Despite the Spring Festival holiday, workers in a flavoring company in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province continue to package their fermented bean curd products.

The preserved bean curd, or “furu” in Chinese, is a traditional flavoring for food. Red or white in color, the unique fermented bean curd in Shaoxing city started being exported more than a century ago.

Last year, Shaoxing exported 1,233 tonnes of fermented bean curd products with a total value of 2.86 million U.S. dollars, up 11.6 percent and 11.3 percent respectively. Hong Kong is the major importer, while Europe and North America are emerging markets.

With soybeans the main material, the traditional craft of Shaoxing fermented bean curd has a set of complicated procedures and strict requirements on temperature and humidity in production. Large bean curd pieces for export need to be sealed in pots for one to two years for post-fermentation.

“A local yellow rice wine is used in the process, contributing to the special flavor,” said Xie Xiaoben, deputy general manager of Xianheng Foodstuff in Shaoxing.

“No nitrite is produced during the processing,” Xie added, dispelling concerns.

The basic processing craft for fermented bean curd has not changed much in a century.

“More and more westerners like the bean curd,” said Ren Mingxing, an entry-exit inspection and quarantine official in Shaoxing.

There has never been any food safety problem with the exported bean curd, which has won overseas trust for Chinese products, according to Ren.

As pupils face ever-growing pressure to improve grades, courses offered by private agencies seem like an easy solution but the cost in both time and money is high.

Wang Haifeng is pondering whether to register her son, a fifth-grade Beijing primary school pupil, on a math tutorial course. If she does, it would be the fifth course the Beijing resident has signed her 10-year-old child up for.

The other four are English, Chinese classics, basketball and the game of Go. Her son has to attend each class once or twice every week.

“The number is not that large compared with many of my son’s classmates at school, who have seven, eight or even more tutorial courses of different subjects to take outside school.”

The popularity of these seemingly “hot services” is accentuated by the scarcity of places offered by some tutorial agencies.

In November 2016, a report by Metro Express, a newspaper in Zhejiang province about parents waiting outside classrooms of a well-known tutorial agency to obtain a place for their children went viral on WeChat Friend Circle. It triggered heated discussions and retrospection among parents and educators on whether the pursuit of such services is rational or not.

The report said many parents signed their children up for tutorial courses not only to improve the children’s test results over a short period of time, but also with a longer-term view: to get the children prepared for the fierce competition of entrance exams for highly selective junior middle or high schools.

According to educational laws and regulations, pupils in China do not have to take any tests when they finish their primary school studies and rise to junior middle school.

But the principle only applies to students who choose to enter ordinary junior middle schools that are adjacent to the addresses on their hukou, or permanent residence permit.

For those who want to attend prestigious junior middle schools with better facilities and teachers, they have to pass independent recruiting exams, which are organized by the schools and consisting of tests of subjects taught in primary school, including math and English.

Under such circumstances, turning to tutorial agencies that help students improve test scores is almost a must to possibly increase the odds of being admitted.

Adults in Fujian province who are the product of single-child families will be guaranteed paid leave of up to 10 days annually if they need to care for older parents who are hospitalized, according to legislation passed by the province’s top legislature.

The measure was passed on Jan 22 and is set to go into effect on March 1. It is intended to protect residents at age 60 or above, but some experts and members of the public say they are doubtful it will work in the private sector.

It says that wages and benefits for those without siblings who take time off for the specified purpose should continue to be paid.

Employers who refuse to continue paying wages and benefits will be punished, said Xu Hua, vice-chairwoman of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Fujian Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee.

If employers still refuse to pay past a deadline, the Department of Human Resources and Social Security will levy fines ranging from 2,000 to 20,000 yuan ($290 to $2,900) in accordance with Regulations on Supervision of Labor Security, Xu said. They also will be listed as “promise breakers” and will be restricted in bidding, market access and obtaining financing, she said.

There were 5.15 million seniors aged 60 and above in Fujian by the end of 2015, representing 13.4 percent of the province’s population. For the whole country, the number was 222 million, or more than 16 percent of the population.

Fujian’s new measure follows a national law passed in 1996 by the country’s top legislative body on the “protection of the rights and interests of the elderly”. The law was amended twice in 2012 and 2015. According to the latest amendment, seniors have the right to obtain material assistance from the State. It also says families are required to care for them.

The Fujian regulation builds upon the national law by adding more detailed provisions, said Gan Mantang, a sociology professor at Fuzhou University.

But while calling paid leave “innovative”, he said it will be difficult to put into practice.

“Workers are not even paid now for some normal vacations. It remains doubtful that this paid leave will be carried out.”

He said it probably can be put into practice in State-owned institutions, but it may not be so easy in private companies, he added.

Han Yongjing, an assistant to a real estate company’s chief financial officer in Fuzhou, Fujian’s provincial capital, said public servants may benefit from the policy but doubts the same will apply in the private sector.

A tiger that was shot to death after fatally injuring a man who had sneaked into its enclosure on Sunday in Ningbo has drawn sympathy from Chinese netizens, many of whom also expressed condolences for the family of the dead man.

There also were disagreements on who should be blamed — and often it wasn’t the tiger.

The man who died, surnamed Zhang, was reported to have climbed the walls at Youngor Zoo to avoid paying the 130 yuan ($18.90) entrance fee, but landed in the tiger enclosure, according to the Ningbo Dongqian Lake Tourist Resort Administrative Committee.

Zhang was cornered by three tigers. One clenched its jaws around his neck and head, refusing to retreat even when zookeepers lit firecrackers.

The mauling happened in front of the middle-aged man’s wife and two children.

“The tiger was killed trying to catch the guy who avoided paying the zoo ticket. I feel bad for the zoo, the tiger and the guy’s family,” Chen Ou, CEO of Jumei, an online beauty products retailer, said on his Weibo account.

“Save it, people. This is Spring Festival. Death is death, no matter how hard you curse,” said one user on Weibo. “The tiger can never be revived.” While it appeared he was referring to the dead man, his last comment made clear that wasn’t necessarily the case.

The comment received thousands of “likes”.

Still, one of Zhang’s relatives, surnamed Yang, said, “Even if he (Zhang) climbed over the walls to get in, it was the zoo’s mismanagement.”

In July, tigers in a drive-through wildlife park in Beijing mauled a woman and killed her elderly mother, who tried to save her. The woman, who broke the rules by leaving the car, sued the park.

In May, a 3-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo in the US. A 200-kilogram male gorilla named Harambe was shot to death while dragging the child away. There was a debate over whether Harambe was trying to harm the boy or protect him.

A new ship is seen at a dock in Sansha of south China’s Hainan province, Jan. 30, 2017. The ship completed its maiden voyage on Monday from east China’s Shanghai to Sansha where it will serve. The 32-meter vessel weighs 498 tonnes. It has endurance of 45 days and is able to resist gales with speed of more than 60 kilometers per hour, according to its captain Yin Minzeng. It was designed to help extinguish fires on the sea, tow vessels that lose power and assist law-enforcement vessels. In addition, it will provide supplies for islands of Sansha. (Xinhua/Dai Chao)

A new ship completed its maiden voyage on Monday from Shanghai to China’s southernmost island city of Sansha where it will serve.

The 32-meter vessel weighs 498 tonnes. It has endurance of 45 days and is able to resist gales with speed of more than 60 kilometers per hour, according to its captain Yin Minzeng.

It was designed to help extinguish fires on the sea, tow vessels that lose power and assist law-enforcement vessels. In addition, it will provide supplies for islands of Sansha.

Sansha City was established in 2012 to administer islets and reefs in the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha islet groups as well as waters in this area.