Week in review: combustible mattresses, taxi etiquette, and escaped crocodiles
Odd News
A truck driver who recently gained notoriety on the Internet as the "Highway Spiderman" for driving his truck at almost 130kph with his feet was fired when his boss saw the report of his employee's deeds in the Chengdu Evening Post. Apparently, the truck driver's boss did not appreciate his employee's amazing feat.
To encourage their 10-year-old son to stay home and do his homework instead of going to the video arcade, a man in Wuhou district's Majia He Cun bound him in iron chains. This seemed like a good idea until the police got involved, they said.
As the old saying goes, "When a crocodile escapes from your restaurant boat, you yourself must catch it again." This happened literally a couple weeks ago on Jialingjiang River in Nanchong, but the crocodile was still at large somewhere in the river as of Monday.
Headlines
A mattress factory in Fujianian village burst into flames last Thursday, with fires so intense they took 18 hours to extinguish. We don't know the cause of the fire, but we can say that the area seems to be a "hotbed" of disaster...
Did anyone see some lightning last Saturday evening? Within a space of three hours, lightning struck Chengdu 1,617 times, as reported by Sichuan News Online, citing "official data."
A truck ran straight into a two-story restaurant in Pengzhou's Shaping town last Thursday, burying seven people under rubble. One was killed, and ten others—buried and unburied—were injured. The restaurant owner escaped harm.
Society & Culture
Traffic police on Hongxing Road are going to take the lead in trying to force taxi passengers to form lines when waiting for a taxi, replacing the customary "only the strong survive" system. This comes in preparation for the arrival of the "National Civilized City" inspection group to Chengdu.
Any non-Oxford, -Cambridge, -Harvard, and -Yale alums who are reading this might be surprised to hear that Chengdu's Xinjin county will hold a boat race between those four schools next month.
Construction & Development
Chengdu's 2nd High Speed Ring Road began construction the Tuesday before last. This fifth road to circle Chengdu will be 222km long, and is projected to take at least RMB28.5 billion and three years to complete. When finished, the road will link Guanghan, Qingbaijiang, Jintang, Longquan Yi, Shuanliu, Xinjin, Chongzhou, Wenjiang, Pixian, Xindu, and Pengzhou in one gigantic loop. The same day also saw the launch of four other high-speed roads: the Suining-Ziyang-Meishan, Nanchong-Dazhu-Liangping, and Leshan-Zigong highways, and the High Speed Road of Mianyang. Sichuan now has more meters of under-construction high-speed road than any other province in China.
The city will construct three new cloverleaf junctions starting in November, according to a recent announcement in the West China Metropolis Daily. They will be located at the major intersections at Gaoshengqiao and Yangxixian, as well as the 1st Ring Road Ximen Bus Station.
Sichuan Airlines just opened a direct, six-and-a-half hour flight between Chengdu and the Maldives on Tuesday. On the same day, it resumed flights between Chengdu and Seoul, which had been suspended.
The "Pendulum Clan" is the new name for the people who work in Chongqing five days a week but live in Chengdu, and vice versa. According to Chengdu Commercial Daily, the Pendulum Clan has been growing since the opening of the "Chengdu-Chongqing One-Hour Commercial Circle."
Compiled by Marvin Tan
This article was posted by Isaac and published July 31, 2010
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