On paper, the visa rules for China have always been strict. But in recent years, foreigners could turn to a thriving gray market for their immigration documents. For a small fee, agencies would gather all the paperwork required for coveted visas allowing visitors to remain in the country for as long as a year.

That abruptly ended in April.

China all but stopped issuing multi-entry visas and began requiring tourists to submit documentation such as hotel reservations, plane tickets and other information. Police officials also began randomly stopping foreigners in the street and questioning them about their status in the country. Immigration officials increasingly made unannounced visits to companies to check the paperwork of foreign employees.

Market Watch also published a brief article on CIBT, that also claims that visa regulations are becoming more complex.

Mr. Diehl cautioned Olympics-bound travelers that “going directly to the Chinese Embassy or consulates to obtain visas has proven frustrating for many individuals and groups who have been turned away due to the lack of proper support documentation often resulting in multiple return trips. Sending your application by mail is even riskier. Until recently, a Chinese visa was valid for one year and permitted multiple entries. Now, people need official invitations, flight and hotel confirmation, and in some cases bank statements and other documents to apply for a visa.”

In addition to frustrated potential visitors to China, the economy is also experiencing difficulties due to the new visa restrictions. The Wall Street Journal reports on the vacant hotels in Beijing, built for Olympic visitors and other tourists who are now hampered from entering China.

The worries about a possible glut have grown in recent weeks. Many of Beijing’s newest hotel rooms are sitting empty following the government’s tightening of visa restrictions as part of public-safety measures tied to the Olympics. Even during the Games, occupancy rates may not be as high as originally predicted. The tourism bureau says that more than three-quarters of Beijing’s five-star hotels are booked for the Olympics, but at four stars, less than half the rooms are reserved.

In Zhu Jia Jiao, we’ve met Master Yue Le, a local artist that makes his living on creating banners/posters for tourists that visit that town: with our little domain of Mandarin, we’ve asked him to create some banners to represent something he would consider typical.

He was very kind to explain to us that — in traditional chinese culture — one would hang banners at the door of the house, wishing neighbors and visitors good omens; such tradition is still kept in most cities around China, but mostly during festivals and special occasions, like the Spring Festival.

In the first video, he tells us he is going to paint one of the most chinese typical wishes, which is “Welcome Home” (I would say that is a pretty cross-cultural wish, right?). Like an artist, a poet, or a designer, he make some sketches on a little notebook before painting the banners, trying to figure out the most auspicious characters to use.

In the second video, he paints the message “Huan Ying Guang Lin Wo Men De Jia”, which roughly translate as “Welcome to Our Home”: note how master Yue tries to make the visual alignment mentally, as if he was hesitating to start before painting.

In the last part, he paints our names; obviously, our western names have to be “converted” to Chinese, which usually involves either one of two strategies: first, try to find words that sound like their original western names, like “John” would be translated into “Jiang”, or — second — find the equivalent words to our names in Chinese; like my name “Itamar” — which in Tupy-Guarani, an indigenous language in Brazil — means “Coral Reef” was translated into “Hai Yan”.

In China, calligraphy is much appreciated — note how many locals gather around master Yue — but is not widely practiced by the younger generations, and it is a risk of dying. So, it was really nice to see the interest of the young ones gathering around master Yue, ask him questions, and observe him at work.

Of last year’s spending, the bulk was for Internet access fees and online shopping, while only a small percentage of users paid for services such as online music, video and anti-virus software, the report, titled Netguide 2008, showed. The spending figures don’t include online advertising.

The report’s findings are based on data collected from a survey of 50,786 mainland Internet users and 270 companies across the country, as well as from seminars and interviews with industry experts.

The monthly spend per Web user last year was 182.6 yuan, and ISC predicts a 8.8 percent growth for each Web user this year.

Online game, ranking third most paid-for service per Web user last year, is expected to bring the game companies a total of 13 billion yuan in sales this year, 39 percent more than last year, as the number of gamers expands by 11 million to 59 million.

Among other rapidly growing sectors, online travel registered a 65.4 percent growth over 2006 last year to reach 2.25 billion Yuan as more and more travelers are using the Internet to book hotels and air tickets.

Search-related ads in China generated sales in of 2.87 billion Yuan (a little over 380 Million US dollars) last year, a whopping 82.8 percent year-on-year growth. It should continue to grow at 81 percent this year, outpacing growth of online branding ads sales, and hit nine billion Yuan in 2009 (over 1.3 Billion US Dollars).

Heavy white storms staged a comeback late yesterday as China’s transport network remained crippled by the heaviest snowfall in five decades.

Millions of people trying to head home for the Spring Festival are stranded.

The big freeze has killed dozens of people, impacted on the lives of at least 80 million others and caused economic losses estimated at more than 53.8 billion yuan (US$7.5 billion).

Snow began to hit central Hunan Province and eastern Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces yesterday afternoon.

The national meteorological center forecast red-alert-level snowstorms in the northern and central parts of Zhejiang today.

Sleet is today set to hit major parts of Guizhou Province, and southern regions of Hunan and central Jiangxi - three areas where icy weather has seriously disrupted power supplies. Fujian Province in the east can also expect sleet, weather experts said.

Premier Wen Jiabao yesterday made a second trip to Changsha, capital of Hunan, within a week to help direct emergency work. Wen visited railways in Changsha and Guangzhou on Monday and Wednesday in an effort to calm stranded passengers. After several days of respite from the heavy snow, traffic along the expressway linking Beijing and Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, began to pick up speed after ice was removed.

More and more trains also resumed operations on the Beijing-Guangzhou railway. The north-south trunk line had been paralyzed since last Saturday from the Hunan section southward where power-transmission facilities were knocked out by heavy snow.

Guangzhou, home to millions of migrant workers seeking to go home for the holidays, has been the worst affected.

The number of stranded people in Guangzhou yesterday dropped to 400,000 from a peak of 800,000.

The cold weather is China’s worst since 1954.

Between January 25 and Thursday, a total of 5.8 million passengers were stranded throughout the railway system, said Zhao Chunlei, deputy director of the Regulation Department of the Ministry of Railways.

So far at least 60 people have been killed and nearly 1.76 million have been relocated.