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For most Chinese children, the International Children’s Day, which falls on June 1, often comes with a day off and gifts from parents, and a pile of homework and extracurricular classes as well.

Chinese children are experiencing heavier pressure as well as much pleasure, which make their childhood not as carefree as that of previous generations.

OLD MEMORIES VS NEW AFFLUENCE

Wang Wenyi is a 70-year-old retired electric welder in Beijing. When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 and the Children’s Day was designated in the same year, he was 10.

“At that time, trams and parks in Beijing were free to kids when it came to the Children’s Day, and we had a day off from school. I always took a tram to the Xidan downstreet and Tian’anmen Square, just looking around,” said Wang.

“Kids did not have much fun in old days. It was exciting for us to take a tram,” Wang added.

Now he was happy to see his 11-year-old grandson having a better-off and more interesting childhood.

“He doesn’t care about new clothes, delicious food or toys, because he has all he wants.”

Chen Yanyan, a 24-year-old employee in an overseas-funded entertainment corporation, said he had a dream of having a bicycle since junior high school. But he did not get one until he was enrolled in college. Children now can get one at the age of 5.

Sun Ling, a public servant in Shanghai, said he would buy a kid’s bicycle for his 5-year-old daughter as a Children’s Day gift.

“She is so lucky and carefree”.

Sun, 30, said during his childhood, he could only play with discarded wine bottle caps, small coins and self-made wood pistols.

“My uncle once brought me an electric toy gun, and I played it for years. But when it was broken, I never got new ones from my parents,” Sun said.

Now his daughter’s toys were thrown everywhere in the house, and she has more clothes than anyone else in the family.

“Sometimes I even feel jealous of her,” Sun said.

For kids in the countryside, many of whose parents are migrant workers in cities, their childhood is also more delightful than that of their parents.

Ma Xinjiang, 33, left his 6-year-old son in the hometown Anhui Province and earned money as a cement worker in Beijing. The son was in a local kindergarten, and Ma often sent him clothes and Ultra man toys.

“His life was much better than ours. When I was a boy, I did not even know what a kindergarten was, and I just played by myself,” Ma said.

NEW PRESSURE

Wang Wenyi said he spent less time with his grandson since he entered primary school.

“He was much busier than a child should ever be.”

“In old days, we had only two subjects in primary school, Chinese and math, not even English. But my grandson has so many courses, extra-curricular interest classes, and some other group activities,” Wang said.

Li Ou’meng, a student at the Beijing’s Second Experimental Primary school, complained he might not have much time for a sound sleep on the Children’s Day.

“We have performances, and we got homework, so much homework. What kind of a holiday is it when it makes us so strained?” Li said.

Experts said study has become the biggest burden for Chinese children and that it is improper to impose parents’ expectations and value of the society on children at an early age.

“It will deprive of their childhood to make early arrangements for future education — and it goes against their recognition and development,” said Zhou Xiaolin, a psychology professor from Peking University.

Many parents think entering a top university is the basis for finding a decent job and live a comfortable life in the future.

Zhu Liqi, a professor of the Institute of Psychology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), described the competition as “a war without gun smoke.”

“They learn more, they know more, they are smarter, but not necessarily happier,” Zhu said.

The battle begins when children are still in kindergarten, when parents send their 4-or-5-year-old kids to various interest classes.

Xin Wei, a five-and-a-half-year-old boy from Beijing’s Happy Times Kindergarten, had music, painting, English and table tennis courses every week after school.

Xin’s mother, Huo Na, said all these courses were up to his will.

“We once took him to an arithmetic class when he was 4, but the homework was demanding and we got tired, so we quit it soon,” Huo said.

“I like singing and dancing, and other courses are interesting, too. I am also proud of my fluent English,” Xin said.

Xin even held his first painting exhibition during his fifth birthday anniversary. With his mother’s help, he posted his own paintings on the walls of the kindergarten and acted as a guide to explain paintings to his classmates.

“We do everything to make him feel confident, so that he will be mentally prepared for future challenges,” Huo said.

Experts agreed that children’s success depends more on social abilities, especially on communication and emotion control, as they bear much more pressure than children decades ago.

Michael Jackson, the 50-year-old pop singer, is planning a string of comeback concerts in London which could earn him up to 45 million pounds(about 65 million U.S. dollars), according to media reports Tuesday.

Jackson is said to be in secret talks with organizers to stage his pop revival with up to 30 dates at the O2 arena. The negotiations are thought to be at an advanced stage, with Jackson poised to secure 1.5 million pounds(about 2.1753 million U.S. dollars) per night to perform at the 20,000 capacity venue in Greenwich.

It is believed that an announcement confirming the deal will be made within weeks. AEGLive, which runs the arena, has pencilled in Jackson’s first performance for July.

