Terry Gou (Guo Taiming), the founder and chief executive of Foxconn, told a shareholder meeting that 90% of the suicides that have happened at Foxconn are “due to personal problems and family disputes”. Gou also told investors that with 470,000 employees, odds are some will commit suicide.

Guo did show some compassion, though, saying suicide does not solve any problems, and that anyone with suicidal thoughts should call the suicide prevention hotline.

Foxconn came to media prominence when a rash of suicides took place at the mega-factory complex between 2010 and 2012. As a result, staff made changes to the work environment that include reduced work hours, increased pay, the installment of safety nets to catch jumpers, psychological staff to help workers.

Related:

• Foxconn to Replace Shenzhen Workers with Robots
• Another Suicide at Foxconn? Employee Jumps Off 9th Floor After Slitting Wrists
• Another Worker Plummets to His Death at Foxconn
• Nanfang TV: A Peek Inside the Foxconn Fortress
• 17 Foxconn Workers Struck By Lightning on Huizhou Mountain

Photo: China Daily

Screencaps shown in this post are in chronological order as seen on video.

A shocking scene took place yesterday on the Beijing Metro as an unidentified woman, believed to be pregnant, fainted fell onto the tracks as a subway train pulled into the station.

The incident took place at 8:02am during the morning rush at Huoying Station on Beijing Metro’s Line 13.

READ: With Nobody Offering Help, Passed Out Woman Dies
Amid Crowds at Shenzhen

As seen in a video taken by a bystander at the scene, a woman can be seen gingerly crawling out from underneath the carriage of the subway train between the two rails. The woman reaches for her head as she stands up, and stumbles as she reaches out to people trying to pull her up from the subway tracks.

READ: Power Failure Suspends Shenzhen Subway Line for Six Hours

READ: Fight Over Subway Seat in Guangzhou Leads to Bloodshed,
Passengers Just Watch

Photos: Screenshots from Sina Video

Liu Chunlan, the head of the Beijing Municipal Environment and Ecology Institute and the Research Institute for the City Environment, said her team is researching wind routes in the capital and is looking to make changes to Beijing’s overall master plan.

The wind corridors will provide room for the wind to circulate by altering the heights of buildings and preventing groups of buildings from being built close together. The objective is to utilize wind from outlying districts and direct it to the city on days when smog accumulates.

The idea of harnessing the wind to alleviate smog conditions first reached the public’s attention last year, and has been steadily gaining acceptance since. A mini-circuit of Chinese cities looking to use wind corridors include Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Shaoxing and Fuzhou. As well, Wuhan wants to employ wind corridors to lower summer temperatures in the city.

Pictured: science.

Beijing’s ultimate goal is to reach a tolerable PM 2.5 standard of 35 milligrams per square meter by 2030, according to Pan Tao, the director of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Research Academy.

Pan said that Beijing had an average annual level of PM 2.5 at 89.5 milligrams per square meter in 2013.

Despite the optimism, Yang Baojun, chief planner of the China National City Planning Design Research Center doubts if the plan will be able to do much:

At present, the urban area of Beijing has grown out to five and six ring roads. Designing a wind corridor will prove to be difficult.

Yang said that Beijing’s bad air is due to surrounding factories and the ineffectual use of coal. Complicating matters is that Beijing is located in a valley, one that is ringed by mountains that can only be seen on days with clear visibility.

Photo: ndb, yunnan.cn

This is not the model advocating “pink holidays” at Sun Yat-sen University.

Women have been fighting to achieve equality for a long time in China. Now, with the help of a campaign at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Chinese women may finally get what they’ve always wanted: days off from work every month in order to recover from their menstrual cycle.

Colloquially known as a “pink holiday”, the concept was the brainchild of nine MBA students who were discussing the special needs of women workers when the issue of a woman’s period came up. The group concluded that “it would be best to let (women) recover at home”.

READ: Check Out this Pink, Extra-Wide “Women’s Only” Parking Spot in Dalian

To raise awareness for the campaign, the students organized an activity on the university campus in which inspiring phrases, such as these, were written on male models:

Women are like flowers, please cherish and take care of them.

The petition did not examine whether women’s salaries should reflect their increased time off, or how it could lead to discrimination.

READ: Sexist Guangdong Official Puts Foot In Mouth, Leaves It There

If “pink holidays” ever become law in China, we imagine the famous saying would have to be amended to “holding up half the sky—except when she’s on her period”.

Photo: China.com.cn

Bargain hunting became too much for a delegation of 27 Members of Parliament from Zimbabwe. The group of MPs were in Beijing to promote the country’s “Look East” policy, but took an unofficial detour to Guangdong Province by bullet train to go on a shopping spree. They ended up not only running out of money, but also missed their flight back home, reported Newsday.

To complicate things further, the Zimbabwean MPs fly Air Zimbabwe, and the next flight from Beijing to Harare isn’t until July 10.

The breakaway party of MPs were apparently warned not to travel to Guangdong, according to a source with the group:

We tried to persuade them not to travel to Guangdong as it is very far and they did not have enough money, but they did not listen… They did not have enough money and now they are stranded. We do not know where they are sleeping, what they are eating and how they will come back.

Guangdong is 2,294 kilometers away from Beijing and requires at least ten hours of travel by high-speed rail.

The Zimbabwe Parliament convened yesterday, so the 27 stranded MPs are now missing sessions in the Senate and National Assembly.

Photo: SW Radio Africa

At around 9:30pm on June 29, Mr Jia was driving home to Jianfeng Village, Jing’an County on his electric scooter with his wife and two children. When he was just about to turn right onto Jianfeng Front Road from Jiangwan Central Road, something flew out from across the road and struck his wife’s backpack with a huge noise. The sound was so loud that Jia thought the vehicle had hit something.

