NO SMOKING: College students from Xi'an of northwest Shaanxi Province take to the streets to discourage people from smoking (Xinhua)

Explosive Agro-Tech

In parts of east China's Jiangsu Province, fields of watermelons exploded before they were ready to sell, because farmers applied forchlorfenuron, a growth accelerator.

Although agricultural experts claim that forchlorfenuron poses no threat to human health, the public is still in panic.

If consumers know the watermelons have been sprayed with forchlorfenuron, few are likely to buy them. In a natural condition, watermelons should not be so excessively big and sweet. Forchlorfenuron helps make watermelons flavorful, gives them a nice appearance and they sell well.

The Chinese, especially urban residents, have no control over food safety. They are now consuming food that no longer tastes as it should: Chicken no longer tastes like chicken, eggs no longer taste like eggs and watermelons not like melons. So much food sold in the market nowadays is hi-tech one. Technology has contributed to much higher productivity of plants and animals, but meanwhile taste has become bland or bad, let alone nutrition value.

Scientific and technological progress is meant to make people's lives better, but when it comes to China's current food safety, technology is not making life better but worse.

Heavy metal cadmium in rice, toxic melamine in milk, bleach in mushrooms, and so on. Here, hi-tech is playing the role of killer. It's high time to deal with the abuse of technology in agriculture.

Yangcheng Evening News

Children's Day Donation

Before this year's Children's Day, kindergartens in Quanzhou of southeast China's Fujian Province demanded parents donate in the name of Children's Day. The embarrassing thing is the donor list is pasted on the wall of every classroom as a public announcement.

Children's Day is a happy time for the children, but this might not be the case for young children who are asked to give gifts to teachers and their parents who are forced to donate. If they do not show kindness and respect to teachers, these children might miss out on awards like Red Flowers or the title of merit child.

How come Children's Day has become a donation day for parents? The key issue is the lack of funding on the part of kindergartens. In some areas, the government's limited input in preschool education forces kindergartens to try to put their hands into parents' wallets. Besides, driven by the principle of making profits, schools are likely to take advantage of days like Children's Day as an excuse for social "donations" to improve teachers' personal welfare.

It's not schools are forbidden to ask for donations from social organizations or individuals, but there must be effective supervision and regulation of schools' donations funds use. To an extent, the economic impact is not as harmful as the damage to children's pure hearts brought about by kindergartens' forced donations from their parents.

Qilu Evening News

Costly Dinnerware, Nonsense

The Bureau of Industry and Commerce of Anhui Province recently issued a notice to stop fee charges on disposable disinfected dinnerware from June 1.

We don't remember when restaurants begin to offer dinnerware covered by plastic film, or when the final payment begins to also include the use of this dinnerware. At first, clients may have argued about this extra charge, but when most restaurants do so, they can only accept it as universal practice. But, the media have repeatedly revealed that the so-called disinfected dinnerware usually does not go through any disinfecting process, but simply put in a plastic wrapper. As a result, people have begun to doubt about the rationale of charging for this dinnerware.

Originally, dinnerware was necessary hardware restaurants had to offer to their clients, and was already covered in the bill.

If clients have to pay for the use of dinnerware, later they might be charged for the tables and chairs, and this will lead to more serious arbitrary fee charging. Although local consumers' associations in many places argue clients' have the right to refuse to pay for dinnerware, because they are backed by explicit legal regulation, customers have to put up with this nuisance.

Fee charging for disinfected dinnerware is a violation of law and its existence is made possible by relevant departments' connivance. Today, almost all restaurants ask for the so-called "disinfected dinnerware" fees and they do so not for clients' health but for extra profits, which is illegal income for them.

Dazhong Daily

Smoking Ban

May 31 is World No-Tobacco Day. Regarding tobacco control, China's national rule is that no smoking is allowed in public places and Guangzhou's rule is that restaurants and entertainment places should set smoking zones and no-smoking zones.

Guangzhou's 15 tobacco control points employ 2,673 smoke controllers, but since the ban took effect on September 1 last year, not a single person has been fined for breaking the ban.

From the very start of its promulgation, people believed the ban will be a mere scrap of paper but so far we have no reason for pessimism. Although the result is not yet satisfactory, the ban is still delivering positive signals.

Although it has not been effectively implemented, at least the ban is a strong reference for those who are opposed to smoking. Without this ban, if one encounters smokers in restaurants and wants to stop them, they may retort, "it's none of your business." With the support of this ban, however, you have a strong reason to ask them to stop.

The ban shows China's legislative system can avoid being influenced by interest groups. The major reason for China's dilatory performance in tobacco control is the industry's putting up obstacles to preventative measures.Lucrative tobacco business is contributing huge tax revenues and many people depend on this industry to enrich their living.

The smoking ban reflects China's progress in legislation concepts. Although the ban will limit the tobacco industry and lead to a drop in fiscal revenues, it's good for people's health.

Guangzhou Daily