Courses Offer Help in Decoding the Third Plenum Having trouble deciphering the Chinese Communist Party's recently unveiled Third Plenum reform plan? Cram courses on the 21,000-character document - bearing the eye-catching title "Decisions on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform" - have been springing up across China and garnering widespread media attention for their hefty admission prices. Both private institutes and public universities, including the prestigious Peking University, are getting in on the action, all promising to help attendees better understand the economic and social changes that are abstrusely outlined in the plenum decisions. A one-day course at the Beijing-based consultancy China Finance City costs a steep 8,800 renminbi, about $1,440. "Everyone is paying close attention to the direction of the new reforms, so of course there is demand for a class like ours," said Wu Yushan, a manager at China Finance City. We admit only 40 people into our course, and half of these spaces are reserved for our clients. Ms. Wu added that most of the attendees are high-level financial workers or government officials. The government announced on Nov. 19 the formation of its own Third Plenum propaganda group, including 28 prominent officials from relevant central government bureaus. The group's stated goal is to guide study groups to thoroughly grasp the spirit of the recent meeting, and members reportedly set off from Beijing on Nov. 23 for a countrywide tour. But the for-profit classes cater to a different crowd - mostly those eager to gain a leg up in adjusting to changes in economic policy. In China, reform has traditionally opened windows of opportunity for the adaptable, and those who grasp new reform trends first have often been the first to benefit. According to a report in The Shanghai Morning Post, the lecturers are mostly government officials or university professors with expertise in the various areas in line for change. All of them are assumed to have some degree of insider knowledge about the nature of reform decisions. Peking University is the only institution that issues certificates to those who attend their lectures, charging 3,200 renminbi for six days of classes. The esteemed Zhejiang University in Hangzhou offers two days of "high-end discussions" for 6,800 renminbi, and Jiao Tong University in Shanghai bills nonstudents 500 renminbi to attend a single lecture. The intricate layers of Chinese official prose have long caused headaches for China watchers, but the emergence of Third Plenum courses in China suggests that foreigners are not the only people scratching their heads. Take for example the following paragraph from the Third Plenum report, in an unofficial translation: Construct a modern common public service system. Establish a public cultural service system coordination mechanism, plan the construction of a service facility network, promote the fundamental standardization of public cultural service. Establish a mass evaluation and feedback mechanism, push forward the cultural programs that benefit the people and effectively meet the cultural demands of the masses. Integrate grassroots cultural propaganda, the education of party members, the popularization of science and the installation of physical exercise equipment in order to build comprehensive cultural service centers. It may seem like gobbledygook, but somewhere deep in the trenches of that inflated paragraph, there is a buck to be made.