8 - The Prince George Citizen - Friday, May 14,1993
Get A Break On Our Mortgage Rate
And Get A Break For Doing It.
To Cover Your Mortgage Costs.
Getting a mortgage-rate break adds up to big savings.
And right now we're offering you 1/4% off our mortgage-rate on closed 1 to 5 year terms. We’ll also pay up to $500 of your transfer, penalty, or appraisal fees (where required). But this offer ends June 30th 1993. We also offer a very flexible variable-rate convertible mortgage.
For more information call us. soon.
Bank of British Columbia
Division of Hongkong Bank of Canada Now, what can we do for you ?
201 Victoria Street 564-9800
B.C. Interior Jeep and Eagle Dealers
'i/m im	v a w a aaa av ■ ■ w ■ v w v a aw aaa%«e^ a w mm w vi ■ w a w Northland Jeep/Eagle 1596 3rd Avenue Prince George, 562-5254 Dealer #7734	Jeep, j
The Jeep & Eagle #1 Sales Event Is All About You!		
'Price based on MSRP ot YJ ”S" (23A package) with factory Cash Back already deducted Licence, registration and taxes extra. Factory Cash Back in effect from April 16, 1993 until terminated by Chrysler Canada Ltd This offer cancels, replaces and may not be combined with other offers. Offer applies to Dealer inventories only. Dealer may sell for less tSome restrictions apply See Dealer for details
EVEREST CLIMBER KILLED
KATMANDU, Nepal (Reuter) — The Indian nephew of Everest mountaineer Sherpa Tenzing Norgay fell to his death while retracing his uncle’s footsteps on the anniversary of the first successful assault on the summit, Nepal’s Tourism Ministry said.
Lobsang Tshering Bhutia, a nephew of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay — who made the first ascent of the world’s highest peak with Edmund Hillary in 1953 — fell and was killed as he descended the mountain, it said.
Bhutia, a climbing instructor
at the Indian Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, reached the summit of the 8,800 metre mountain on May 10 with Australian Michael Groom, a 33-year-old plumber from Brisbane.
The expedition was led by Tenzing Tashi, a 27-year-old Australian citizen, to mark the 40th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest.
Bhutia, 41, was the third person to die on the mountain during the current climbing season. The other two were Nepali Sherpas.
Small signs of change point to economic boom in China
Maybe it is the pigpen, maybe it is the mud, but high-heel shoes seem out of place in rural China. These days, they are the height of elegance, one of the small signs of change in the lives of ordinary people in the world’s fastest developing country.
by ANNE McILROY Southam News » YANGSHUO, China — It’s evening, yet the high-heel shoes seem out of place.
Maybe it’s because the young woman wearing them is on her way to feed the pigs.
Even in Guangxi, a predominately rural province in southwest China, heels are the height of elegance. However impractical, you see them on women lugging vegetables, riding bicycles or working in roadside stands that sell sugar cane. Most pairs are plain, plastic and ill-fitting, some are plain ugly, the stubs worn down to metal and spattered with mud.
“I like white,” says a woman scrubbing the muck off her pair in the railway station washroom in Guilin, a city in the northern part of the province. She seems disappointed that female Western visitors generally wear sneakers, not glittery purple ankle boots with spiked heels like she has seen on the wife of one of China’s new millionaires.
Heels arc only one pointed sign of change in the world’s most rapidly developing country, now in , the midst of one of the biggest economic booms in history.
In parts of southern China, the economy grew by more than 20 per cent in 1992. Nationally, growth has been at 10 per cent for
more than a decade. With 1.2 billion people, some experts predict China could overtake the U.S. as the largest economy in the world within a generation.
While political reform is not on the agenda of China’s aging leaders, in small ways the lives of ordinary people are changing.
The most dramatic evidence is in Guangzhou, the biggest of the boom towns and the principal city in Guangdong, the southern province closest to Hong Kong. Guangzhou is the heart of China’s capitalist revolution, and both money and ideas are arriving swifdy.
