The results are in for the annual ranking of China's top universities by 21st Century HR Report (21世纪人才报) and once again Yunnan's top universities lag behind much of the rest of the country.

For the third year in a row, Beijing's Peking University topped the list, followed by Tsinghua University in Beijing and Fudan University in Shanghai. The top five were rounded out by Zhejiang University in Hangzhou and Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Yunnan, China's ninth-largest province in terms of population, only had two universities make the top 100 this year. Yunnan University slipped two places from its 2009 ranking to number 64 this year and Kunming University of Science and Technology barely made it in at the 100 spot.

Compared to its neighbors in southwest China, Yunnan fared better than Guizhou and Guangxi, who had one university each, with Guizhou University placing 89th and Guangxi University 95th.

Sichuan and Chongqing had much stronger showings, with Sichuan University ranking 12th and Chongqing University 31st. Sichuan was represented by an additional three universities in the top 100 and Chongqing's Southwest University ranked 50th.

The comparatively high quality of university graduates in both Chengdu and Chongqing is one of the main reasons that the two cities have eclipsed the rest of southwest Chinese cities in the race for domestic and foreign investment.

Yunnan University Party Secretary Liu Shaohuai (刘绍怀) told local media that slight ranking fluctuations were a normal phenomenon.

Liu said that one organization's rankings shouldn't be the basis for assessing an academic institution, adding that Yunnan University would do everything it can to be in the top 50 within a decade.

Today is opening day for a government-funded "gay bar" in Dali whose stated goal is to create a "common room for partner education" for the local gay community in one of the areas of China with the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates.

The 120,000 yuan (US$17,576) bar, located in Dali's old town, is managed by the NGO The Good Friend Center, according to a Global Times story.

Reaction across the Chinese Internet has ranged from praise to condemnation, to suspicion that the local government did the project to attract funds from international NGOs. Some commentators have said that the high-profile location is bound to doom the project due to the lingering stigma attached to homosexuality in China.

For the last three years, the main meeting area for homosexual men in the area had been in a wooded area just outside Dali's city wall, Kunming Information Hub reports.

On November 24, Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu said that homosexual sex accounted for 32 percent of the HIV/AIDS infections in China, adding that that proportion was likely to grow.

Government estimates put the current number of HIV/AIDS infections in China at about 650,000, while some epidemiologists say the number is more likely around 1.5 million. The Dali Health Bureau estimates there are 1,500 to 2,000 HIV-positive gay men in Dali.

The Bureau said the new bar it has funded will employ gay volunteers to attract customers.

Zhang Jianbo (张建波), the non-gay manager of the "bar", said that the bar was going to be less about the drinks and more about education and prevention.

"We might not even sell beverages in the bar. We will turn the bar into a tribune to offer lectures and training to gay people in order to reduce AIDS infections among them," he told the Beijing News.

Official data states that Yunnan province is home to more HIV/AIDS infections than any other administrative region in China. In addition to gay sex, unprotected sex among heterosexuals – especially involving prosititution – and intravenous drug use are major contributors to the number of transmissions each year.

Last year, a Tsinghua University study focused on the spread of HIV in Yunnan announced that in general intravenous drug users were being surpassed by women and gay men as the fastest growing HIV-positive gender demographics.

The Tsinghua report added that the virus' transmission rate among ethnic Han Chinese was quickening its pace, whereas in previous years it had been predominantly concentrated in ethnic minority populations.

Update I: Chinese news site ccvic.com is reporting that the Dali gay bar has already been closed down by local officials.

Update II: Zhang has been quoted in the People's Daily as saying the bar's opening was delayed due to public pressure.

"The bar will open, but maybe later. We are under a lot of pressure now and should eliminate the negative effect first. The other reason about the bar's delay is the over exposure of the bar which makes gay people afraid to come in," he said.

China's health care system has received a major upgrade in the last decade, but this improvement in health care options has yet to make its way into the countryside. A growing number of domestic and international organizations are working throughout the country to raise the quality of health care in China's rural areas – where the majority of its citizens still live.

GoKunming recently spoke with Dr Robert Detrano, founder and director of China California Heart Watch, a Yunnan-based NGO focused on improving basic cardiac health care throughout rural Yunnan:

GoKunming: What is the basic mission of China California Heart Watch?

Dr Robert Detrano: Our over-arching mission is to serve the rural poor in China through: medical research regarding heart disease and hypertension, education and training of medical professionals about heart disease and high blood pressure, providing free healthcare to those with heart disease and high blood pressure and overseeing hands-on, once-in-a-lifetime, goodwill overseas experiences for individuals interested in any of the above.

Activities of China California Heart Watch generate no profits. We can operate solely through the generosity and vision of donors, participants, philanthropic foundations, and granting agencies.

