Trending across China

Do couples fight over which family they will visit for Spring Festival? All men – even a student's father – are banned from women's dorms in Henan province. And who wants to buy soap made with human breast milk? It’s all trending across China.

Where to spend the holiday?

About thirty percent of married couples working in Beijing have bickered about where to spend the upcoming Spring Festival, with 19 percent of couples compromising to invite both sets of parents to their homes in the Chinese capital, a survey conducted by the Beijing News has found.

The survey sampled 100 non-Beijing native couples from different places in China, with at least one of the partners being an only child.

Twenty-eight couples have to travel to two places to visit their families during the seven-day holiday. For those who can’t compromise, going back home separately for “one’s mom” would be the only “fair and easy” solution, a woman surnamed Dai, who has been married for four years, suggested.

 

Left-behind women

“Left-behind women in rural areas are often sexually repressed,” Xiong Tong, a political adviser in Jiangxi province, said after introducing proposals needed to protect rural women whose husbands are away from home working in cities.

Xiong said the husbands of left behind women are away earning a living and these women do not get enough care, love or understanding, and their sexual needs are not met because their husbands are often away for a long period of time.

Xiong’s suggestions included developing rural economies, improving women’s awareness of the law and providing legal and economic assistance to them.

Males prohibited from female dorms

Authorities in Central China's Henan province will measure rigorous management of female student's dormitories at schools. All males, including students' fathers and teachers, are prohibited from entering without approval.

Education departments are asked to improve the management system to protect victims of sexual assault and minimize the possibility of an attack. Parents and schools should be alert and call the police at once if girls suffer from sexual abuse, Zhengzhou Daily, a local newspaper has warned.

Boy commits suicide for missing mom

A nine-year-old boy left behind in a rural county in East China's Anhui province committed suicide by hanging himself after he heard his mother would not come home for the Spring Festival this year.

The boy's parents got a divorce in 2012 and he ended up living with his maternal grandparents. The boy has never seen his mother in the past two years since she left to work in cities. (CCTV)

240,000 clicks per second

The number of mouse clicks made in one second at 12360.com, China’s official train ticket sales website, during peak Web traffic, is 240,000.

The online ticket-booking website has made ticketing easier, but the system has regularly crashed because of demand. People are rushing online to buy a ticket home during the 40-day Spring Festival travel period, which is expected to see 3.6 billion trips.

Related reading: 12306 phenomenon

AIDS added to list of occupational diseases

Its home city has added AIDS to its Occupational Diseases Classification and Catalog, Chongqing Daily reported on Friday.

But the classification only applies to medical and police staff who may work closely with AIDS patients and be vulnerable to the disease.

One in five fireworks substandard: watchdog

Twenty percent of fireworks tested last year by the country’s quality watchdog did not meet national standards, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said on Friday.

Millions of Internet users have called for a ban on fireworks during this year’s Spring Festival, amid widespread concerns about air pollution.

Related reading: Web crackles with anti-fireworks frenzy

Breast milk soap stirs controversy

Soaps made with human breast milk are a growing hit with customers, but some have raised concerns over the products’ safety.

Online retailers claim that breast milk has been added to bars of soap, making them “completely natural” and the “most tender” of cleaning products. But very few retailers specified the sources of the milk, let alone provided information about sterilization.