Ministry of Education Director Yuan Guiren said on July 28 that the ministry plans to make football a priority in schools from now on, reported China Daily.

Nanfang TV: Guangdong’s “football factory” an attempt
to make China a football power

The Ministry of Education says it will raise the number of Chinese schools that actively focus on football from 5,000 now to an eventual 20,000 within three years.

The focus on soccer is part of a larger plan, which involves more emphasis on physical education. There will soon be four PE classes a week from the current three for elementary school students, while high schoolers will move from two to three phys-ed classes.

READ: China Faces a Rocky Path to Football Superiority

Chinese education has traditionally emphasized rote learning in preparation for the gaokao, the university entrance qualifying exam, and has not focused upon physical education. However, Yuan was adamant this needs to change, saying:

No school will be able to use any reason or excuse to take away a student’s time that should be used for physical education class.

Yuan cities President Xi’s national dream for China’s youth to be healthy, but the renewed focus on physical education may also reflect Xi’s personal dream of football glory for the motherland. Xi’s football aspirations were recently immortalized in cartoon form. However, Xi has been clear that China would first qualify, then host, and then ultimately win the World Cup.

If playing football is going to be mandatory in Chinese schools as a way to alleviate the nation’s football woes, then we imagine “winning” should be made mandatory as well.

Related:

• Lionel Messi Says China Needed To Make Football Truly Global
• The Nanfang talks Evergrande and Chinese football with renowned blogger
• Guangzhou to Build 100 New Football Pitches by 2016

Photo: China Daily, Caijing, CCTV

One of the openings is a new International Tapas restaurant in Shekou, located in the Rose Garden Phase II next to The Snakepit, called Fresco. It is currently in its soft launch so is only open for dinner. The menu there isn’t extensive yet, but they have a very good foundation and are looking to be a part of the community, so give them some support if you can.

Chez Clement French Bakery has closed its Rose Garden Phase II location but still remains actively baking in it’s other Peninsula location. And if you eat too many baked goods, you might like to know Fusion Fitness Shekou near Dongjiaotou will be moving in the near future to a location just up the street across from Atmosphere. More news as it comes available.

Boogers, also on the Rose Garden strip, has closed down after many years serving the area.

Aulon Wine Bar and restaurant is almost done undergoing renovations and re-branding. It will soon be known as Volfoni Italian restaurant, named after a famous Italian mobster.

A new entry to the Rose Garden strip is Bi Won Korean BBQ. Small but very nice little place. Plans are in motion to offer an all you can eat and drink Korean BBQ buffet. I eagerly await that news.

A new Algerian restaurant has opened in Luohu district called Woodpecker. Serving many kinds of Mediterranean dishes to the community. This is currently the only Algerian restaurant in Shenzhen.

Les Duos is a new French Restaurant opening in OCT Bay. They are currently looking to fill many positions. Check out the classifieds section of TheNanfang.com.

Help us inform the people of Shenzhen about what’s new, what’s closed, or what’s moved. If you’ve noticed a new opening, closing, or relocation let us know about it. E-mail [email protected].

Capital Fitness Club in Guangzhou may be a bit red-faced once they find out how, well, slightly off some of their translations are.

Needless to say, it’s spawned plenty of comments on Twitter.

@storieshk @zhongnanhai @thenanfang “I bench 280. What do you bench?”; “I barbell fuck”.

— Chinmoy Lad (@chinmoylad) February 4, 2013

Thanks to @1234james1234 on Weibo for pointing out the website, which you can see for yourself here.

Needless to say, parents of the students at Fuhua Primary School were outraged and the teacher has been temporarily relieved of the responsiblity of teaching them.

A meeting for the parents was called at the school yesterday and the teacher was forced to explain himself. While he was trying to teach, students wouldn’t stop talking over him, so he forced the whole class to do the pose.

The pose looked something like this

If any student let their arm go down or their leg to touch the ground, he would extend the punishment. The ordeal lasted for 40 minutes.

Education authorities in Nanshan District said this fell under the category of corporal punishment and forcing students into humiliating situations.

Mr. Liu, the principal of the school, said he saw the teacher’s action not as corporal punishment but a “lesson” in balance. No joke. But he yielded to parents and said it would never happen again.

We recently told you about the teacher who stamped students’ faces with ink as punishment. Shenzhen-based anthropologist Mary Ann O’Donnell wrote about it on her blog.

What ever happened to giving students lines?

According to local television, last weekend a number of women were secretly photographed with iPhones at a swimming pool in Guangzhou. A women identified as Ah Zhu was swimming in the pool at The People’s Municipal Fitness Center in the city’s Yuexiu District around 7.30 in the evening when she saw three men near her with mobile phones. She thought it odd that they would have phones near a swimming pool, and made a mental note of the men’s appearances. The men all had non-local accents, she told 163 news.

One of the men, very tall, thin and thought to be in his twenties, sat by the pool playing with his phone, while the other two men would swim in the water with their iPhones, which had waterproof jackets. The men would periodically get together to look at each other’s screens, then laugh at what they saw.

Ah Zhu observed them for some time and noticed they would go under water to take photographs any time a female entered the pool, this included little girls and middle-aged women. She later told her boyfriend Ah Qiang who said that if he had been there, he would have started a fight. Concerned that the men might upload the photographs to a pornographic website, Qiang called for the health center to ban mobile phones from the pool area.

While the health center has yet to introduce a ban, according to lawyer Huang Zhiyong, it is a criminal offense to publish somebody’s picture on a pornographic website without their permission. In Huang’s opinion, the health center should take the necessary steps to protect the privacy of swimmers, and ensure such an offence isn’t committed again.

An estimated 20 hidden cameras have been found in a women’s changing room in a gym in Haikou City, capital of Hainan Province. A male member of the Xiandai Gym was reported to police after trying to blackmail three women with footage of them taking showers and changing clothes. The third of the three women went to police.  

The gym is estimated to have more than 1,000 female members, all of whom use the changing room. A user identified as Mrs. Wang told local television that she noticed the cameras when she looked at the roof while in the changing room. 

The member who installed the videos joined the gym in September 2011. Women have blamed the gym’s management and security system for allowing the man to gain access to the women’s changing room. The gym is yet to give an explanation and the manager cannot be reached for comment.  

Netizen c7680 opined that it was probably an inside job because an outsider would never be able to gain access to the changing room of the opposite sex. Another user blamed the manager for allowing ”unsuspecting women to become yellow movie stars.” 

This obviously isn’t the first time hidden cameras have been found.  In July 2011, a camera was installed in the women’s toilet on the third floor of a Guo Anju store in Bao’an District, Shenzhen.  The explanation? The store claimed the camera was installed to monitor the saving of water.