Abigail Howell

Browsing for interesting articles online, my visual senses were overwhelmed with headlines reading ‘Teenagers Need Long Lie Ins’ and ‘Teenagers Improve Grades With Lie Ins’. Whilst teens might agree, parents no doubt find the concept of pandering to their children’s whining complaints of exhaustion ridiculous.

Parents should prepare to be shocked though as a test carried out at Northwestern University in Illinois shows that teenagers do actually need more sleep than children and adults. If that doesn’t convince parents to let teens spend all morning in bed, experiments performed by the Chairman of Circadian Neuroscience at Brasenose College, Oxford have revealed that teenagers brains perform better in the afternoons.

In a controversial move, Dr. Paul Kelley, headmaster at a school in the U.K has announced that he will delay the start of the school day until 11am because teenagers need more sleep and denying it could impact their mental and physical health and in turn education. ‘Teenagers are not lazy. We are depriving them of the sleep they need through purely biological factors beyond their control’ said Kelley.

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I often hear parents despair that children don’t read enough nowadays, given all the other distractions in kids’ lives.
Playing devil's advocate, I once asked a friend why it mattered. She responded, slightly annoyed, that she was worried her children wouldn’t learn enough vocabulary.

This is not a problem for Jacky Qiao, a 7th grade student at BISS who recently reached the final round of China’s first national English spelling bee. He went on to beat 5,000 other contestants, standing in front of a room full of strangers and winning the bee with the triumphant spelling of the word heliolatry (worship of the sun). His victory has already been described as a “monumental achievement”.

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A young couple recently made the news when the police prevented them from eloping. Mika and Anna-Lena had decided, amidst New Year's celebrations, to fly to Africa “where it is warm” for a spontaneous wedding. The two packed all the holiday essentials and made their way to Hanover train station in Germany to wait for the airport express. Anna-Lena asked her older sister to accompany them in the role of official witness, displaying a certain amount of rationality behind the decision.

But the sweethearts’ plans were foiled when they aroused the suspicion of a security guard. Who wouldn't be suspicious upon seeing three unaccompanied kids waiting for a train?

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The blowout bash that is Chinese New Year doesn’t occur until the end of January, but don’t be fooled into believing that December 31st is just an ordinary night in Beijing.
 
This city’s clubs, hotels and restaurants certainly know how to lay out a multi-course spread and throw a great party. To bring in the New Year in Asian style, head to Huang Ting at the Peninsula Hotel, where for RMB 588 (adults) or RMB 288 (kids), families can enjoy an eight-course set dinner accompanied by the musical delights of a traditional Chinese ensemble. Guests are invited to Jing Restaurant, also within the hotel, for after-dinner dancing and the countdown to midnight.
 

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Skimming China Daily on a recent day, I was surprised to discover an article suggesting that in the wake of the melamine scandal, another food additive commonly used in Chinese products is to be banned: benzoyl peroxide. The organic chemical, better know for its role in hair dye and acne formulas, is also an additive used worldwide in the bleaching process of flour.
 
Benzoyl peroxide in small amounts has not yet been classed as dangerous, and indeed is likely to cause no detriment to human health at all. According to Mao Qun’an, a spokesman from the Ministry of Health, China is considering banning the chemical due to the fact that technology has improved and that flour production no longer requires benzoyl peroxide.

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I recently came across an article entitled ‘Foreigners flock to learn Chinese’, which made me think about how many of my friends here are actually considering running in the opposite direction: they take classes either simply to get by from day to day or so that they can understand their bilingual children more than 50% of the time. Besides, a number of them have begun to feel deflated and demoralized by the difficulties of the tones and their own lack of progress – a sentiment that I often can relate to. As a foreigner in Beijing, I am finding Mandarin extremely difficult to master, even after three months of classes ordering food in a restaurant can be a struggle.

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