One report said that a security guard tried to wake guests by firing his pistol but that the noise was drowned out by the air-conditioning units in the rooms.The Philippines’ president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, visited survivors in at least one hospital. “She told me that I can be assured of assistance from the government, but she did not specify what,” said Purita Legazpi, whose cousin died in the fire.The incident was the deadliest in the Philippines since a 1996 fire in a disco in which 160 people were killed.. Blue skies will dawn overhead, and green lawns will cushion my feet, if I wait seven years for the environmental miracles that Beijing promised in order to secure the 2008 Olympics. For now, a haze of pollution still blurs the skyline, grass is rare and strictly for show, and a construction boom rattles my city-centre flat. Blue skies will dawn overhead, and green lawns will cushion my feet, if I wait seven years for the environmental miracles that Beijing promised in order to secure the 2008 Olympics. For now, a haze of pollution still blurs the skyline, grass is rare and strictly for show, and a construction boom rattles my city-centre flat.
Desperate to escape the grime and noise, my wife and I have joined a growing exodus to the suburbs and beyond. As millions of Chinese peasants abandon their fields in order to work, often illegally, in the cities, successful urbanites are cultivating a taste for country living, at least at weekends.

Developers, estate agents and lifestyle magazines feed these bourgeois whims with villa complexes and even an avant-garde “Commune by the Great Wall”, now taking orders at just £300,000 per unit. Our budget and vision were somewhat more modest, with rustic charm paramount, but imperial pretension a plus.After years of daydreaming we found the perfect village this year, under an hour’s drive from Tiananmen Square. Skirting the celebrated Ming dynasty tombs, Dalingjiang boasts the best “feng shui” in China After all, 13 dead emperors can’t be wrong. And our friend Zhang Tong, village wise man and hunchbacked caretaker of the last Ming ruler’s tomb, was sure he had just the place.In his 75 years, Old Zhang has witnessed the madness of policies that Chairman Mao forced on every Chinese village. On the hill opposite his vegetable patch he now observes the madness of city slickers who come to grief at a newly-built ski slope and pay a fortune to rest at the nearby Buddhist cemetery.Such leisure and funeral businesses prosper as China’s people have more cash to spend on both life and death.

But real estate is the hottest dinner-table topic in Beijing. In the villages, too, new-found wealth translates into bricks and mortar, coated in the white tiles and blue glass that signal “prosperity” in rural China.Old Zhang’s first choice was a perfectly hideous example But a few months later, he was spot on. His neighbour Mr Yin had moved on to grander things, leaving his simple farmhouse empty, and reassuringly traditional Paper not glass covers most of the wooden window panels The adjacent orchard bursts with fruit trees. The hills loom impressively above the sloping slate-tiled roof, and our only question was price.

Mr Yin demanded 50,000 yuan (£3,850); we offered 20,000.With Old Zhang as middleman, Yin dropped to 40; we climbed to 25 “That’s fine,” said Yin, rising from the negotiating table “I have a friend in Beijing who’s interested. I’ll give the house to whoever pays the most.” Zhang’s drooping eyelids shot awake to caution against surrender. “I bet his Beijing friend doesn’t exist,” he explained later. “Be patient.”Racked by impatience, we hinted at a cheaper buy elsewhere At hastily resumed talks, Old Zhang brokered a £2,500 deal.