Sometimes it is not so clear in this country which government agency is directly responsible for what. Sometimes this means that different government agencies fight over an issue, each competing with the other for the power to regulate. In other instances, the issue falls through the cracks and remains completely unregulated. I think that I have uncovered an insidious new practice that has yet to be regulated. Suffice it to say that I will be writing to several government agencies (Public Security Bureau, Ministry of Culture, State Food & Drug Administration, anyone else I can think of) asking them to stamp this stuff out, and quickly:

Mirror-gazing and cosmetic use among men in seven Chinese cities are on the rise, a survey published Tuesday by the state-run Xinhua news agency said.The survey by Horizon Research Consultancy Group and a Shanghai fashion and media company polled 2,239 men between the ages of 18 and 60, and found men in Shanghai were the most vain, as they spent an average 17.1 minutes in front of a mirror each day.

The average mirror time across the seven cities was 8.6 minutes, the survey said.Men spent an average of $10 a month on cosmetics, although of the 46 percent of men in Beijing men who purchased cosmetics said they spent $15 on them per month, Xinhua said.The other cities in the survey were Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Shenyang and Xian.

(This was a UPI story posted on the Earth Times site.)