From Chengdu Commercial Daily:

With the the birthday of his girlfriend of one year quickly approaching, he wanted to give his beloved a special birthday present.

Roses? Too ordinary. Jewelry? Too expensive. He needed something unique, something stunning, something nobody else would be able to give her.

So Zhang Dawei, 22, came up with a plan: steal a taxi.

For over a month, he investigated online, and sketched out a very detailed plan for how to commit his intended crime. And on the afternoon of October 13, he hid a knife in his coat and set off toward Wenjiachang, a suburb just west of Chengdu.

After hailing a cab, he instructed the driver to continue west toward the town of Yongning in Wenjiang. Somewhere along the way he assaulted the driver, decapitating him. He searched the now dead driver's pockets and removed 370 yuan, and then took the driver's seat to head back to Longquan, where he tossed the body out of the car and prepared his return to Jianyang.

Shortly after midnight, two night watchmen on a chicken farm in the Dafo village of Longquan town heard an engine revving. Their ears perked up at the sound coming from a road that sees little traffic. Believing it to be a thief so audacious as to drive a car to steal chickens, the watchmen grabbed hoes and approached the sound, ready to ward off the would-be thief. They saw a young man bent over a car at the same moment he spotted them.

The man took off on foot, with the hoe-wielding watchmen pursuing him. After a few kilometers, they gave up the chase and returned to the vehicle, whereupon they realized it was full of blood stains and notified police.

But the cab, it turned out, was a "black taxi" engaged in illegal transportation of passengers. The murdered driver of the cab was a 46-year-old Wenjiachang resident surnamed Chen. His partner in crime confirmed that around 9:30 that evening a young man dressed in sports clothes had gotten in his cab and they had set off toward Wenjiang's Yongning Industrial Park.

A cell phone left on the car's dashboard led directly to its owner, Zhang Dawei of Bishan County in Chongqing.

By 6 p.m. on October 15, police had tracked him and his girlfriend down in their rented room and arrested them. Zhang confessed to the crime, admitting that he did not expect he'd run into a dead-end road and did not know how to drive in reverse.

Headlines
Sichuan Occupation Art College's Green Path of Art Program was presented the Coming Up Taller Award by U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama for the U.S. President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities last Wednesday. The 10-year-old program has provided extracurricular arts and humanities programs for over 2,000 students. China Daily
The first batch of H1N1 vaccine in Chengdu will be given to hospital workers, police, public servants, and funeral staff by the end of the month. As of Friday afternoon, there were a reported total of 3184 H1N1 cases in the province, 2,649 of which had been cured. One person in Sichuan has died of the virus to date.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Hundreds of teachers led a four-day strike to protest low pay—under RMB1,000 per month, on average, according to some estimates—at the privately owned Chengdu Foreign Languages School and the Chengdu Experimental Foreign Languages School, which charge students approximately RMB20,000 per year in tuition fees. The strike ended after the city education bureau intervened, telling the teachers that if they did not get back to work, they would be replaced.
More reading at China Daily and China Study Group
Chengdu's infamous fog disrupted air and road traffic Saturday morning. At the Shaungliu Airport, 96 domestic flights were delayed until the afternoon, leaving over 10,000 passengers waiting around. The Chengdu-Leshan High Speed road was forced to shut down twice. In Meishan, one person was killed and four were hospitalized after a 23-vehicle collision.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

A teacher is charged with breaking a student's arm after catching the student playing poker in class. The incident occurred Saturday at Jinniu District's Yingcai School.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

The owner of a convenience store in the Baohe community was held up early Saturday morning by a man allegedly and unsuccessfully attempting to kill another woman. The local police intervened, firing shots and wounding the perpetrator, who is now in the hospital. The hostage escaped unharmed.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

There are still no traces of any of the six foreign climbers who went missing in Sichuan last month; a Hungarian source reports that a Chinese rescue team reached 5,000 meters and found nothing.
China Daily

