Although some of China’s history has been lost to time, here’s a fascinating look at how life was at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University during the 1920s.

This historical footage was unearthed by CCTV and features footage taken at the university in 1926 for the school’s 30th anniversary. Shot by an unnamed school alumni, the black and white silent film shows students and teachers at Jiaotong going about their classes and taking part in sports like rugby, tennis, basketball, swimming, and ping pong.

What’s notable about the footage is that even though students are seen wearing both Western and Chinese attire, all men are seen with their hair cut short and worn in a long queue as was the tradition during the Qing Dynasty. This distinction also points out that of all the footage from the school, not one woman is seen.

Here’s the video:

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Ten children were wounded in a knife attack at the front gate of the Yangfan Elementary School in the Southern City of Haikou, Hainan yesterday.

The attacker chased after children, stabbing them as classes ended for the day before turning the knife on himself.

Six boys and four girls were taken to local hospitals for medical treatment. Two victims were in serious but not life-threatening condition, including a girl that was stabbed in the neck.

Police say the motive of the 30 something year-old suspect was unclear, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Knife attacks at Chinese schools have occurred regularly over the years, with perpetrators typically targeting China’s most vulnerable citizens.

On the first day of school in 2014, a knife-wielding attacker killed three people at a Hubei elementary school before committing suicide by jumping off the roof. Later that same month, four school children were killed in Guangxi as they walked to school in the early morning.

Arguably the worst knife attack in recent memory was a 2012 incident in which 23 children and one woman were wounded at a Henan elementary school. The attacker, Min Yongjun, suffered from epileptic seizures, while police said he believed in “doomsday rumors”.

Since this attack, security guards are posted at schools across the country which regularly practice drills against “anti-terrorism” attacks.

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The truly infuriating part for local residents was that neither the school officials nor the developer offered any explanation as to why the school was being demolished until yesterday. According to a school official, “hidden geological dangers that are difficult to explain, necessitate the school having to be completely rebuilt from scratch.” There has been no further clarification as to what precisely the hidden geological dangers are, however as the demolition of the school began on Monday, it doesn’t make much of a difference at this point.

Prior to the “explanation”, residents took to Weibo to speculate as to why the school was being destroyed. Several netizens questioned if the city failed to meet its GDP quota, arguing the school was specifically built to be torn down. Others suspected the demolition was the result of shoddy construction, or that there were simply not enough students to attend the school.

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In passing the amendments, lawmakers said all schools in the country must get rid of GM foods in order to ensure food safety and protect students’ health.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator, Lin Shu-fen, argued that genetically modified foods have a “huge impact” on the physical and psychological health of Taiwan’s students, while Kuomintang Legislator Lu Shiow-yen said that consumption of genetically modified foods is “a hidden food safety crisis” exposing students to “unnecessary risks.”

Last month, Taiwan banned the import of genetically modified salmon from the US.

There is of course a financial cost to Taiwan’s new policy. When the new requirements take effect next semester, the cost of school meals could increase by as much as NT$5 each. As a result, the Ministry of Education’s budget for subsidizing school meals for 262,000 disadvantaged elementary and junior school students would increase by NT$235.8 million ($7.17 million).

Meanwhile, public fears over genetically modified foods have been raised throughout mainland China and surrounding territories.

This past August, China’s Ministry of Agriculture released a statement saying all genetically-modified foods are safe. While no official measures have been taken yet in Hong Kong, a voluntary labeling system has been adopted by food retailers in the special administrative region.

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The incident occurred around 2:30pm at the Xinyuan Road Applied Arts Academy of Henan in an office of the school’s engineering department. A man named Zhang reportedly held a man named Guo hostage at knife point.

According to a source that works at the school, the workers had not been paid wages for their work. Alcohol is said to be a factor in the dispute as workers were drinking during their lunch hour, immediately prior to the incident.

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Students made up almost four percent of all new cases last year, while they only accounted for 0.74 percent back in 2002. Three quarters of the 172 reported HIV cases among students in Guangzhou came from same-sex intercourse among males.

A study said a lack of HIV/AIDS awareness and a more open attitude towards sex has contributed to the rise in the number of HIV cases. But as China Daily reports, the Guangzhou CDC said nearly 93 percent of Guangzhou students were given HIV/AIDS prevention education in 2014.

“Since 2008, the number of HIV/AIDS cases among male college students has increased much faster than those among females… About 80 percent of newly detected cases involve sex between men,” said Wu Zunyou, head of the National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention.

