Three new Metro lines - Line 6, 8 and 9 - and two extented portions on Line 1 and 4 will enter service tomorrow. The online department is busy preparing information for publication on the new lines and extensions, which will appear on "."

 The new "Live in Shanghai" has an extensive section on , featuring an interactive map on all the lines - those currently in operation and those that are scheduled, detailed timetables and prices for each line. Thanks to our intern Shen Xinyi's painstaking work, we also managed to provide a detailed map for each of the Metro station currently in use. Shen returned to school after she finished her internship with us this summer with high praises from all the team.

To our surprise, she popped up recently and joined us again for the preparation of the new Metro info. However, the whole set of inforamtion may still take a short while to reach our Website users as the official information has not been released yet and we need confirmation of details. Hopefully you will be able to find basic facts on these new lines and extensions on "Live in Shanghai" next week.

Every month Shanghai Daily editors honour our hardworking journalists and graphic designers with special awards in three categories: best newspaper article, Web news story, and page layout.

This November there was also a new award specially created for the Traditional Chinese Medicine series that has been running in Scope since March. This is to reward Feature’s newcomer Zhang Qian for her hard work in creating and persevering with this new series that is often hard to write due to its technical nature. It does, however, reveal important aspects of Chinese culture and as such has enjoyed a very good response from readers.

The award for best newspaper article went to opinion columnist Wan Lixin for his mature and complex understanding of the issues involved in the article, “Powerful Interest Groups Undercut Social Harmony” published on November 30th.

There were two winners for best page layout. One of these was for the Metro page A5 published on November 22nd. Designed by Huang Jifang with text by Yan Zhen, this page was picked because it was packed with relevant info presented in a clear way. The other winner was the supplement page D6 published on November 8th. This was picked for its imaginative and interesting portrayal of information.

Of course the awards would not be complete without an award for Best Web Article. This month it went again to Lydia Chen for her article “80% agree with new holiday” published on November 16th. Editors noted that Lydia went out of her way to monitor new developments on this topic and that this article was published on her recommendation.

“Actually I’m just personally interested in this new law,” Lydia said. “Because we have so few holidays so of course it’s interesting!” For modest Lydia though she has won awards for many other articles already this year.

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Fei Lai, our Queen of the Party, receives the trophy from Madame Miao Guoqin, the Party Secretary of the Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Group.

Our night editor Chen Qin (female) performs with page maker Chen Yin for the song 'I will marry you today.' Chen Yin is going to get married soon, but not with this beautiful colleauge.

Christmas work dos in the West may bring to mind the boss getting drunk, photocopying pranks and mischief under the mistletoe. At Shanghai Daily though, our big annual Christmas event was done with typical "Chinese characteristics" – and what could be more Asian than a karaoke contest!

The final of the Karaoke contest formed the main event of our Christmas party. On Saturday, 22nd December, we all gathered at the Renaissance Hotel in Shanghai’s old town to cheer on members from our departments. Usually Shanghai Daily journalists are a mild mannered lot, but once onstage and under those spotlights a surprise outburst of superstar personas emerged.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was Leo Zhang, our usually superlatively shy and retiring business editor. Contrary to all expectations, at the qualifying round on December 14, only was Leo right at home as the centre of attention, he was also a consummate crowd pleaser – even winning a rose from a married lady who shall remain unnamed. Unfortunately he could not join us for the final round, but thereafter Leo gained for himself the title of "Lang man wang zi" or the Prince of Romance.

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As journalists we are accustomed to interviewing and photographing others. However, today was quite different. It was our turn to be filmed and be told what to do in front of a camera. A film team was in the office this afternoon to make a promotional video for Shanghai Daily, bringing our busy office into laughter and happiness.

One by one, each department had several seconds to say their slogans and make a show in front of the camera. After one group ended filming, the chief of the next shouted cheerfully, “Brothers and sisters, come on, it’s our turn.” Some women, with lipstick and mirror in hand, replied: “Wait a second, I’m dressing up!”

The online department had a creative, yet effective segment. The Chinese colleagues said the slogan “Your Website, your say” in English, then, the leading actor Marc, our Canadian colleague and Website editor, repeated the slogan in Chinese.

“It was fun and I just tried not to make too many mistakes,” said Marc, who has studied a little bit of Chinese a few years ago, after the filming. “I want to see how we look on television.”

The online department finished its segment after only three attempts.

The advertising team, composed of one man and eight women, rehearsed its part several times and chose a simple slogan “Choose Shanghai, choose Shanghai Daily.” They added a cheerful “yeah!” at the end.

The filming was also a good motivator for some to clean up their desks, said Xiao Bai, our Website designer. He said his desk “cannot be any cleaner” after throwing out three bags of trash.

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