A bus carrying 24 passengers fell off a cliff Friday in Jianwei, killing two and injuring 22.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Construction and Development
The first tangible sign of the Chengdu metro's impending opening (scheduled for late 2010) appeared last Wednesday in the form of the completed Fuyu Yuan stop. The Tongziling stop is also scheduled for completion before the end of the year.
Chengdu Commercial Daily
Good thing, because a report published by the official website of the "Chengdu Municipal Committee of Communication" says that the average waiting time for a taxi is about eight-and-a-half minutes, up from 7.83 minutes recorded in July, and that passenger satisfaction—unsurprisingly—has declined.
Auto Home

The new Chengdu Airlines is planning to start operations by the end of the month, making United Eagle Airlines history.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Construction on the Lijiang-Panzhihua high-speed road will begin next month. The RMB5 billion project is expected to be completed in 2012 and shorten the journey from Chengdu to Lijiang to just nine hours.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Wheelchair-accessible buses will debut in Chengdu mid-November. The fleet of 45 will be run on the city's 81 line. Drivers are currently being trained on how to operate the buses.
Chengdu Commercial Daily
The China National Petroleum Corp and Chevron have signed a deal to develop a 2,000-square-kilometer gas field in Sichuan with an estimated reserve of 5 trillion cubic feet.
China Daily

The Qingbaijiang Industrial Park will soon get a facelift and be renamed the Chengdu North New Industrial Park.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Society and Culture
When the Gaoxin District government announced that it would throw a matchmaking party for single white-collar employees who work in the region, hundreds of love-connection hopefuls rushed to sign up.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

A man charged with smoking in a gas station was tried in Shuangliu Court on Thursday—the first case of its kind in Chengdu. The man was found guilty of endangering the public.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

A Zigong girl who has suffered from the excruciating pain caused by severe scoliosis for the past eight years has appealed to China's netizens via a post to the Sichuan Online Forums for help to pay for surgery that she cannot afford.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Thousands of newlyweds tied the knot last Sunday in Chengdu. Since the date, November 8, or 118 sounds like "will get rich" in Chinese, it will purportedly bring new couples good fortune and prosperity. Our skeptical news-finder Marvin thinks it's all a bunch of hooey.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Odd News
A Xiguanmiao man attempted suicide after winning two RMB900 lottery prizes in a row. The man was diagnosed with mental illness soon after.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

A Chengdu shopkeeper adopted a stray dog, only to find it acts more like a cat, killing over 100 rats over two years. The owner says the dog's record is 20 rats in one hour.
China Daily

A Chongqing man has gone from prisoner to interior decorator and made millions in just four short years. Sentenced to 15 years in jail for robbery, the now-41 year old earned an early release for good behavior and set to work putting what he studied and learned behind bars to use.
China Daily

Four employees of a local software company who sold over RMB500,000 worth of virtual coins after stealing them via loopholes in an online game have been arrested.
China Daily

A Bazhong man was arrested for making more than 100 harassing phone calls to 110 (emergency-line) operators over the past five months.
Chengdu Commercial Daily

Researched by Marvin Tan

We've written before about how frustrating catching a taxi in Chengdu has become in the last few years. And although 800 cabs were allegedly added to Chengdu's streets last month, it doesn't seem to be getting any easier.

But now help is on the way, in the form of a "chubby figure" who chases down cabs for passengers, collecting 2 RMB each time.

From Sichuan News:


For the service he makes from 2 to 5 RMB. The industrious 20-year-old, Xiao Long, started grabbing cabs for passengers about a month ago, during which time he's earned a few hundred yuan.

Who is this plump traffic angel? Xiao Long came from Anyue to Chengdu with his parents, who repair electric tricycles. To pick up some extra money for his family, Xiao Long had been collecting plastic bottles, but inspired by children at Yanshikou who were grabbing cabs, he decided to try cab grabbing himself just a few blocks down at Hongxing Lu.

The first day on the job he earned 20 yuan and since then has spent three or four hours a day chasing cabs for others. "Want me to help you hail a cab? Just 2 kuai!" he calls out to passengers stranded by the side of the road, no empty taxi in sight. What started out as an experiment has become a job. "I could go to a restaurant and order a plate of fish-flavored eggplant. Sweet!" he said.

