Young couples in Zhengzhou of Henan Province are challenging the traditional concept of marriage by living with their parents separately on work days and living together on the weekends in their "love nests," China News Agency reports.

Ding, who works in a local hospital, began living with her husband at weekends three years ago. Every weekend she "dates" with her husband, and she is as well-dressed and as elegantly made up as she was when the couple first fell in love.

"The separation allows us to be independent to manage our own affairs and to take care of our elderly parents while the weekend dating makes us feel like we are on honeymoon," she said.

People who adopt this way of living after marriage mostly have a background in higher education and are seeking a better quality of life, the newspaper report said.

Cleaner returns bag with US$10,800 to owner

A cleaner found a bag containing 90,000 yuan (US$10,800), which equalled her total salary for 12 years, and returned the bag to the owner immediately, reports Shanghai Morning Post.

Chen Suping, 35, from Nantong of Jiangsu Province, works as a cleaner for a hotel. On April 6, while cleaning the lobby, she saw a black bag on a sofa.

Chen opened the bag and found the large sum of money. She gave the bag to her manager at once and the manager contacted its owner Gan, a Taiwan businesswoman who had no idea that she had lost the bag.

Charging for toilet use causes stir

A charge of one yuan (12 US cents) per use of toilets in subway stations is a hot topic among Shanghai locals, reports eastday.com.

According to the new regulation issued by the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, all public sites are banned from charging toilet fees.

But all toilets in the subway stations, regarded as public sites by Shanghai citizens, still have not cancelled the fee.

One official said that waiving the fee would require coordination among different government departments.

Subway toilet use is free in other cities like Guangzhou and Beijing.

Sauna treat almost claims elderly father's life

A man in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, invited his elderly father to go to a sauna on his 70th birthday, but the birthday treat almost killed the elderly man, reports Southern Metropolis News.

The father felt a headache coming on and was not feeling very well after being in the sauna for just a few minutes, but the son asked him to keep on.

Ten minutes later, the father suddenly fell to the ground in a coma. He was later confirmed to have cerebral hemorrhage.

The father could not speak until 40 days after the surgery but his left side remained paralyzed. He finally recovered and was discharged last Thursday.

Family of deceased man demands 'thank you'

The family of a man in Sichuan Province killed when he tried to save two boys has taken the surviving boy's parents to court demanding they give thanks to their son publicly, Chongqing Morning Post reports.

Tang Wenchun, 32, was walking near a river bank in June 2003 when he heard two boys who had fallen in the water crying for help.

Tang jumped into the water immediately but drowned with one child after managing to save another one.

But the surviving boy's family has refused to meet Tang's family and hasn't offered any compensation to the bereaved family.

The court has not yet ruled on this case.

Doctoral candidate drops out, gets into pig business

A doctorate candidate quit his overseas studies and went back to his hometown to run a pig farm with the latest technologies, but the move has provoked a hot debate in local media, reports Sanqin Daily.

The dropout, Chen Shenggui, 28, a native of Shaanxi Province, has been managing the animal farm for more than a year after he stopped studying in the United States as a doctorate candidate in chemistry in 2002.

A man surnamed Yang called the local newspaper saying that he admires Chen's courage and claims Chen is a good example for many youths for he "braves the huge pressure and does what he wants to do."

But another man, Zhang Xuejun, who has grown up in rural areas, said Chen wasted a hardwon opportunity to study overseas, particularly since he can hardly make money raising pigs.

(People's Daily  April 14, 2004)