China Watch Blog

China Watch Blog has learnt that people still enjoy reading books the old-fashioned way – on paper – in the digital age, according to a survey released by the Shanghai Statistics Bureau.

While Shanghai residents have quickly adapted to e-reading, but the majority of them said they read better on printed books rather than on cell phones, laptops and e-readers, according to the survey based on telephone interviews of 1,000 people from various age groups.

Overall, about the same proportion of people read on digital devices as on paper.

E-reading is gaining more popular with young people with strong educational backgrounds, with higher proportions of them reading on digital devices.

But traditional reading has merits that can’t be replaced by e-reading, 60 percent of the survey respondents said. People complained that it’s easier for them to feel tired when reading on digital devices and it’s difficult for them to read intensively or make notes in e-reading.

More than 60 percent of people read more than an hour per day, and 40 percent read one to six books every year. Young adults, who are often assumed to be uninterested in reading, read about as much as many of their elders, the survey found.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Chinese police have detained 53 people for their roles in the ongoing toxic gelatin scandal, the Ministry of Public Security said.

They also shut 10 gelatin or capsule manufacturers and seized more than 230 tons of industrial gelatin, a top ministry official was quoted saying in a nationwide teleconference as reported by a People’s Daily report.

Deputy Minister Huang Ming said the ministry will continue to monitor cases in Zhejiang, Shandong, Hebei and Jiangxi provinces to determine where toxic gelatin had been sent.

Industrial gelatin manufactured in Hebei Province and supplied to drug capsule producers may also have been used in food, the Beijing Times reported.