Trending across China

Fewer sit graduate entrance exam this year, Beijing expects its first winter snow, netizens finds out five magic Fridays, high-profile Chinese tycoon books trip to bid the New York Times, it's all trending now across China.

First snow is due

Beijing is expected to have its first winter snow on January 6, with temperatures dipping from 6 to 10 degrees, Chinanews.com reported.

According to the Central Meteorological Observatory, a strong cold air from Xinjiang will bring cold weather and a range of rain and snow from Saturday night. Although a drop in temperature, the cold wind will alleviate the dry weather that has been in place for more than two months. The rain and snow are expected to improve air quality in the region.

Related: New Year's Day in Beijing for six decades

'Magical' dates

The discovery of "magical" dates - those that align the date of the month with the month of the year - have gone viral. Perhaps more significantly, April 4, June 6, August 8, October 10, and December 12 in 2014 will all fall on Friday.

Even so, people have found that these dates are similarly "magical" every year. They were all on Thursday in 2013 and will be on Saturday in 2015. Liu Qingming, doctor of computer science at Nanjing Xiaozhuang college, said the phenomenon is not accidental. He explained that there are 63 days between every two months from every April, and 63 is a multiple of 7, so these dates definitely fall on the same day.

Related: Couples rush to marry on date of 'lifetime love'

Labor camp dream falls flat

A contractor with a debt crisis set off firecrackers to blow up an ATM in Shandong province, hoping to be put into a labor camp for the upcoming Spring Festival. To his chagrin, such reeducation through labor, commonly known as "laojiao" was officially abolished by vote at the National People's Congress (NPC)'s bi-monthly session on Dec 28, 2013.

Related: China abolishes reeducation through labor

Fewer pursue graduate study

The annual national graduate entrance examination started today. Although it is the first year that the 40-year-old age limit is abolished in the graduate entrance exam, many provinces such as Hebei, Hubei and Liaoning see a decline in candidates.

Experts say employers no longer blindly pursue employees in the same way they did before. "A graduate degree may not be worth the same years' work experience", said Chen Yuguang, director of admission office of Tongji University.

Related:

In photos:Graduate school entrance exam begins

Advertisement for husband at bus stops

A 28-year-old woman has become a hot topic among Chengdu residents after her looking-for-love advertisement was posted on more than 200 bus stops on Wednesday.

The ads are 10 meters long and 4 meters wide, and the cost is reported to reach 1 million Yuan a day. Huang Lijuan said she wanted to publicly solicit for marriage after her parents and relatives recently pushed her to tie the knot.

Chinese tycoon's bid for NY Times

Chinese businessman Chen Guangbiao, a high-profile philanthropist, showed his determination to purchase The New York Times by posting his air ticket to the Big Apple on China's twitter-like Sina Weibo on Friday.

Chen said in a phone interview with Reuters on Friday that he had retained a financial services firm that, along with its in-house lawyers, would assist him in his bid to acquire the Times.

He has also said he will meet with a "leading shareholder" of the Times for dinner on Sunday evening to talk over his offer of $1 billion. The Times current market value is $2.4 billion.

Related: Entrepreneur uses cash to promote national census

Zero tolerance for animal cruelty

Two men who abused a cat by kicking it around like a ball in Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, were slapped with a 16-month jail term, the heaviest sentence that Hong Kong courts have ever passed for a case of animal cruelty.

A magistrate chastised the pair for being "cruel and lacking compassion". The ruling got the thumbs up from advocates of animal rights, who said it had sent an important message to society that animals should be protected just like humans.

Related: Pet abuse videos prompt outrage

Old family compound to be demolished

A family whose roots go back 200 years in a historic and architecturally significant compound in Zhengzhou was told to leave to make way for the bulldozers, Dahe News reported.

According to a notice from the local government, the An family compound, which was built during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), will be flattened to make way for urban construction before Jan 15. Located in Miaohou'an village in Longwang township, the compound has an architectural style representative of Central China.