BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhua) — Monday marks the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Across the country, various types of events — book readings, concerts, visits to memorials, and renewing vows — have been held to mark the occasion.
Founded in 1921, the CPC has grown from a small party of about 50 members into the world’s largest ruling party, with more than 90 million members.
A brick-and-wood building on Xingye Road in Shanghai, where the CPC held its first national congress, has been packed with visitors in days leading to the anniversary.
In 1921, delegates representing about 50 CPC members nationwide convened the first national congress in the building, though they later had to move to a boat on Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing of east China’s Zhejiang Province due to harassment by local police.
The historic building has been open to the public as a museum since 1952.
Near Nanhu Lake, hundreds of members of the public gathered on a city square to present a chorus to wish the CPC a happy birthday. A relay run was held on Monday to commemorate the occasion.
Zhang Xianyi, the curator of the Nanhu Lake Revolution Museum, said the museum has become increasingly popular. On average, 11,000 people visit the museum and the boat every day. Last year, over 1.25 million people paid visits to the sites, he said.
Also on Monday, Li Jian, deputy manager-in-general of a private electronics maker in Zhengzhou, capital city of central Henan Province, had a new title. He was elected as head of a seven-member CPC branch in the company.
Li works in the Henan branch of the China Communication Technology Co., Ltd., a private company headquartered in Shenzhen.
Over the past decades, a growing number of private companies have set up CPC branches.
“By establishing a CPC branch, I hope the organizational life of CPC members can facilitate progress in achieving company goals,” Li said.
“As a CPC member myself, I hope I can play a leading role in guiding our staff forward,” he added.
Zhao Lei, an employee of the company and also a CPC member, said the spirit of Party building is in line with the entrepreneurial spirit in that it strengthens the sense of responsibility, innovation, attention to details and persistent learning.
“A strong CPC organization attracts people to the company and lends a competitive edge to it,” he said.
“Establish a CPC branch — only a good company actively seeks to do such a thing, if you ask me. This company has been an honest one. We have complaints, and it responds to them,” said company driver Su Nanju, who is not a CPC member.
Across the country, an education campaign on the theme of “staying true to our founding mission” has been launched throughout the Party in which members are called on to keep firmly in mind the fundamental purpose of whole-heartedly serving the people and its historic mission of realizing national rejuvenation.
In southwest China’s Guizhou Province, a conference was held on Monday to commend outstanding CPC members in the battle against poverty. China vows to eradicate absolute poverty by 2020. In areas still perplexed by impoverishment, dedicated CPC members are leading the people to exert transformational changes.
“People say if you have a daughter, never marry her to someone from Qinggangba, because she would have nothing to eat but pickled vegetables,” said Leng Chaogang, Party chief of the Qinggangba village at the conference.
“But now, people here have become rich thanks to good policies of the Party, dedicated work of the cadres, and the relentless strength of the people. We will continue to work harder to make our lives better,” he said.
Source: Xinhua
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
Chinese parents struggle with Teacher’s Day gift etiquette
Despite a decade of official discouragement, parents in China have been struggling with one of the biggest dilemmas of the school year – how to mark the country’s annual Teacher’s Day.
Ellen Yuan agonised for a day and a night before sending her son off to kindergarten on Tuesday with a 1,000 yuan (US$140) gift card in his bag for the teacher.
It was the boy’s second week of attendance and Yuan had given no thought to any Teacher’s Day obligations –until she learned that several of her friends had been busy over the weekend preparing gifts for their children’s teachers.
“It makes me feel that I am being a drag on my son if I don’t do so,” said Yuan, who works for a foreign company in Shanghai.
Respecting teachers has traditionally been a fundamental social norm in China but gift giving on the special day for educators has gone beyond an expression of appreciation by their students, as parents have taken over with ever more expensive gifts – and sometimes cash – which they hope will mean their kids are well taken care of while at school.
What gift, how expensive it should be, and how to deliver it have become the biggest questions for many parents in the run-up to September 10 each year, even though the education ministry and its subordinate bodies have repeatedly issued directives over the past decade to ban teachers accepting gifts.
Yuan said one of her friends had bought a body care set worth more than 600 yuan for each of her child’s three teachers, another had bought an 800 yuan gift card, while a third had given the head teacher a 1,000 yuan bottle of perfume.
Some parents had delivered the presents directly to the school, while others had asked their children to take the gifts to their teachers. Yuan’s plan was to message the teacher and tell her to take the gift card from her son’s bag.
“I know it’s bad. I don’t want my kid to know that,” Yuan said.
But not every teacher gets presents – with gifts usually reserved for those teaching the “main subjects” of mathematics, Chinese and English, which count the most in high school and college entrance examinations.
Emily Shen, an English teacher from a middle school in Hangzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, said she also prepared gifts for the teachers of her two kids. “Some chocolate for them to take to school. And I myself would give a gift card to each of those who teach the main subjects,” she said.
Zhuang Ke, a music teacher at a primary school in Jiaxing, also in Zhejiang province, admitted she was embarrassed by the parents’ different treatment of teachers of “less important” subjects like her’s. “It’s always nice to receive presents. But teachers who teach music, art and PE are often forgotten,” she said.
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State broadcaster CCTV said in a commentary on its website on Sunday that “all forms of behavior that attempt to ruin normal teaching order and interfere in equality by sending gifts should be resolutely abandoned”. A similar message was run by a series of official media outlets at local level.
“The most fundamental way to stop parents from sending gifts is to treat the students equally and fairly every day, so that parents conclude it makes no difference whether they give a gift,” Rednet.cn, the official news portal of Hunan province, said on Monday.
Although some teachers have made it explicit to students that they will refuse presents on Teacher’s Day, Yuan said her son’s teacher accepted the gift, as did the teachers of her three friends’ children.
Source: SCMP
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