The series of concerts would attract fans from all over the world and tickets could sell for as much as 1,000 pounds (about 1 450 U.S. dollars) for VIP packs.

Rumours have circulated that the debt-ridden singer, who was cleared of child molestation charges in 2005, is in no fit state to face the demands of performing live.

But sources have dismissed speculation of illness, overuse of prescription drugs and stage fright, and organisers have been told that Jackson is ready to make a comeback.

The London arena is competing with US venues to secure Jackson on the bill, but it is believed that he would favour re-launching his career in Britain because he still enjoys huge popularity in Europe.

The 30-night stint would eclipse the longest run of 21 shows which Prince performed at the O2 in 2007.

For the first time in a century, Rome celebrated Carnival in a one-week festivity featuring allegorical parades, masks and street shows.

The celebrations ran from Thursday 19 to Tuesday 24. The closing day is known as “Fat Tuesday.”

“Finally the Roman Carnival has returned,” medicine student Roberta Delonghi told Xinhua. “I love to dress up and this year it seems as if we are in Venice. The city is full of colors, beautiful masks and allegorical charts.”

On Tuesday she took part with her friends in one of the many events organized for the closing day of carnival, disguised as an ancient Roman princess.

The atmosphere at Castel Sant’Angelo, the former papal prisons hanging over the Tiber River which have been turned into a museum, on Tuesday evening was vibrant with laughter, colors and music. Children and adults ice-skated on a ring wearing masks and singing traditional songs in dialect. The pavements were covered with strings of colored paper, called “coriandoli.”

Francesco Rossi, a bartender who took a day-off work to participate in the Carnival festivities, told Xinhua that “it’s great to live the old traditions of the city. Carnival is part of the Roman culture and the new mayor did a great job in reviving it.”

Gianni Alemanno, Rome’s newly elected center-right mayor, told Italian news agency ANSA that he wants to “revive old traditions such as Carnival and rediscover the heart of ancient Rome.”

For Alemanno, restoring historical customs is a big cultural issue. “I want to rediscover our past festivities and mix them with a tinge of modernity,” he added.

Local authorities have been working months to launch the project Rome Carnival 2009 and it’s been a success.

The Italian hotel association and the national circuit of ancient villas contributed in organizing the Carnival events in Rome.

For some teenagers Carnival is an excuse to get drunk. “My friends and I helped in building the allegorical charts with Batman and Robin and now it’s our turn to have some fun drinking alcohol,” 18-year-old Federico Saponaro told Xinhua.

Rome’s City Hall organized more than 30 events for the Carnival celebrations, scattered in all neighborhoods. Circuses with horses jumping in the flames, masquerades, fireworks, open-air theaters, folkloristic dances and allegorical chart parades filled the streets of the Italian capital for eight days. Tourists and citizens had fun dressing-up and walking through the historical center, savoring “frappe” and “castagnole,” traditional Carnival cakes.

Carnival is a festivity occurring immediately before Lent, usually during January and February. It typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, masque and public street party. People often dress up or masquerade during the celebrations, which mark an overturning of daily life and a moment of fun. It’s a festival traditionally held all around the world but particularly in Roman Catholic countries.

Italy has a long Carnival tradition. World-wide famous is Venice’s Carnival, with beautiful Renaissance masks and decorated gondolas moving through the canals. The carnival in Venice is one of the most ancient in the world, first recorded in 1268.

The subversive nature of the festival is reflected in the many laws created over the centuries in Italy attempting to restrict celebrations and often banning the wearing of masks. Nowadays Carnival it has lost its subversive nature and is a moment of pure citizen fun and party time.

Rome, just as Venice, has a deep Carnival tradition. In the Renaissance period the Roman Carnival was famous in all Europe even more than the Venetian one. However, throughout the centuries local authorities came to abandon the city celebrations.

Major events at the time were the horse race through the city’s streets and the burlesque scenes of the Comedy of Art, a form of improvised drama. Carnival was one of the most important city festivities. Romans looked forward to the celebrations because it was the only moment during the year when everything out-law was allowed.

As talk of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games gradually lessens on people’s lips, the Shanghai World Expo 2010 is moving to the fore for media at home and abroad.

Organizers told a press conference Thursday they were optimistic that about 70 million visitors would come, despite the current gloomy world economy.

Zhong Yanqun, deputy director of the Expo National Organizing Committee said 231 countries and international organizations have confirmed they are coming as of Feb. 23.

The Expo is on track to be the largest fair of its kind since the first World’s Fair (known as the Great Exhibition), the predecessor event of the Expo, was held in London in 1851.

According to Zhu Yonglei, deputy director general of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination, so far no possible attendees had declined to participate because of global economic downturn.

Countries such as Iceland, which had suffered greatly from the financial woes, had signed exhibition contracts with the committee. Iceland planned to use the expo as an opportunity to rejuvenate its economy, said Zhong.

