An e-ticketing system is under development inside China’s Forbidden City to cope with the large number of visitors.

“The initial e-ticketing plan has been formed,” said Feng Nai’en, office director of the Forbidden City, also known in China as the Palace Museum.

Feng said the Museum had decided to make the switch because manual selling of tickets failed to monitor visitor numbers accurately.

“Once adopted, the museum will stop selling tickets if it reaches full capacity.” According to Feng, the museum can hold a maximum of 50,000 visitors a day, Tuesday’s Beijing Morning Post reported.

The number of tourists visiting the Forbidden City exceeded its maximum capacity for four days of the seven-day National Day holiday.

“The floor was worn down with the excess of visitors,” said Feng, “and the vermeil walls have faded due to exposure to a great amount of carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors.”

As to whether the museum will cap visiting periods like some other tourist sites, Feng said they were considering it.

Potala Palace, the former imperial palace in Tibet and one of the most popular travel sites in China, has started to cap visiting periods to one hour since this July and has already put a daily limit on tourist numbers at 2,300 since 2003.

A 10-year-old girl in Central China’s Hunan Province swam for three hours in a tributary of the Yangtze River on Tuesday with hands and feet bound to test her endurance, hoping she would be inscribed into the Guiness Book of World Records someday.

Huang Li, a fourth-grader from Sangzhi County in the city of Zhangjiajie, managed to swim along in the Xiangjiang River with her bound feet as her parents kept an eye on her.

She had covered three kilometers before her mother told her to stop and fed her some cake.

“I know she can still continue, but I fear she might be in danger,” said Huang’s mother Song Jinfang. “It’s getting cold and she had only a bowl of noodles for lunch before she started swimming at 12:45 pm.”

For financial reasons, the family had not bought any insurance to protect the girl from potential harms during the swimming.

“Next time, she will swim farther and I’ll follow her in a boat to ensure safety,” said the father.

The family didn’t say whose idea it was to bind the girl’s limbs, but the father Huang Daosheng, a middle school teacher, insisted this would help improve the girl’s swimming skills and eventually help fulfil her dream to swim across the English Channel.

Huang Li’s father said she is a swimming prodigy. She learned to swim at five and her father has been her coach.

“She stood out as a hero in a sports program of Hunan Cable TV last year by swimming continuously for nine hours, or nearly 14 km, in Lishui River.”

The girl was also named after that river.

The girl said her idol is Zhang Jian, a teacher at Beijing’s Sports University who made history in 2001 as the first Chinese swimmer to cross the English Channel.

But many bystanders questioned the parents’ motive, saying Guiness was more a dream of their own.

“It’s dangerous to swim with bound limbs,” said a university student surnamed Gao. “What if she had muscle cramp and got drowned?”

“Her parents should realize they are abusing the child,” said a mother of a nine-year-old girl.

Huang denied the accusation, saying he could ensure his daughter’s safety.

“In fact, I’ve always wanted to find her a better coach but we don’t have the money.”

He said her daughter’s exercise was far easier than that of Zhang Huimin, an eight-year-old girl who ran 3,560 km from Sanya at the southern tip of the island province of Hainan to Beijing in the hottest months of July and August. Her father followed her on a motorized bicycle.

Zhang got up at 2:30 am every day to train for the run and would have had to run about 65 km a day for 55 days—the equivalent of about one and a half marathons a day.

Her father Zhang Jianmin, a businessman, was accused of being abusive as health experts said the Beijing run would damage the girl’s body and affect her growth. But he insisted the girl enjoyed running and he would do his utmost to support her, including taking part in the Olympic Games in 10 years.

Little Zhang Huimin has a big - and long - dream: To win the marathon at the 2016 Olympics.

The host city for the Games nine years away has not yet been selected but the eight-year-old has been mapping her route methodically.

On Sunday, she reached Beijing after running all the way from Sanya in South China’s Hainan Province - covering a staggering 3,560 km (2212 miles) in 55 days, or about one-and-a-half marathons a day.

And the tanned girl, who weighs only 20 kg (44 lbs) and is 1.25 meters (4’ 1") tall, has an attitude to match her ambition.

“Give me milk. I want to drink milk,” Zhang shouted in a high-pitched voice at her father and brother, ignoring the media thronging the room in a modest hotel.

After shooting for a TV program yesterday afternoon, she was nonchalant, almost dismissive, as she answered questions dressed in a white top, orange pants and a pair of brand-new pink sports shoes - all provided by her sponsor, a sportswear company in Guangdong Province.

“I feel happy”, said Zhang, when asked why she likes to run, and then threw the empty milk carton on the floor.

Her idols?

Olympic 5,000-meter gold medalist Wang Junxia and 110-meter hurdles ace Liu Xiang.

In another interview, she said Zhou Chunxiu - who won this year’s women’s London Marathon - was the one she wanted to emulate.

“I want to be a champion, too,” she said tersely and skipped into the other room.

Her father Zhang Jianmin was left to respond to reporters.

“Too much self-confidence might be to her disadvantage with the spotlight constantly on her,” admitted her father. “We will get home soon. I don’t want her to be spoiled (by the media).”

He described the regime on the road to Beijing.

She got up at 2:30 am and ran an average of 70 km (44 miles) , wearing out 20 pairs of shoes in the process, he said.

Only twice she rode on her father’s motorized bicycle - when she was chased by four wild dogs and when it was too dangerous to run down a steep mountain road, he added.

Systematic training, rather than talent, helped her finish the long run, the father said.

The young runner started with 3 km (2 miles) a day since she was three and was hitting 23 km (14 miles) daily by the time she was seven.

Training starts at 3 am and lasts until 9 am to avoid the heat in the tropical province.

Her father, who always runs by her side, feeds her three bottles of milk and two eggs during the run.

Experts said such a regime could damage the girl’s health and affect her growth.

“It is an extremely hard running process even for an adult,” said Liu Hong, director of the China School Sports Federation. “The running will certainly harm her.”

Zhang tried to fend off criticism of child abuse in some media. “I never impose my will on her,” said the father, an amateur runner himself.

“You can force your child one day. But you cannot force one to wake up early in the morning everyday if one doesn’t want to.”

For little Zhang, running is more about jumping and playing, rather than a chore, he said.