But the job is not without its risks. Xiao Long runs, grabbing onto the trunks of cabs and trotting behind them to ensure his clients will get a seat. Still, sometimes others will knock him down in order to grab the cab out from under his grasp. Sometimes the cabs themselves inadvertently knock him to the ground. And passing bus drivers verbally abuse him for running in their way. Other times he'll run and run to catch a cab, only to have the driver say, "Sorry, my shift just ended."

If he is unable to successfully get a cab within 30 minutes, he'll return the client's money.

After a month selling his services, Xiao Long has started to develop a following. The elderly like him since they're usually less able than others to aggressively hail cabs. And once a man on his way to the airport gave him RMB10 for helping catch a cab. More recently, a 16-year-old boy from Mei Shan named Xing Lin has been taken under Xiao Long's wing to learn the trade.

City residents call hailing a taxi "guerilla warfare" (游击) and all have their own strategies for catching one or avoiding them altogether, including avoiding certain areas, timing strategies, and taking alternative modes of transportation.

In a separate article, a reporter joined a cabbie during rush hour and found that from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., he picked up a total of 34 passengers, clocked in 300 kilometers, and took in about RMB500. The driver said these numbers were lower than usual and that the reporter sitting in the front seat might have discourage people from taking his cab that day.

The Sino-Japanese Taxi Company (中日出租汽车公司), who operates over 530 of the city's cabs, reported that their drivers take on average 50 passengers per day, which is higher than the national average of 30 to 40, according to a statement from the Southwest Jiaotong University school of urban and transportation planning.

Frustrated with the traffic in Chengdu? You're not alone. Sloppy driving, bus fires, bus collisions have all been recent complaints of Chengdu residents. And that's just the start. For those who take taxis, if you're lucky enough to nab one within 30 minutes, unless it's the middle of the night, you're likely to be sitting in gridlock for ... well, longer than it would take to walk the distance, sometimes. City officials say Renmin Nan Lu will return to "normal" by the end of next month, but we're not holding our breath.

On the other hand, it appears that some help is coming our poor, stranded, sardine-like residents' way in the form of several technological improvements to the bus system.

With the official launch of the Chengdu Bus Dispatch and Surveillance Center last Thursday, the 5,000 buses in operation in Chengdu are now under constant real-time electronic surveillance, Sichuan Online reports.

In addition to this safety measure, Chengdu's Public Transportation Authority has made several other enhancements to the bus system, including a text-messaging route-check system and electronic signboards at 500 stops.

The new surveillance system utilizes "smart" GPS technology to monitor the buses' speed, spacing, and passengers' alighting and disembarking. If any irregularities are detected, the bus driver will be notified. The system covers the entire area within the Second Ring Road.

Currently, only a handful of stops are equipped with signboards that notify passengers of the current time and date as well as the forecasted time of the next bus's arrival. These will be upgraded to also include route-change information, and by year's end, 500 of the city's stops will feature such signboards. In the future, all stops will be outfitted with a hidden camera feeding to the dispatch center.

Additionally, a new service has been launched to allow passengers to check bus routes via SMS. When a passenger sends the letters "GJ" to 10628106, the system will automatically reply with a menu that enables users to check all the stops on a particular bus line, possible routes between two stops, and the location of bus-pass recharging stations. The service is currently only in Chinese and costs 3 jiao per use or 1.2 yuan per month with unlimited usage.

Finally, the Palmcity website already provides real-time traffic information for several cities in China, including Chengdu, and will launch a program to show available parking spaces within the city, a spokesperson for the company told the China Daily.

