Qiang is an ethnic minority group with a long history. In the Wenchuan quake in May, many Qiang people well versed in their ethnic language, history and culture lost their lives. Also, cultural relics in the local museum are now buried under mountains of rubble. This is a big blow to the survival of Qiang culture.

A crucial reason why Qiang culture is facing the danger of extinction in this quake disaster is that the preservation of Qiang culture depends on oral transfer and it is limited to a certain region. Like Qiang culture, many other traditional cultural relics are now in poor condition.

China's traditional culture is encountering dual impacts of foreign cultures and modern values. Actually, modern life and tradition are not totally opposite. A good combination of the two can offer people a good life, so the public's indifference toward traditional culture protection and their blind faith to everything fashionable are misplaced. This is the fundamental reason for cultural downfall.

The Sichuan earthquake almost ruined Qiang culture. This is a warning to the rest of the country. It's time to preserve the cultural relics we have. What happened to Qiang culture reminds us not to stay indifferent and take action before it's too late.

Yanzhao Metropolis Daily

Students' Eyes Only

It has along been a tradition to make known to the public students' scores in the college entrance examination. But this year, east China's Shandong Province will abandon the decades-old practice.

Every year, there are numerous reports about college enrollment rates and rankings for high schools in accordance with their students' scores in the college entrance examination. Schools and teachers that produce top students will receive rewards while famous universities will compete for these top students. In this way, this exam result is actually an index to measure a school's performance and even a tool for financial gains.

Shandong has pledged to keep the scores private, and only give them to the students and colleges that plan to enroll the students. Other relevant information will also be prohibited from being released, such as the students' individual information, their applied universities and admission results.

This move not only shows respect to most students and their parents, but also relieves the pressure on high schools. The schools can now focus more on quality-oriented education, instead of madly pursuing higher university admission rates.

Guangzhou Daily

Wise Decision-making

Local residents have been asked to vote on the location of 58,000 proposed public parking lots in Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province.

If the "yes" votes exceed 50 percent, the program will be implemented.

This is the first step Hangzhou has taken to solve the headache of parking. If the decision is really made by fully respecting the people's opinions, local officials will have made a wise move in reducing decision-making risks.

In future, if most local residents or government agencies do not think the new program works as well as they expected, then both sides, who jointly made the decision, will not trade verbal jabs over the issue and instead act quickly to adjust any part of the program and correct mistakes.

This is actually a vicious circle. Even wrong decisions will not trigger social conflicts, neither will they affect the people's relationship with the government, which can then spend less on public administration and public services, as a more democratic approach develops.

Dahe Daily

Lessons From Overpricing

Situated in the mountainous region of east China's Zhejiang Province, Lishui City has the smallest gross domestic product in the province. However, its housing price growth rate is even higher than that in the province's economically developed cities of Wenzhou, Hangzhou and Ningbo. In 2007, the average housing price even exceeded 10,000 yuan (more than $1,400) per square meter in the city. However, property developers and investors there are now concerned with dropping property prices, which means shrinking profits, and more seriously, they now find it difficult to sell houses.

The soaring housing prices in recent years have attracted many businesses and investors into the property market. Some economists warn that the overheating property market is risking complete collapse, but others believe China's property market is steadily growing and it's normal for developers to build luxurious houses for high-end consumers.

The rocketing trend did not last long, however. Due to the state's tightened regulation of the property market, it's no longer easy for property investors to get loans from banks. Meanwhile, overly high prices also dramatically cut the sales of apartments, as they are not affordable to most potential buyers. As a result, property speculators are feeling the heat. This is what are happening in Lishui and also many other Chinese cities.

No market will boom forever, and the property market is no exception. It's hoped that the turnabout in Lishui would help other Chinese cities to refrain from repeating the same mistake.

Workers' Daily