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China National Geography magazine recently released a list of 10 top “Non-famous Mountains”, as rated by outdoors enthusiasts, experts, netizens and readers. The idea is to make more people aware of China’s characteristic mountains, and open up new routes for mountaineers.

The chosen mountains range from 1,000-5,000 m above sea level, and are endowed with unique geographical characteristics and biological resources. The 10 have been picked from 400 submissions and include Jiucailing (Leek Mountain) in Hunan, Chuandiding (Top of Boat Bottom) in Guangdong, Jiudingshan (Nine Peaks Mountain) in Sichuan, Zhagana (The Stone Box) Mountain in Gansu, Wugongshan in Jiangxi, Xiaowutai Mountain in Hebei and Haituo Mountain in Beijing.

Li Shuanke, editor-in-chief of China National Geography, says while these mountains are well known locally, they are not so famous nationally.

Eight people are detained and two jade shops shut down over a scam in which tourists were sold fake jade products near the Badaling Great Wall.

Haidian police said the fraud was first reported in early November after a tourist on a one-day Great Wall and Ming Tombs tour group bought fake jade.

Police said the suspects worked with a tour agency and used an elaborate scheme to con travelers.

First, the tour guide asked travelers to get off their coach on their way back to the city, under the pretext that the vehicle needed to be sterilized. When travelers were following their guide to rest in a store, staff started to convince them to buy jade products.

Second, the shop owner would pretend to be owner of a jewelry store in Hong Kong and say that his Beijing wife just gave birth to twins. He would give some jade “gifts” priced at nearly 1,000 yuan to each traveler and said they shared his good fortune. He claimed to be a jade expert and said the jade in his store was of good quality.

The products were labeled as originally from Myanmar or as the Beijing special local product “Ming Tombs Jade”, and many were priced at 980,000 yuan.

He said that due to the “good luck” brought by the new twin babies, all customers could receive a 5 percent discount.

Haidian police said all those jade products from the shop are fake and made out of stone dust. The free “gift” priced 998 yuan cost only 0.4 yuan, and the real cost of the products priced at 180,000 yuan is only 4 yuan.

“There are many unregistered travel agencies in Beijing doing the one-day tour business,” said an official surnamed Zhu from the Beijing municipal bureau of tourism.

“They keep spreading their business cards around popular sites or in the hotels where tourists usually stay.

“The cost for a Great Wall-Ming Tombs trip is between 200 yuan to 240 yuan, but these illegal travel agencies only ask for about 70 yuan.

For example, they brought those travelers to parts of the Great Wall that do not require a ticket to cut costs. And they only spend two hours in those places and ask travelers to visit jewelry shops or to see doctors for the rest of time.”

Zhu said that travelers should purchase day trips from the tourism bureau because many people are ripped off on the cheaper, illegal versions.

LONDON – Britons think France is the least hospitable country in which to go on holiday, according to a new online survey of 1,412 Britons.

Respondents ranked 10 countries including Mexico, France and the United States according to perceptions of hospitality.

More than 24,000 people were questioned worldwide. Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia were not included in the choice of holiday destinations.

Thailand was the most popular destination with the British, scooping 25 percent of the vote. The United States wooed 11 percent of British respondents, but France came last, scoring a miserable two percent.

The survey was conducted throughout October by holiday website www.Zoover.co.uk to identify which of the selected countries treated tourists in “the most hospitable way.”

Zoover marketing executive Chrit Blonden said he could not explain why people voted like they did, but offered his own explanation for France’s low score.

“When you go to France they are not inviting you there, you are not feeling invited when you go to their country,” Blonden told Reuters by telephone. “I was in Thailand myself. When you go there you are treated very well…they show a real interest in you.”

French Tourism Development Agency head of public relations in London Jacqueline Mirtelli said the Zoover survey appeared to have overlooked statistical evidence which shows that 78 million tourists from around the world visited France last year, 11 million of them British.

“11 million British have visited France in 2008 and over 350,000 own a house in the country,” she told Reuters in an emailed statement. “Something must be appealing.”

HONOLULU – Hawaii, California and Las Vegas are among American tourist destinations vying fiercely for a vast and largely untapped new market segment.

Yes, to be a Chinese tourist these days is to be a widely-sought traveler.

Hawaii has beaches and its famed “aloha spirit” as its siren call. Las Vegas offers gambling and its entertainment-oriented attractions. San Francisco can boast high-end shopping and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Beset by one of the worst recessions in decades, the U.S. destinations are spending significant sums on marketing campaigns in China’s most populous regions, and are urging U.S. embassy officials and Chinese airlines to ease the logistical burdens of flying to the United States.

The payoff could be substantial — particularly in Hawaii, the closest U.S. destination to China but which is, at least for now, harder for the Chinese to reach by air.

“It could be huge” for Hawaii, said Ted Sturdivant, who has long published a Hawaii travel guide for Chinese, Japanese and other foreign tourists.

Attracting more Chinese tourists “will bring back a lot of jobs” to Hawaii, Gov. Linda Lingle said recently, after returning from a tourism and economic mission to China.