But the committee said it was not yet clear if the United States would attend. Congress ended public funding for the event in the early 1990s, and private-sector companies must pay the costs. There was no United States exhibit at the 2000 Expo, nor atthe one in Zaragoza, Spain last year.

The U.S. government assured its participation in the exhibition orally in October 2006. However, no agreement in written form has been signed to confirm its attendance yet.

But Zhu said China expected to see the United States at the Expo. “The U.S. played an important role in the history of urban development. It is an excellent example of the theme of the world expo 2010, Better City, Better Life,” he said.

The 231 attendants so far confirmed to attend the gala included185 countries and 46 international organizations.

This means Shanghai has met one of its targets of about 200 countries and international organizations taking part in the gala.

The eastern metropolis is also upbeat about its goal of attracting 70 million visitors to the expo, due to be held from May 1 to Oct. 31 next year. That would be nearly three times as many as attended the Hanover, Germany event in 2000.

Zhong said market research showed about 95 percent of the 70 million visitors would be native Chinese, and the remaining 5 percent were foreigners.

Despite the financial crisis which started to bite China in the second half of last year, a total of about 5.26 million people from outside the Chinese mainland visited Shanghai in 2008, up 1.23 percent year on year.

According to the press conference, the six-month long expo will feature two highlights: a showcase of the best examples and ideas of how cities can be developed, and an online expo that will allow people around the world access to the expo’s offerings.

Wang Jinzhen, vice chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), said Taipei city of Taiwan would exhibit its advanced management of city garbage at the expo, and Taipei would also demonstrate itself as a city of broadband and wireless technologies.

Concepts for environmental protection and ecological balance would also be a specialty in the expo, from the building of exhibition halls to the recycled use of water from the city’s mother river Huangpu as means to cool venues in the hot summer when the expo is held, Zhong said.

“The Shanghai Expo will serve as a great chance to remind people of the importance of environmental protection. People will see a lot of environmentally-friendly technologies and measures used in the Expo,” said Zhong.

The conference also disclosed a normal expo ticket would cost 160 yuan (about 23.39 U.S. dollars), or about 1 percent of the per capita disposable income of urbanites in 2008, and there will be special discounts for the disabled, students, the elderly and army officers. Ticket price could be as low as 50 yuan.

For children under 1.2 meters, they are not required tickets for entry.

Zhong said the first phase of the expo ticket selling would start as early as March 27 this year, but that is for group buyers, including government organizations and state-owned companies.

Individuals can snap a ticket as early as July 1 this year in the second phase of the ticket selling through the Internet or by phone. And they can buy one via ticket selling machines when the expo is held.

Pop star Rihanna was reported on Friday to have reunited with her R&B singer boyfriend Chris Brown, less than three weeks after he was alleged to have assaulted her.

People magazine said Barbados-born Rihanna — who had hits with “Umbrella” and “Disturbia” — and Brown were spending time together at one of the homes of hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.

“While Chris is reflective and saddened about what happened, he is really happy to be with the woman he loves,” the source said in a report on People’s website.

A representative of Chris Brown had no comment on the People report. Rihanna’s publicist could not immediately be reached.

Brown, 19, a rising young star with a huge teen fan base, was arrested on Feb. 8 on suspicion of making criminal threats against a woman after a late-night altercation in a car.

Los Angeles prosecutors have not yet decided whether to file formal charges against Brown, who performed chart-toppers “Run It!” and “Forever.”

A picture of a bruised Rihanna with swollen lips was leaked on the Internet last week, apparently from Los Angeles police files, and added credence to widespread reports that the woman involved was her.

The assault on the eve of the Grammy Awards caused both stars to cancel their scheduled appearances. It sent shockwaves through the music industry and stunned fans of the couple, who had been dating for about a year.

Rihanna returned to her family in Barbados and Brown issued a statement on February 15 saying he was “sorry and saddened” about the incident and was seeking counseling.

People magazine reported earlier this week that Brown telephoned Rihanna on her 21st birthday a week ago.

“He called to wish her happy birthday,” a source told the magazine. “They’ve reached out to each other. It’s been mutual.”

Pop star Britney Spears’ comeback tour may not be a big hit, indicates sales of tickets still left in plenty for the first show tomorrow in New Orleans.

“Group sales are down considerably,” says one person close to the production, “and then you’ve got individual tickets that cost as much as $500 apiece. That’s a lot of money to spend on an artist who isn’t a sure bet right now.”

The source maintains that those who did pony up for seats won’t be let down.

“She’s worked really, really hard to make this good. Granted, there’ve been some hiccups along the way, but she’s going to put on a good show. I just hope there are people there to see it,” says the source. “This is really her last chance.”

The tour is part of Britney’s heavily orchestrated comeback from a string of personal problems and disastrous appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2007.