A bus carrying 34 students and teachers spontaneously combusted on the High-Speed Ring Road (绕城高速) on its way to the airport yesterday morning. The engine possibly caused the explosion, and although the bus was completely burnt, all passengers exited safely. Apart from two students who were unable to board the plane as their identity cards had been burnt, the passengers boarded their flight to Jinan, Shandong.
Sichuan News Web

Water supplies to Chengdu were disrupted for more than 24 hours after mudslides contaminated the Minjiang River, one of the city's main water sources. Water to neighborhoods in the east and west were shut off Friday afternoon and resumed only Sunday morning. China Daily

The heavy, continuous downpour triggered a
landslide in the Aba Prefecture Friday. One person was reported dead and four missing. All of the victims were construction workers from Jiangxi Province. China Daily

Floods from the storm have killed at least eight people and damaged thousands of houses in Sichuan. Mudslides interrupted service on the Baoji-Chengdu railway, leaving nearly 20,000 passengers stranded at the Chengdu train station on Thursday. China Daily

Sichuanese Li Bo, 21, has been identified as the missing construction worker in a subway tunnel that collapsed in Shenzhen early Sunday. Rescue workers are searching the area for signs of life. Shenzhen Post

Road news

Wheelchair-accessible taxi cabs will be available for hire on Chengdu's streets by September. The 40 specially equipped cabs resemble London's TX4 black cabs in a bid to promote London to Chinese citizens, especially in light of the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games, to be held in London.

In addition to these vehicles, another 760 standard cabs have been ordered for Chengdu. But whether or not these additional cabs will put a dent in the demand for taxis during rush hour in the city remains to be seen. CRI English and Chengdu Invest

Construction began on a high-speed railway that will connect Chengdu to Qingcheng Mountain. Peaking at 200 kph at certain points of the 66-kilometer, 10-station track, the train will transport passengers between the two cities in 30 minutes, making stops in Dujiangyan and Pixian along the way. The construction is part of a post-quake plan to boost tourism, and the first train is expected to run on May 12, 2010.

In the meantime, Chengdu's north train station is getting a facelift to prepare its debut as a junction for the new express rail and Metro Line 1. Focus

Sports & culture
Giant panda Li Li gave birth to a pair of female twin cubs Sunday morning at the Giant Panda Research Base. The newborns weighed in at 122 and 100 grams and are the first pair of giant panda twins to be born this year. Xinhua

Chengdu's bid to host the Women's Asian Cup in 2010 was approved by the Asian Football Association Women's Committee meeting last week. The success of Chengdu's bid rested on the city's experience as one of the host cities of 2004 Men's Asian Cup and 2007 Women's World Cup. Asian Football Confederation

Oddities
Basketball superhero Shaquille O'Neal visited Sichuan last week, where he watched pandas and met with quake-displaced youth in Mianyang, bestowing gifts upon them.

After four autographed basketballs that he gave to students were confiscated by their school's leaders, Chinese netizens rallied to their cause (incited, apparently, by a poll on state-run media Xinhua), Shaq dispatched new balls to the students, and at least a few headline writers had a field day.

The balls in question, incidentally, carry the logo of sporting-good-manufacturer Li Ning (李宁), with whom O'Neal signed a sponsorship agreement in 2006. China Daily

A 14-year-old boy in Yibin has acquired a taste for gasoline after watching the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, both drinking and inhaling it in an attempt to turn himself into Optimus Prime. His parents have reported that as a result of his gas-guzzling, the boy is now unable to answer simple arithmetic questions. Sify

Among the arriving freshman at Chengdu University of Technology this fall will be the Wang triplets from Zhengzhou, Henan. It was a happy coincidence for the Wang family to learn that all three daughters gained admission to university, and even more so that they gained acceptance to the same department of study in the same university. China Daily

A 102-year-old woman named Li Wangqing has recorded daily entries in her diary since she was in middle-school, creating a journal of nearly a century of Chengdu's development. China Daily

A thief by the name of Yang sought help from a security guard after being chased by a mob threatening to beat him for stealing. The security guard responded by locking Yang in a room and calling the police. China Daily

A 17-year-old gaming addict who attempted to kill his father after being asked to play less and study more last year was released from a Chengdu mental health center last Tuesday. China Daily

Images: Sichuan News Web, CRI English and Montreal Gazette