China is launching a food safety monitoring system next month at test events for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The system will monitor 10 categories including production, processing, sale and cooking, and daily reports will be issued. It will be implemented at sports events to test facilities and logistics at venues being used for next year’s Games.

The Beijing Municipal Food Safety Office will share the system with all of the other Olympic host cities, including Tianjin and Shanghai.

The move comes amid a lot of publicity in overseas newspapers about the quality of goods that China exports. Health scares have ranged from toxic toothpaste ingredients to pet food and toxic seafood. A lot of reassurance is needed for anyone taking part as a contestant or viewer at the Olympics. The back of a lavatory door does not make a good viewing vista for a major athletic event.

Earlier this month officials announced that athletes and visitors heading to Beijing for the Olympics should not be concerned by recent Chinese food scandals, as many safety measures were being put in place for the Games.

Our illustration shows a Chinese laboratory worker at work in front of foods samples at the Biosafety lab in Beijing.
Source: AFP News Brief

The heading is one the should be viewed with some skepticism. Examinations are not fun. However, a heading, ‘Olympics makes examinations less horrible than normal‘ does not quite fit.

Given that exam questions using the Olympics as examples is a way of promoting the games with youngsters. In this year’s College Entrance Exam (CEE), which determines the university a student is allowed to enter, there were ten million entrants. China’s Olympics 2008 appeared in many of the questions that were asked. (Coming up in second place was China’s NBA star Yao Ming and groups such as women’s national soccer team, seen in our illustration, were also mentioned.)

Four subjects are tested in these exams. The format of the exam ranged from filling the blanks to writing short paragraphs depending on the provinces the students wrote their exams. Students were even required to compose Olympic lyrics.

In one province the students had to finish with the first paragraph running like this:

This is a happy world
Heart with heart
Hand in hand
Friends all gather together with one dream
The torch of friendship passes forever.

No, it is not Shakespeare but lyrics rarely stand-up in translation. At least they were writing about the Olympics. A neat idea to make examinations less awful.
Source: China Daily