Many state-owned grocery stores now stock far more than oil, rice and flour and have begun to look like Western supermarkets. The evening news has become more glitzy than monotone, radically changing its format. Rock videos — both Chinese and Western — are the rage and so are luxury cars and expensive dogs either imported or stolen from Hong Kong. The streets have become so con-
gested the mayor is considering banning bicycles for the city centre.
People often greet one another by asking ‘‘Have you eaten yet today?” But the collective answer has been such a resounding “yes” that one American company is planning to import low-calorie diet products into one of the most food-obsessed cultures in the world.
Women’s fashions have long served as a barometer of political change in China. In ' the darkest days of the Cultural Revolution, hair ribbons, a pretty blouse or long hair were a sign of the wrong political tendencies. Today, stirrup pants are in and more than 15,000 Avon ladies sell cosmetics door-to-door.
Young women, especially, seem to yearn for Western glamor. This year, China held its first-ever national beauty pageant.
The controversy was not over whether to hold the contest, where women paraded in bathing suits and evening dresses, but what to
call the winner when she goes on to the “Miss World” pageant. Taiwan has already laid claim to “Miss China.”
“It is very sensitive,” says Ian Billingham, one of the organizers, who works for a Honk Kong consulting firm. For now, she is “Miss East.”
But life is far from a beauty pageant in most of China, a country where millions still live in mud huts, mired in deep poverty and the Communist past.
In Yangshuo, Stalin’s picture still hangs on the walls of the kindergarten. Only women who can afford it buy high heels, the rest go barefoot, even in winter, or wear thin shoes sewn from cloth.
It is a place where a family’s laundry can be spread out to dry on a single bicycle, where there is a note of desperation when people ask foreigners to buy goods from them or change money.
“How much do those shoes cost?” asks a 40-year-old woman, who has three children, works on a farm and earns extra money by taking tourists up the limestone hill where former U.S president Richard Nixon once planted a tree.
She was pointing to a pair of expensive running shoes. She said they were worth more than she could earn in a year.
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The Regional Parks belong to you Enjoy your visit, but please leave the parks in their natural state and litter-free so future generations may enjoy their visits too.
Come with your family, friends or class - our parks have unique experiences to offer you.
Parks brochures are available at the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George office. For further information, phone 563-9225 during office hours.
FRASER-FORT GEORGE REGIONAL DISTRICT
987 Fourth Avenue, Prince George, B.C. V2L 3H7 Phone 563-9225 - Fax 563-7520
PUBLIC NOTICE
REGIONAL PARKS
The Regional District Parks will be fully open for the summer season on Victoria Day weekend, May 22, 1993.
Our Regional Parks provide a range of outdoor recreation opportunities.
These parks are for day use only and are representative of our region's natural environment, recreation and heritage resources.
You can enjoy your visit in the following Regional Parks:
Glacome Portage Regional Park • 50 km north of Prince George on the Fraser River featuring the Historic Huble Homestead. 8.2 km of the old Giscome Portage is in use as a hiking or ski trail during the winter months.
HUBLE HOMESTEAD
Guided Tours are available daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Wilkins Regional Park - picnic areas in two locations with fire pits, group playing field and boat launch. 3.5 km of hiking trails. Situated on the Nechako River 14 km from Prince George.
Neaa Lake Regional Park - walking trails, swimming, picnic site, canoe launch and change house. 32 km from Prince George via Chief Lake Road.
Berman Lake Regional Park - 3 km of hiking trials, swimming, picnic site, canoe launch and change house. Travel 40 km from Prince George on Highway 16 west, turn left on Norman Lake Road for 3 km.
Harold Mann Regional Park - 50 km east of Prince George on Upper Fraser Road at Eaglet Lake. Swimming, change house, picnic tables and canoeing with ample room for family and group activities.
McMillan Creek Park - offers an easy 15 minute walk to a panoramic view of the City. Or for a more strenuous walk take the 1.5 km trail.
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