About a half-million Chinese traveled to all U.S. destinations last year, and that number is expected to grow by double digits in each of the next four years mainly because of China’s growing economy and new wealth, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Tourism officials note that the Chinese middle and upper classes each rivals the size of the entire U.S. population, so luring just a fraction would produce huge numbers.

“Everybody looks at China and sees a country with 1.3 billion people and a growing economy, and they say, ‘Oh my God, it’s the greatest travel market that ever was,’” said Frank Haas, an instructor at the School of Travel Industry Management at the University of Hawaii.

Hawaii’s tourism market has generally been propped up by two regions — the U.S. West Coast and Japan. Both market segments declined this year, as did the number of Chinese visitors — this despite a late 2007 agreement that China and U.S. signed lifting some travel barriers.

To lure the Chinese, the Hawaii Tourism Authority has budgeted a total of nearly $2.7 million this fiscal year for marketing there and in Korea, said David Uchiyama, HTA’s vice president of marketing. That includes $447,000 to participate in the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, which begins in May.

But for the Chinese traveler, preparations for a trip to the U.S. can still be a hassle. Only the U.S. embassy in Beijing and four consulates located mostly on China’s eastern coast handle visa applications, which require an in-person interview. However, traveling in groups, which tourism experts say Chinese prefer, can ease those impediments.

Then there is getting to the United States. There are non-stop flights from Beijing and other Chinese cities to popular U.S. destinations, but Hawaii is not among them. Traveling to Hawaii usually means a stop at busy Narita Airport outside Tokyo.

That could change next year if China-based Hainan Airlines follows through with plans to begin flying to Honolulu from Beijing non-stop. Even so, Hainan at first will fly only once a week to Hawaii. In comparison, Japan has about a dozen daily flights to the islands.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority also is eying Hainan, said John Bischoff, a vice president with the organization. The authority may be interested in a deal in which Hainan passengers stop in Hawaii on their way to Las Vegas or during their return to China, he said.

The Chinese tend to travel to the United States for multiple weeks, so it’s to the advantage of U.S. tourism officials to cooperate on tour packages and travel agent training, Bischoff said.

However the Chinese get to Hawaii, the islands are counting on them not to be frugal. Chinese travelers spend more than counterparts from any other country — about $7,200 per person per trip, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

But Hawaii’s tourism industry knows it needs to make the islands more culturally inviting to the Chinese. Many hotels, restaurants and retail stores have offered Japanese-speaking clerks for years, along with signs and menus in Japanese. Such aid is infrequently provided in Mandarin.

At the request of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, Kapiolani Community College, located just outside the tourist hub of Waikiki, has begun offering classes in basic Chinese phrases and customs to travel industry employees.

“What we’re really doing with China is sort of just scratching the surface a little bit deeper…and (trying) to get to the level of comfort we presently have with our Japanese visitors,” said Barry Wallace, executive vice president for Outrigger hotels.

California drew 237,000 Chinese visitors last year. State and local tourism officials are meeting counterparts in China and offering new travel packages that brand the Golden State as a “dream destination.”

Las Vegas’ marketing efforts focus less on gaming, since the Chinese can easily travel to Macau for that, said Bischoff. Instead, Vegas highlights entertainment and sightseeing attractions, including the Grand Canyon Skywalk located 122 miles away, which was built by a Chinese American businessman.

“Estimates are,” Bischoff added, “that the Chinese tourist market is one of our brightest increasing sources of tourists.”

SINGAPORE: Going on holiday is back on the cards again despite the recession, with a global survey showing one in five people plan to travel overseas, even if it’s largely within their region.

The survey by credit card firm MasterCard asked over 10,600 people in the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific about their travel priorities for the next six months, and the findings are likely to cheer the global travel industry which has had a rough year in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Some 20 percent of respondents said they plan to spend on international personal travel, with Hong Kongers topping the list of people planning holidays abroad, followed by Singaporeans and Saudi Arabians.

African respondents were the most keen to travel long-haul and go to the United States, Canada or European destinations, but for the majority, their top 10 likely destinations were largely within their own region.

Japan, Australia and China were the most popular countries for prospective travelers in the Asia-Pacific, while Middle Easterners were more likely to visit Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, the survey showed.

Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, Asia-Pacific economic adviser for MasterCard Worldwide, said the survey showed the resilience of the travel industry in parts of the world not as badly affected by the global financial crisis as the United States and Europe.

The survey involved 24 countries and territories, from Australia to Nigeria.

“Although travel patterns have changed moderately, we see that consumers’ appetite for travel has held up through the recession,” Hedrick-Wong said in a statement.

“The fact that Asia has been the region that has been least affected by the global recession also means that spending on travel by Asian consumers will likely rebound more strongly in the coming months as well.”

Across the 14 markets surveyed in Asia-Pacific, 22 percent said they were planning a holiday abroad, compared to 20 percent six months ago. Nearly 60 percent stated international travel was a priority non-essential, or discretionary, spend.

In the Middle East, almost a quarter were planning trips abroad, down from a third six months ago, but nearly 90 percent said the strongly believed in spending money on travel.

