LinkChinese UK News

Schools in Lancashire share teaching resources to offer their pupils Mandarin courses. Gordon McCully reports on This Is Lancashire:

East is meeting west at a primary school where pupils are getting to grips with learning Mandarin.

Youngsters at Gillibrand Primary, Grosvenor Road, Chorley, are picking up the new language with the help of Mandarin teacher Lichan Lu. Head teacher Sharon Franklin said: “She comes in once a week and she takes year one and year five children.

“It’s through our links with Parklands High School because she is a language assistant at Parklands.”

Read the full report.

 

Michael Church meets Chinese pipa player Wu Man (吴蛮) and introduces her instrument and music on the Guardian:

An eighth-century Chinese poet likened the sound of the pipa, the leaf-shaped Chinese lute, to that of pearls falling on a jade plate. That may be accurate, but it’s only one of the effects the world’s leading player can extract from it: Wu Man’s pipa can crack jokes, sing sweetly, caress, howl or roar - sounds you’d scarcely dream it was possible to produce with 10 fingernails and four strings over a shallow rosewood box.

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Terry Riley’s The Cusp of Magic, with the Kronos Quartet and Wu Man, is relasesed on February 4 by Nonesuch.

 

The Academic Technology Approval Scheme (Atas) was meant to pretect national security. It requires postgraduates from countries outside EEA to be cleared by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) if they apply for 41 “sensitive” subjects. Since its launch last November, 1800 students have been through this system, while there will be more applicants this autumn when the new academic year starts. Some UK universities complaint this increase their administrative burden and the process time is longer than expected. The National Postgraduate Committee (NPC), who are against Atas, say Atas discriminates against certain nationalities, and the idea does not work. Some universities also suggest that the new point-based visa system has not been well prepared.

The Guardian’s Jessica Shepherd reports Vetting gets a mixed reception:

A voluntary vetting scheme in which universities offered information to the Foreign Office preceded Atas. It was, by all accounts, patchy. Only about 30 universities participated. Universities were informed that they should alert the government to students on a list of countries studying certain subjects. “But no one knew where the information given went,” says Laura Kishore, chair of an umbrella group for university admissions staff.

At least this system is open, compulsory and transparent. But does it work? No one has talked in public about it, let alone evaluated it. The Foreign Office says it will do this in May.

Dominic Scott, chief executive of the UK Council for International Student Affairs, says the new system takes longer to clear students than expected.

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Xinhua reports:

Chinese citizens’ donations to charity totaled 3.2 billion yuan (about 438 million U.S. dollars) last year, according to a Ministry of Civil Affairs report.

The report said that in 2007, donations from individuals and businesses were about 22.316 billion yuan, equal to 0.09 percent of gross domestic product, up 123 percent from 2006. Donations from overseas stood at 8.609 billion yuan. The total of domestic and overseas donations, which exceeded 30.9 billion yuan, was double the 2006 figure.

Read the full report.