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China Youth Daily

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A visitor from the planet Mars looking through the newspapers on 1 April would surely wonder why all the most extraordinary advances in human knowledge seem to be discovered on 31 March, just in time for them to be reported the following day. Some years ago, the German car manufacturer BMW placed an advertisement in the British newspapers for a car which would only start when it recognized the feel of the owner's body in the driver's seat. For 1 April is, of course, April Fools' Day, the day traditionally reserved for jokes. No one knows exactly when and why April Fools' Day began, but it has been observed for centuries in several countries in Europe and Asia. It was certainly well-established in Britain and France by the early 18th century. More recently, China has been joining in the fun. In 1993, Beijing's normally serious newspaper China Youth Daily printed a whole page of April Fools' jokes. One article said that, in an important change to China's one-child per-family policy, intellectuals with doctor's degrees would now be allowed a second child. It was so convincing that a French news agency used the report.