Before a city-wide crackdown sparked by a CCTV report that revealed rampant prostitution, Guangdong’s own Dongguan was hit with a full-blown HIV crisis. At the beginning of 2014, local media reported that as many as 2,000 of Dongguan’s sex workers had HIV, with some of them engaging in prostitution.

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However, when it comes to Beijing traffic, back to “normal” generally means back to gridlock. And that’s precisely what the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport (BMCT) is warning residents to expect today following heavy congestion across the city yesterday.

Yesterday marked the first day back at work after the holiday, as well as the first day without vehicle restrictions. And as one might expect, traffic was insane.  The BMCT predicted that yesterday’s congestion reached a 9.2 on the index, which means that the average speed on many city roads didn’t exceed 20 kph.

With today marking the first day of school for Beijing elementary and middle school students, the congestion is only expected to get worse.

This past spring, among a list of 45 cities across China, Beijing ranked as the most congested. While in July, the Beijing Transportation Research Center found Beijing’s traffic index to have worsened 32 percent as compared with the same month last year.

On average, Beijing commuters spend 32 minutes every day sitting in rush hour traffic.

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But that’s not the toughest part. That would be going on xiangqin (相亲 “xiāngqīn”), something that is similar to the Western notion of “dating”, except you’re under pressure by your family to quickly find the partner of your dreams to start a family. Given the tremendous responsibility involved, some Chinese eschew their xiangqin duties even though they represent a massive break from traditional times when most marriages were arranged.

So what’s a single guy in China to do these days? Thousands are enrolling in a school to learn how to properly date a girl. Business is booming for schools like the one profiled in the report. Here, single men are taught the proper etiquette and skills that will help transform them from bumbling bachelors into happily married men.

With courses like “Love Diagnosis”, “How to Find a Boy/Girlfriend”, “How to Find a Wife/Husband”, “Love Retrieval”, and “How to Build Your Appearance”, tuition costs anywhere from several hundred yuan to RMB 20,000. One of the courses that runs for seven days costs RMB 7,000.

Instructors at the unnamed school have lots of advice when dealing with Chinese women. A teacher named Fan Chen explained to students that getting a girlfriend is not about chasing after them, but providing a personal framework and manner to which they will be attracted on their own accord. Another teacher known as “Wander” said, “Unrelenting efforts towards a girl for which you give her medicine when she is sick and food when she is hungry will only ever award you by getting into her ‘friendzone’.”

How to use social media

One of the lessons deals with the importance of how your portrait is seen on social media, two things that serve as the first impression for a woman.

For this reason, teachers at the school emphasize that your social media circle should be made to look very busy, and that particular attention should be paid to your portrait. To help give the impression of having high value, Students at the school should use a photograph of themselves with a classy background featuring a 5-star hotel or a yacht.students at the school should use a photograph of themselves with a classy background featuring a 5-star hotel or a yacht.

As explained by an instructor, “A women’s intuition is much stronger than a man’s when it comes to social interaction. Her judgement of you will come from these few details.”

The “hot water” trick

The school doesn’t divulge many details of its curriculum, but the report does explain one way of impressing a Chinese girl from an anecdote given by a teacher.

Called the “hot water” trick, the idea is to walk into an upscale nightclub or bar and immediately ask for two cups of hot water the moment you walk in. Later, after finding a girl to speak with, the waiter will come with your hot water. This will impress the new girl you just met because she will have seen you walk in and receive hot water without asking This will impress the new girl you just met because she will have seen you walk in and receive hot water without asking, making it appear like you a regular customer at the club. Upon leaving, you should take the waiter aside for a few private words, again making it look like you are on good terms with the wait staff at the establishment.

It may be that the entire course at the dating school is full of little techniques like this one, making dating a breeze. However, as Wander explains, his students have their own personal reasons for coming to the dating school, and it’s not necessarily for dating:

90 percent of the men who come here don’t do it in order to meet more women. Instead, they are here to give themselves another skill. They want to learn a secret technique, but not to use it in order to hurt someone else, but to protect themselves.

Wander knows the type of student that comes to his school:

They don’t like themselves. The vast majority of them are inarticulate, and don’t know what they want. Whatever you tell them will be answered with a “sure sure sure” and many nods. They feel very inferior.

And Wander knows he has his work cut out for him:

Some of our students dress poorly. They don’t have any original thoughts, no prior experience with girls. Upon reaching the age of 30, they are still muddleheaded, and still haven’t yet gotten serious over their own career. This is the average man of China.