GK: How did China California Heart Watch come about? Why does it focus on Yunnan?

RD: During the 2005 Spring festival I was teaching at a hospital in Beijing. I took a trip to Yunnan to escape the frigid winter. In Kunming, I purchased a bicycle and started cycling south. After two days, people who were on their way to a pre-nuptial party in an impoverished Hani village invited me to celebrate with them. I left my bike in a cheap hotel. The road to the village was long and bumpy and we did not get there until the sun was setting.

The bride's family fed me and treated me like one of their family. They refused money when I offered it. The drivers drank quite a bit and nobody was able to take me back so the family put me up for the night. The house had no running water and no electricity. The heating was a wood fire in the middle of the floor, no chimney. There was no doctor in the village and the clinic had been abandoned. Their hospitality and universal love in the face of great hardship was my inspiration to come back and work with the poor farmers.

GK: What is the state of health care in rural Yunnan?

RD: Rural Yunnan has very inadequate health care. Village doctors receive training for three months after they graduate from high school. Township doctors are only a bit better educated and trained. Hospitals are poorly equipped and sanitary conditions are poor. Since doctors must make much of their living from a percentage on medicines they prescribe, they often prescribe medicines that are both expensive and inappropriate. Chronic diseases like high blood pressure are largely untreated.

The rural cooperative health insurance system is inadequate to cover procedures and surgeries that must be done at high level hospitals in Kunming or in other provinces. Kids die from heart conditions that are easily curable because their families cannot pay for life saving procedures that are available in Kunming.

GK: What heart diseases are most prevalent in Yunnan?

RD: We have surveyed over 1,000 farmers. High blood pressure is by far the most prevalent heart disease and in general the most prevalent chronic disease. More than 20 percent of adult farmers have high blood pressure. In some areas this approaches 50 percent. Fewer than 5 percent of those with high blood pressure have their blood pressures under control with diet and/or medicines.

GK: What are the most surprising things you've learned through your experiences with China California Heart Watch in Yunnan?

RD: The most surprising thing that I have learned is the good heartedness of the Chinese people. China is rapidly rising from extreme poverty and there is a misconception that Chinese people do not care to help their neighbors because they are so busy getting rich.

Though it is true that those, who in a lifetime rise from poverty into the middle class, are reluctant to give up what they have worked hard for, Chinese people, when they are touched by the poor conditions of the farmers, are quite ready to donate their time in our traveling clinics and in their hospitals.

Cardiologists at several hospitals in Yunnan and elsewhere donate their time to repair the heart defects of the rural poor. This is as inspiring as is the kindness of the villagers who fed me and put me up during the spring festival of 2005.

GK: What can be done to improve cardiac health in rural Yunnan and elsewhere in China in the coming years?

RD: The first step to a solution is awareness that the problem exists. If nothing is done, by 2050 ten million Chinese people – the population of two Kunmings - will die every year from heart disease and stroke. Through research, teaching and publicity, we must increase awareness of the problem. When the Chinese people and the Chinese government are sufficiently aware, they will solve this problem.

I invite all readers to go to our website www.chinacal.org or to write to me at robert [at] chinacal.org.

Police in the southern Yunnan city of Jianshui have arrested a kindergarten teacher who they say has confessed to pricking 24 students, some as young as three years old, with a syringe.

Twenty-one year old kindergarten teacher Sun Qiqi (孙琪琪) said that she used syringe pricks as a way to discipline students who were not obedient in class or who were making noise during naptime.

Police said that during questioning, Sun repeatedly said there were no liquids in the syringe's chamber and that she had not injected her students with anything. During investigation, police found a five milliliter disposable syringe in Sun's office desk at Xihu kindergarten in Jianshui.

There were also numerous needle holes in Sun's desk, which people close to the investigation said were made when Sun stabbed her desk while trying to frighten disobedient students.

A police spokesperson said 24 students have been tested for HIV, and hepatitis B and C, with no children testing positive for any of the three illnesses, adding that there were an additional 15 students that may have been pricked by Sun who may require testing.

A former classmate of Sun's told reporters that she had a bad temper and was very impatient. According to the Jianshui Education Bureau, Sun had yet to receive her teaching permit and Xihu Kindergarten, which has 179 students, had not yet received a license to operate.

Miss Philippines wins beauty crown in Kunming
The 2009 International Beauty and Model Competition took place this weekend in Kunming, with contestants from more than 40 countries competing in the national dress of their respective countries as well as enduring short interviews and a bikini competion.

Miss Philippines – whose name was not provided in Kunming media reports - took the crown, with Miss China being declared the 'Queen of Asia' and Miss Greece winning 'Queen of Europe' honors.