In Africa, some 17 percent of respondents plan to spend on international air travel, the survey showed, a figure Hedrick-Wong said was likely to rise in the coming years in line with economic growth and rising incomes.

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LONDON – A new show on human identity tackles one of life’s most fundamental questions — what, or who, is the real me?

Scientific advances from fingerprinting to DNA profiles provide some answers to what distinguishes one person from another, but they do little to address the fascination and anxiety people feel over their identity.

“Identity: 8 Rooms, 9 Lives” at the Wellcome Collection in central London focuses on nine individuals whose lives have been bound up in various issues associated with identity.

From “twins” born three years apart to sex change pioneer April Ashley and the Big Brother reality TV show, the exhibition centres on the themes of how and why people differ and to what extent they can change from the person they were at birth.

Ashley was one of the first people to undergo gender reassignment in Britain, and the room dedicated to her story traces her often difficult path from man to woman and the legal and emotional complications it caused.

The exhibition features newspaper articles from a 1969 trial when Arthur Corbett successfully sought to have his marriage to Ashley annulled on the basis that Ashley had been born a male.

By ruling in Corbett’s favor, the court based its judgment on chromosomal evidence and disregarded Ashley’s psychological profile and surgery. It also set a precedent only overturned with the introduction of the Gender Recognition Act of 2004.

TWINS HOLD CLUES

Another room tells the story of twins born into the Hinch family who were actually born nearly three years apart because they were separated through the freezing and delayed development of one embryo.

Twins hold particular fascination when considering identity, because their similar DNA profiles and frequent physical resemblance do not necessarily mean they grow up to replicate each other’s characters and interests.

Francis Galton is also featured in the exhibition for his proposal that humans must be divisible into types and his subsequent search to find a scientific basis for the theory.

The Victorian scientist was obsessed with measuring and analyzing vast ranges of human traits, and, the show’s organizers argue, could be credited with inventing a “science of identity”.

“The focus (of the show) is a self-conscious attempt to think about who we are and how society pins down our place in the social mix,” said Ken Arnold, head of public programs at the Wellcome Trust, a charity which funds research into human and animal health.

“It tries to capture that sense in which what the science tells us and what Big Brother tells us sort of have an influence on each other.”

The show, which runs from November 26 to April 6, 2010, is part of a wider project on identity being organized to mark the 10th anniversary of the Human Genome Project, or the sequencing of the human genome in 2000.

That year also marked the first British series of the Big Brother television show which the Wellcome Trust associated with our desire to find out more about who we are.

After the world was wowed by the National Day parade in Tian’anmen Square, young people in Beijing came up with the idea of “square fashion”, which combines the latest trends and functionalism.

Local fashion company Eve de Uomo was in charge of all 10,000 costumes in the parade. Chairperson Xia Hua says square fashion takes the stylish and useful elements in costumes at the parade, and has rearranged them into a new line.
Xia says the most important feature of square fashion is function. There were thousands of children who had to stay in the square for more than 20 hours, holding flowers and banners. Xia’s team created a pair of trousers with seven pockets.

“Children could put all they needed during the day in seven pockets, saving them a lot of trouble,” Xia says. “This will certainly become in vogue next season.”

Currently, adults can also find these slim-cut seven-pocket pants from the men’s brand Notting Hill. The brand copied the style of the pants children wore in the square.

Costumes of the female soldiers’ marching squad also influenced women’s wear this winter. Curved cap peaks and white berets are now seen in the latest collections of H&M, Zara and Mango. Pink and white are popular this season, because they reprise the suit-like pink outfits, with white inner shirts, belts and boots.

“These light colors deliver feminine beauty well. Pink and white are ladies’ colors,” Xia says.

Other square fashion trends are Mao-suits and red-star dcor on dresses. Though the style is traditionally Chinese, it can be mixed-and-matched in a modern way.

More Chinese men now dress to impress. At least that’s what the inaugural issue of GQ China suggests.

The fashion monthly sold 400,000 copies in October and 420,000 (till now) this month, according to media-planning consultancy Group M.

“GQ’s target readers are trendy men This is the right time for GQ to enter China’s market, because there are more potential readers now,” says Wang Feng, editorial director of GQ China, which is partly owned by US-based Conde Nast.

Traditionally, Chinese men have paid more attention to their career and family values, Wang says. “They were reluctant to accept that a man, too, needed to dress up.” But that has been changing over the past three years.

Three years ago, the L’Officiel Hommes magazine conducted a random survey in Beijing and Shanghai, which showed most men thought fashion was less important than other factors in life. The most common view was: A man should care more about his property and social status.

Women, however, have been paying more attention to grooming since the reform and opening up began in 1979.

Dou Jiangming, executive editor of Esquire China, said the last five years have seen quite a few men’s fashion magazines hitting the newsstands. Now, men have a much wider range to choose from – from Men’s Uno and Maxim to FHM and GQ China.

In fact, the first men’s fashion magazine in China was Esquire China – published with the Cosmopolitan’s Chinese edition in 1993. It became an independent magazine three years later.