Upon stopping the bike and turning around, Jia saw that this daughter, Xiao Man, had a needle sticking out from the top of her head. After crying out once, she fell unconscious after about three seconds. Upon arriving at the hospital ten minutes later, Xiao Man stopped breathing and had no pulse. Her skin had turned purple and her pupils had dilated.

Dr Zhang Ying of the No.5 Auxiliary Zunyi Hospital alerted pediatrics, neurosurgery, brain surgery, and intensive care unit specialists. Within ten minutes, Xiao Man recovered her breathing, and regained consciousness within half an hour. She is currently recovering.

The object that pricked Xiao Man looks like a tranquilizer dart used on animals, and is armed with a needle that is one inch long. Police think it was shot by a crossbow.

Upon testing, the dart was discovered to contain succinylcholine, a compound used to induce muscle relaxation and short-term paralysis. Despite being listed on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, Dr Yang Ying says the drug is extremely rare in Zhuhai and used only under the strictest of conditions.

Our hospital doesn’t have it, and your average factory will have trouble getting it.

So far there are no suspects or witnesses.

Photo: Nandu

CCTV is reporting that some varieties of Croc-style shoes sold in China pose a health risk to consumers due to some producers adding phthalates to the plastic shoes in order to increase their flexibility, durability, and longevity.

Guangzhou Daily blames domestic factories, which are trying to cut production costs by using the dangerous chemicals. The paper cites a German report noting six out of the ten Croc shoes tested contained polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). PAHs can cause problems when exposed to humans, particularly to expectant mothers. They can result in kids with asthma, anxiety, and other issues.

It’s important to note, however, no authentic shoes made by the Croc company itself were found with the additive.

So how can you tell if your shoes are safe? Apparently the hazardous fake Crocs have a strong, acrid odor. If you ask some Chinese retailers, though, they’ll say the smell is nothing to worry about. A vendor at a stall at Beijing’s Xiyuan market says the bad smell is normal.

All of the shoes that are on sale here can be purchased at malls for hundreds of kuai. However, both these shops and my own all get our stock from the same source. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the quality of these shoes. Take these shoes home and leave them out in the sun, and after a few days the odor will disappear.

Meanwhile, knock-off Crocs are also sold cheaply online. On Taobao, one high-profile retailer had sold over 1,000 Crocs for 50 yuan. After some customers had complained of the smell, the retailer wrote:

No matter what material is being used, there is always going to be a smell. When retail stores display their shoes for a long time, the smell won’t be as strong after a while. Shoes having a smell is normal, and has nothing to do with the shoes being bad. You just need to place them in a place with ventilation and sunlight, and the smell with disappear.

We hope that people everywhere will protect their own safety before buying a faulty product that poses health risks. After that, we also hope that people everywhere will choose to uphold a basic standard of fashion.

Photo: Business Insider

The Japanese president of the Dongguan-based Chang’an automobile factory is trapped in a conference meeting room as more than 1,000 Chinese workers gathered outside to demand an apology over his remarks brushing off the Japanese invasion of China during World War II.

The Japanese executive was on a visit to the factory this morning (July 1) and told several executives in a meeting that Japan did not invade China during the war, but emancipated China from American colonialism, Guangming reported on July 1.

The remarks immediately drew a reaction from a Chinese executive named Zhang Hongquan, and quickly stirred up anger among other executives. By 11:30 am, about 1,000 employees gathered to tell the Japanese boss exactly how they felt about this remarks.

Apparently, the executive has offered to apologise.

Photos: Guangming 

The video shows three girls ganging up on the single girl, while the fourth girl presumably holds the camera to film the incident. All appear to be junior high school students.

At one point, one of the attackers poses with a “V-sign” to the camera as she says, “Yeah!”

READ: Caught on Tape: Zhuhai Girl Surrounded, Beaten
and Stripped by Female Classmates

The victim, wearing navy blue, didn’t hit back at her attackers during the entire ordeal. None of the people in the video have been identified.

Beating up a single girl by a gang of female bullies is a common story in Guangdong, one that is often accompanied by a video recording.

In 2008, a 17 year-old girl was beaten up by four girls and then raped by a gang of boys. In 2009, three girls ganged up on a girl in Jieyang. In 2010, a Guangdong woman described by media as “beautiful and pregnant” was beaten by a gang of girls while passersby stood and watched. Last year, a Zhuhai girl was beaten and stripped by a gang of girls on camera.

Related:

• Brazillian Man Beaten in Dongguan, Passer-bys Watch
• Drunks Beat Up Guangzhou Father Mistaken for Kidnapper
• Girl Murdered in Shenzhen, Some on Weibo are Pointing the Finger at Social Media

Photos: Screenshots from Sina Video

Caijing has confirmed that the man and woman caught on video are the wife and son of Cai Weibing, a deputy county head of Jun’an County in Foshan. The incident happened on May 28 at around 6pm, but their identities weren’t confirmed until recently.

The two apparently entered the office to collect an unpaid debt worth RMB 300,000, and began ransacking the place when the debt wasn’t paid. The video shows Cai’s son destroying windows with a golf club as his mother urges him on. While not captured on video, the woman apparently said, “My husband is the current deputy county head of Jun’an, Shunde. What do criminal charges of destruction mean (to me)?”

Shunde police say the pair were supposed to be held in detention for 15 days last month because of the incident, but have been set free “because of reasons”.

Cai himself has refused interview requests.

Photos: Caijing (2)