Australian trade minister to visit Kunming
Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean will be visiting Kunming this week as part of a trade mission that will also take him to Shanghai and Wuhan. While in Kunming, Crean will open an Australian Architecture and Design Exhibition and will also work to promote Australian participation in upcoming infrastructure projects.

"Australia is seeking to diversify and deepen our strong trading relationship with China into new sectors such as architecture and design, green-building, environmental management and sustainable development," Crean said in a statement reprinted on Nasdaq.com.

In addition to architecture and infrastructure, he will discuss Australian trade and investment with customers and investors in Yunnan's agribusiness sector. In recent years China and Australia have been in slowgoing discussions regarding a free trade agreement.

Government to urge peasants to read one book a year
The Yunnan government has allotted 0.5 yuan per rural resident in a fund that beginning next year will be aimed at raising literacy and education levels in the countryside. The project's basic goal is to get peasants throughout the province to read at least one book a year, according to local media reports.

Image: news.kunming.cn

Iran's first Confucius Institute, co-founded by Yunnan University and the University of Tehran, officially opened in Tehran on Monday.

Yunnan University president He Tianchun (何天淳) and University of Tehran president Farhad Rahbar cut the ribbon at the new Tehran institute, located in the university's Faculty of Foreign languages. Yunnan University is one of the only Chinese universities with an Iranian studies department.

The ceremony was also attended by China's ambassador to Iran, Xie Xiaoyan (解晓岩), who spoke at the ceremony and encouraged more exchanges between the people of China and Iran.

As an organization aimed at increasing knowledge of Chinese language and culture worldwide since 2004, the Confucius Institute is often compared to Germany's Goethe-Institut and the UK's British Council.

Unlike the Goethe-Institut and British Council, the Confucius Institute operates within partner universities – an arrangement which its critics claim can influence what is taught – or omitted – in the classroom.

There are 250 Confucius Institutes worldwide in 79 countries. The Tehran Confucius Institute will start with 57 students in four Chinese-language classes.

China's State Council announced yesterday that Chinese university graduates who relocate to western or central China will be eligible for a full refund of their tuition fees. The program was one of several measures aimed at improving employment prospects for university graduates.

With 6.1 million new graduates entering a bleak domestic job market and an official unemployment rate of 12 percent among recent graduates, the central government is hoping to move educated students into towns and villages in western and central China, where they would be entering smaller but less competitive labor pools.

According to labor experts at the China Academy of Social Sciences, many university graduates would rather work low-skilled jobs in China's wealthier coastal cities than take skilled positions in the country's interior cities.

A recent Guangzhou Daily report said that in the past half year more than 2,000 university graduates had applied to work as domestic helpers in the city of Guangzhou, some of them holding Master's degrees.

The 'Go West' refund for graduates was announced after a State Council meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, the second such meeting aimed at addressing domestic labor concerns. A meeting on December 10 focused on migrant workers.

Other measures announced yesterday include university refunds for graduates who join the army, incentives for graduates to seek employment in small- and medium-sized enterprises and preferential loan policies and taxes for graduates who start their own companies.

Restrictions related to hukou were also removed for graduates who take jobs outside of their cities of official residence, not including the centrally administered municipalities of Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing.

Image: news.qq.com

Editor's note: GoKunming is publishing photos from the collection of Auguste François (1857-1935), who served as French consul in south China between 1896 and 1904, during which he spent several years in Kunming. The photos have been provided by Kunming resident and private collector Yin Xiaojun (殷晓俊). GoKunming thanks Yin Xiaojun for providing us a glimpse of Yunnan at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Year: 1903
Subject: Gongyuan
Location: Present-day Yunnan University

Background:

Kunming's roots as an educational hub for Yunnan trace back to the Qing Dynasty, well before the Yundas, Shidas and Jingmao Daxues of today started cranking out graduates.

As Yunnan's administrative center, Kunming was where young men from around the province came to take China's notoriously difficult and stressful civil service examinations. Those who succeeded had the chance to go on to the national exams in Beijing, those who failed generally turned to drink or did the dignified thing and drowned themselves.

In Kunming, the provincial-level exams were administered at the current location of Yunnan University, at an educational institution known as Gongyuan (贡院).

Every three years 1,500 hopeful scholars who had passed their county/prefecture exams to become xiucai (秀才) would come to Gongyuan to take the provincial exam. The few candidates who passed the exam in Gongyuan would be designated as juren (举人) and would be allowed to proceed to the national exams. Those who passed the national level exams were designated jinshi (进士), after which they were eligible for high-level official positions.

The above photo by Auguste François - taken 19 years before the founding of Yunnan University - is of Gongyuan's front gate, which is strikingly bare compared to the lush front gate of Yunnan University today, pictured below.

Related article: Auguste François, Yin Xiaojun and Kunming at the end of the Qing Dynasty