Graham Earnshaw was the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1980 to 1984, and he's been looking through his clippings, which seem to prove both that China has changed completely and also that China has stayed exactly the same. This spring and summer, Danwei will be publishing a series of these reports from the past. This is today's resurrected item:

China Frogs Fight it Out in Paddy Field
June 6, 1981
By Graham Earnshaw in Peking

More than 2,000 frogs fought a fierce battle in a paddy field in southern China recently and more than 40 died, the China Daily reported yesterday. The English-language newspaper said the fight may have been touched off by a mating dispute.

"The croaking in a paddy field in a suburb of Huitong was deafening as hundreds of frogs rushed to join the raging battle. Some frogs were fighting individually while other mounted group assaults."

The battle ended after about two hours when a boy threw a stone into the battlefield. The frogs fled.