" that was a gift from the Herald Tribune in 1987, but it happens to be by the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed in the tragic car accident with Dodi el Fayed. As a result the "eternal flame" has become a shrine where people still pay their respects to the late princess.

Two of Le Corbusier's chair designs that are still around today

Another must-see sight is the Arc de Triomphe, built by Napoleon to celebrate his victories. Thirty-three generals and marshals are remembered here, including Victor Hugo's father.

The arch is where the tomb of the unknown soldier is located, and the eternal flame there has been going non-stop for 94 years – even during World War II. Every night at 6.30pm there is a ceremony to remember the war dead.

This is also the place where the Tour de France ends.

Le Corbusier's concept of man and his various measurements

Our tour ended at Place de la Concorde, where we saw the obelisk that was originally from Luxor. It took five years and a specially made boat to carry it from Egypt to France. The obelisk is now 3,300 years old.

After lunch we went to Centre Pompidou near Chatelet Les Halles metro station. It's a curious building – the various pipes are on the outside, kind of turning the building inside out, as a way to save more space inside.

This photo of him ended the exhibition!

Designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, the building is not only a exhibition space but also a community one too. The pipes are colour coded – blue for air conditioning, green for water circulation, red for transporting people in elevators and escalators, and yellow for electricity.

For 3 euros we were able to go to the top of the centre and have a good overview of Paris. We could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance as well as Sacre Coeur.

Inside we took a quick look at one of the current exhibitions, Le Corbusier: Mesures de L'Homme or Measures of Man.  

It was similar to the show we saw in New York over a year ago, celebrating the architect's innovative designs that focus on minimalism and functionality. Here it was more about the human body and how it fits in relation to architecture and furniture.

The stained glass dome at Galeries Lafayette

In 1943 he began thinking about the Modulor, a system of measurement based on the size of the average man, 183cm or 226cm when his arm was raised. However it wasn't just about numbers, Le Corbusier would make line drawings of human figures that were stamped onto drafts or painted or carved on walls of buildings.

The exhibition also showcases his paintings, sculptures, furniture designs and of course architectural drawings, including one of Notre Dame du Haut Chapel in Ronchamp, and of course Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab state, commissioned by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Afterwards we made our way to Galeries Lafayette where we saw lots of mainland Chinese tourists shopping up a storm or taking a break by sitting on the floor with their bags of purchases. We focused more on appreciating the stained glass domed ceiling than the luxury merchandise on the sale.

Printemps celebrating 150 years with flowers

Across the street Printemps is celebrating its 150^th anniversary and trying to drum up business with collaborations with various brands, such as a special Printemps pink macaron from Laduree…