That’s a stinging indictment, but it’s clear that these men need to make a change. As the teachers at the school directly tell the students:

Chinese girls like men with money and looks, but here you are holding a stack of cash and photographing yourself holding onto a steering wheel. Will they like you? Of course not!

As the report says, a Chinese man born during the 90s has a 1 in 6 chance of remaining single his entire life, a rate that falls to 1 in 7 for Chinese men born during the 00s.

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Packing winds traveling at 35 meters per second, typhoon Linfa made landfall near the City of Shantou at the eastern side of Guangdong Province yesterday at noon.

Although the National Meteorological Center had warned Linfa would have a “serious impact” on South China, emergency measures were dropped once it was was downgraded to a tropical storm two hours later. As Linfa continues to moves westward through the province, it is expected to lose strength.

However, thousands of residents had already been evacuated from coastal areas. More than 10 thousand ships were forced back to port in five cities to wait out the storm. A yellow alert established on Wednesday closed kindergartens, elementary and middle schools in 15 counties.

No injuries or deaths have been reported so far. As of 10pm yesterday, 1.6 million Guangdong residents had been affected by the typhoon, the tenth of the year.

One of the worst-hit cities, Jieyang, experienced flooding along with toppled utility poles and trees. The city’s airport canceled 53 flights, stranding 5,000 passengers. High-speed rail service between Xiamen and Shenzhen was also suspended.

Guangzhou has also experienced harsh weather conditions, particularly in Tianhe and Yuexiu districts.

Meanwhile, a second typhoon is expected to hit the eastern coastal areas of Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shanghai tonight, with warnings that this typhoon may be more destructive than Linfa.

With typhoon Chan-hom now upgraded to “super typhoon” status with its winds recorded at 187 kilometers per hour, local jurisdictions lying in the path of the typhoon have been placed on the highest alert possible.

Dong Lin of the China’s Central Meteorological Observatory says typhoon Chan-hom is much stronger than typhoon Linfa, adding that it may bring more rain.

Local authorities have already initiated emergency measures. Sixty-six trains on the Hangzhou-Shenzhen line were suspended yesterday, with another 14 scheduled to be stopped today and tomorrow.

Nangka, a third typhoon that appeared the same time as Linfa and Chan-hom, is expected not to approach China.

Here are some more photographs of typhoon Linfa’s impact:

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Guangzhou has now revealed how it plans to contribute to the national goal with a new three-year plan designed to cultivate soccer skills in youngsters.

READ: China Makes Football Mandatory In Schools As It Dreams of Championships

As with school systems throughout the rest of the country, Guangzhou will make soccer classes compulsory for all students in elementary and middle schools as introduce a four to six day soccer seminar as part of the school’s curriculum every semester.

By the end of this year, soccer programs are to be set up in 300 Guangzhou schools. By 2015, 25 specially-dedicated soccer schools are to be established throughout the city. By 2016, 500 Guangzhou schools should be involved in the program, creating a total of 5,000 intra-mural soccer teams from 500 schools and involving 50,000 students. Also by 2016, 75 specially-dedicated soccer schools are to be established.

READ: China Faces a Rocky Path to Football Superiority

The new focus on soccer and physical education is a radical departure from the standard practice of rote-learning in preparation for the gaokao, the university entrance qualifying exam.

Soccer development at a grassroots level is also a move away from the recent popularity of exclusive soccer schools with high tuition fees, such as the RMB 1.2 billion ($195 million) academy operated by Guangzhou Evergrande.

While President Xi has expressed his national dream for China’s youth to be healthy, a renewed emphasis on soccer may also reflect Xi’s desire for China to qualify, host, and win the World Cup, as seen here in cartoon form.

READ: Guangzhou to Build 100 New Football Pitches by 2016

Institutionalized soccer instruction is not new to China. In the 90s, around 4,000 traditional soccer schools were closed when Chinese football’s image tanked due to a failure to win Asian titles or qualify for the World Cup.

Aside from soccer, other international spots have seen great potential in China for sports development. Professional sports associations representing football, basketball and ice hockey have all expressed interest in developing their respective sports in China.

Related:

• Nanfang TV: Guangdong’s “Football Factory” an Attempt to Make China a Football Power
• The Nanfang Talks Evergrande and Chinese Football with Renowned Blooger
• Lionel Messi Says China Needed To Make Football Truly Global

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