OPINION> Columnists

Kang Bing

Beware of travel agents

Want to go on a trip? The most convenient way seems to be joining a packaged tour. You scan the advertisements, find a good bargain, sign a contract with a travel agent, and all the while not knowing you might be falling into a trap.

Gao Anming

Stimulating domestic consumption

For most people, this seems rather like a joke: Xing Pu, a member of the CPPCC Shanghai Committee, proposed last month that the government, fresh from a hefty increase in financial revenue, hand out 1,000 yuan ($142) to each citizen as a subsidy against soaring inflation.

Wang Hao

And the gold goes to ... volunteers

My parents were fascinated by the Water Cube when they watched an international swimming gala, a test event for the Beijing Games.

You Nuo

Olympics lesson for city planners

Who, other than young athletes-to-be in the world, would feel the greatest urge when watching the Olympic Games in Beijing? They must be the Chinese mayors and their city planning lieutenants.

Li Xing

Those who never say die live on

Many of us have gone through a lot of ups and downs with the athletes as the Beijing Olympics enters its 14th day. With the Games in town, we simply cannot help it but experiencing the great ecstasy as the stars or the obscure win; or the deep sadness as they lose or fall.

Liu Shinan

Games that won hearts and minds

The Beijing Summer Olympic Games proved to be a near-perfect success, not because the host country harvested the most gold medals and the second largest collection of all medals but because the Games perfectly illustrated the Olympic goals of being "faster, higher and stronger" and the ideals of "peace, friendship and progress".

Raymond Zhou

Is Barack Obama handsome?

A while ago when Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, I wrote a blog to explain why it was unlikely for him to pick the latter as his running mate. I used "handsome" to describe him, and one of the responses was "What? Do you consider Obama handsome?"

Ravi S. Narasimhan

Debasish Roy Chowdhury

Dreams, Made in China, coming true

As I watched in fascination the Chinese follow the Olympic Games with unbridled pride and sense of accomplishment these past weeks, I realized I may have witnessed something way more important than a sporting gala here.

Liang Hongfu

Leave a little corner of old Beijing alone

If the Beijing city planners are serious about turning Qianmen into an entertainment hotspot that is in the same league as Xintiandi in Shanghai or Soho in Hong Kong, they have to build some decent toilets there, for a start.

Pankaj Adhikari

Home of solitude, anguish

Last week I went to Razor Hill, Sai Kung in the New Territories to visit a home for mentally challenged adults. Run by the social welfare department of the Hong Kong government, the home nestles on a hill amid sylvan surroundings and lush woodlands.

Patrick Whiteley

Striving for peace and harmony

A Beijing newspaper was recently critical of its fellow citizens for trying too hard to paint a perfect, unrealistic picture of their country. "We should exhibit the true and natural China to the outside world," the editorial said. "We also have problems, but we should not be afraid for everybody to see them."

Brendan

Among dragon slayers and soothsayers

On Sunday when the world spotlight zoomed in on the closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, another beam was shining Down Under at the Melbourne Writers' Festival.

Zou Hanrou

Hong Kong flushed with loo ideas

Public toilets are the very places for tourists to get their first and lasting impressions of a city. Of the many elements that combine to qualify a city as being modern and civilized, well-managed public lavatories ought to be one essential yardstick. In this respect, Hong Kong definitely qualifies.