Wednesday February 13, 2013

Girl, 11, has been putting away her CNY collection from young

Compiled by ALLISON LAI, RAHIMY RAHIM and A. RAMAN

AN 11-YEAR-OLD girl has saved RM100,000 in ang pow money given to her since she was small.

Sin Chew Daily and Nanyang Siang Pau reported that Xu Leyi, a Standard Four pupil from Caihe town at Hangzhou City, China, has 200,000 yuan (RM99,800) of ang pow money in her savings.

The girl's father said his daughter would usually start collecting ang pow on the eve of Chinese New Year and by the same night, have a large stack of ang pow under her pillow.

He said the ang pow was usually given by close relatives and friends, adding that the money had been put in the bank for Leyi's education.

“She gets about 20,000 yuan (RM9,900) in ang pow money each year.

“She should have more than 500,000 yuan (RM248,600) in savings when she graduates from university at the age of 23,” he said.

Compared with the days when ang pow was worth only two, five or 100 yuan, he said times were different now with the amount starting at 1,000 yuan (RM499).

Leyi said the largest ang pow she had received was 10,000 yuan (RM4,990) from her grandparents last year.

> Sin Chew Daily reported that six children aged between nine and 12 had been picked up by Singapore police for suspected arson.

It said some residents alerted police on Monday that several children were playing with fire at a park near Ghim Moh Road.

Four of the children were later arrested. Police found seven lighters on them. Two others were arrested the next day.

The six were investigated for three arson cases that happened December last year and January.

> Nanyang Siang Pau reported that more than a third of Malaysian workers do not get enough sleep because of personal and work commitments. They either wake up too early or stay up late.

It said only 60% of firms rewarded their management for encouraging flexible work hours, although it could reduce commuting, create more family time and improve productivity and staff retention.

The findings were from interviews by Regus, the world's largest provider of flexible workplaces with more than 24,000 business-people from over 90 countries.

● Other News & Views is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a > sign, it denotes a separate news item.