“Dakar Rally” set to start in Beijing

(Beijing Today website’s blog section does not represent any view of Beijing Today or its reporter. Anyone interested about the story can find the original text from the link above the article. The site’s blog section aims to introducing expat blogs in China to more Chinese readers as 50 percent of Beijing Today readership remain young Chinese who have experience of living abroad, white colors or school students. Blogger who does not want his or her story linked at Beijing Today’s website, please email to info@beijingtoday.com.cn to take down the stories. )

By Zhao Hongyi

This weekend, a long distance race is to be held in Beijing. The organizer is noticing residents to avoid the routes in the scheduled time. This remind me of another rally to be held by The North Face in May.

The organizaer, or The North Face, is calling on people, including expats, to register on their website and take part in the race to be held in Changping District, an excellent place for the beautiful scenaries, such as the Royal Ming Tombs, Shisanling Reservoir and remote mountanous areas.

Registration for the annual North Face 100 series is now open. Runners and athletes will have the chance to compete in three races – the 10-kilometer, 50-kilometer and 100-kilometer – on May 7 in Changping District.

As always, the competition will start in Juyongguan Great Wall and end at the Ming Tomb Reservoir.

The courses are a mixture of paved roads, rocky and hilly paths, tracks and trails. The competition is also known as the Dakar Rally.

The competition has a long history in the US and Europe. Three years ago, the event came to Asia and is now held in six countries: China, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

The organizer has invited Kaburaki Tsuyoshi, an internationally renowned endurance runner and two-time champion of the North Face 100 China’s 100-kilometer race, to teach at a camp in Beijing from mid-March to May. The camp is open to the public.

Other participants include professional runners Xiaoqiang Zeng from Hong Kong and Xing Ruling, Yun Yanqiao, Zhang Huiyi and Bai Bing from the Chinese mainland.

The competitions are scheduled to begin at 4:30 am to give more participants the chance to take part. About 5,000 people participated last year, and organizers are expecting participation to reach 6,600 this year.

For the sake of safety and security, organizers will limit the number of participants in the 100-kilometer and 50-kilometer races at 200 and 400 people.

All registration fees are refundable. Applicants in the 50-kilometer race can register in groups.

Visit thenorthface100.com.cn or call the organizing committee at 8569 9751 for more information.

John Edwards to testify on affair and campaign cash

(Guardian)-The former US senator and presidential contender, John Edwards, knows a thing or two about disgrace.

He has endured the exposure of his affair while his wife was battling breast cancer. Then came the revelation that he had fathered a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter, but persuaded a close aide to claim paternity to hide it from his family and the press.

That aide, Andrew Young, went on to write a bestselling book, The Politician, that laid bare Edwards’s multiple duplicities as well as offering a detailed description of a sex tape the former North Carolina senator made with Hunter.

Now Edwards is facing further embarrassment, and possibly criminal charges, over whether he spent government money to hide Hunter away from the public eye.

Edwards was summoned to answer questions today for a sworn deposition in a lawsuit by Hunter to recover the tape from Young, who denies he still has any copies of it. His lawyers planned to ask the former senator about claims that he used federal campaign funds to keep Hunter hidden in lavish accomodation.

Read more

Why does Apolo Anton Ohno yawn before his races?

Seconds before the biggest moment of his career, the excitement and adrenaline were finally too much for Apolo Anton Ohno. He couldn’t hold it in any longer.

He yawned.

Television viewers were stunned by the American’s apparently lackadaisical approach to the race, which would determine whether he would become the Winter Olympian with the most medals in U.S. history. (He did, with a bronze.)

British Open golf champion Stewart Cink even Tweeted that Ohno’s action made him yawn, too, as he watched on TV. 

Yet some sneaky investigation by Yahoo! Sports revealed there is madness behind Ohno’s moribundity.

A friend of Ohno’s – who asked not to be named because, er, “Apolo might not like it” – revealed that the yawning lets extra oxygen into his lungs in the seconds before bursting across the ice.

Ohno himself confirmed as much to Yahoo! Sports. “It makes me feel better,” he said. “It gets the oxygen in and the nerves out.”

Seconds before the biggest moment of his career, the excitement and adrenaline were finally too much for Apolo Anton Ohno. He couldn’t hold it in any longer.

He yawned.

Television viewers were stunned by the American’s apparently lackadaisical approach to the race, which would determine whether he would become the Winter Olympian with the most medals in U.S. history. (He did, with a bronze.)

British Open golf champion Stewart Cink even Tweeted that Ohno’s action made him yawn, too, as he watched on TV. 

Yet some sneaky investigation by Yahoo! Sports revealed there is madness behind Ohno’s moribundity.

A friend of Ohno’s – who asked not to be named because, er, “Apolo might not like it” – revealed that the yawning lets extra oxygen into his lungs in the seconds before bursting across the ice.

Ohno himself confirmed as much to Yahoo! Sports. “It makes me feel better,” he said. “It gets the oxygen in and the nerves out.”

Changing views on race – Country faces culture clash as foreign residents increase

With trade and commerce drawing ever larger numbers of foreigners to Chinese cities, tensions have become more common in a country of limited racial diversity.

How does increased immigration alter Chinese perceptions of race? How has the society historically dealt with ethnic differences?

Increasing tension

This summer, African immigrants, mostly the traders and merchants who make up a growing enclave in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, protested over a black man’s accidental death. Hundreds gathered at a police station, drawing attention t the plight of Africans in China.

Meanwhile, in a well-publicized moment, a 20-year-old Shanghainese contestant to an American-Idol-like show named Lou Jing started a national debate about what it means to be Chinese. Lou, the daughter of a Chinese woman and a black American whom she has not met, considers herself completely Chinese.

Culture clash with workers

The Africans’ protests aside, foreigners working on themainland also feel the tensions that expose differences in work experience, pay levels and communication.

In the last few years, a growing number of Americans in their 20s and 30s have been heading to China for employment.

“The tight collaboration of the two countries in business and science makes the Chinese-American pairing one of the most common in the workplace in China,” said Vas Taras, a management professor at the University oforth Carolina at Greensboro, a specialist in cross-cultural work group management.

But the two groups were raised differently.

The Americans have had more exposure to free-market principles. “Young Americans were brough up in a commercial environment,” said Zhao Neng, 28, a senior associate at Blue Oak Capital, a private equity firm based in Beijing. “We weren’t. So the workplace provides a unique learning process for my generation.”

Sean Leow, 28, founder of Neocha, a social networking site based in Shanghai, says young Chinese employees often enter jobs with less hands-on preparation. They may also have less understanding about client services, he said.

In addition, he said, “I know a lot of my Chinese colleagues did not do internships in college,” in contrast to US student.