China News

China: In the news today...March 30/31/2013

I try to stay up with Chinese news through reading the China Daily an English language newspaper.  It naturally has a very pro Chinese bias, but it doesn’t overtly bash the United States either.  This is what came to my attention and what I  thought was unique, bizarre, or just amusing...the themes show that China is still corrupt, backward, and on the cusp of great changes...

Bizarre:  Municipal officials in Beijing have taken a pro active stance and  installed 20 000 safety nets and 1000 warning alarms on all uncovered manholes in the city after a woman just disappeared during a storm.  My thought was why not just put the manhole covers on the manholes so men or women don’t fall down the holes!!!!

Today the autonomous region of Tibet celebrated the 54th anniversary of the abolition of the feudal system and the freedom of all smurfs, as quoted by Papa Smurf...sorry that should read serfs, as 95% of the population was either a slave or a serf in my life time and maybe yours.

In a joint effort the governments of China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand consolidated resources on their war against drugs and drug lords on the Mekong River.  Apparently we are not alone in this fight against drugs.

With a population of 1.3 billion people there seems to be a shortage of non-profit cemeteries in urban areas...keep in mind the country is now half urban.

Personal Background: I have always had an unreasonable fear of escalators and horizontal moving sidewalks, like those in airports.  For example, my worst fear... what would happen if an escalator, or a horizontal moving sidewalk would fail and just stop...I know it boggles the imagination.  Do you call for help? No there is no emergency phone as in an elevator...you are helpless and trapped.  My fears were confirmed because in Xian, home of the Terra-cotta Warriors (and look what happened to them) an escalator failed causing a stampede in which 16 elementary children were injured.  I rest my case.  So don’t be so smug, next time you are on an escalator, think, what would you do if it stopped.

Tragic/Negligent and Stupid: Fire leaves five dead in Guangdong Province...five adults on the 4th and fifth floors of a building suffocated...there are no smoke detectors in China...I have a couple in my house and guess where they were made?  This headline is repeated all over China on a daily basis, that and miners trapped in coal mines.  Fires, mines and escalators is nothing safe...oh don’t go on a elevator in Beijing 40 deaths per year.

The new president of China Xi Jinping visits the Congo.  China owns Africa now.  Xi said, while there, “Rapid development of bilateral ties has witnessed fruitful pragmatic cooperation in various dimensions and brought tangible benefits to people of both nations.”  Maybe I didn’t translate that well from the original but did he actually say anything, or is he like all politicians who just like to say the word “bilateral?”  In response the President of the Congo, Nguesso, said, This visit is historic and our bilateral cooperation is longstanding.”  He didn’t say bilateral did he?

This headline actually touched my life like a drop of water touching the wing of a butterfly...”Flights delayed as storm slams Guangzhou airport.”  That day 92 flights were delayed.  I was in the same airport the next day and my flight from Bangkok sat on the runway for 4 hours. I had dinner and watched a movie and a half before take off.  I thought it was just a long quiet flight at really low altitude.

Senseless Violence: 11 still in hospital after knife attack in suburban Shanghai.  This guy had asked his sister-in-law and mother-in-law for a loan to buy an apartment but they turned him down, so off course he had no choice but to kill them and then went out and slashed several kids at an elementary school.  There are nut cases in every country...but in China, unlike the United States, they don’t have guns!!!  China needs knife control because this is a theme in China.

How Supply and Demand works: When President (bilateral) Xi was elected he called for frugality in state events before going off on a five country tour.  Before elected Knife fish found in the lower and middle Yangtze River sold for $2573 a kg that’s about 16000 yuan.  After election government officials are afraid to dine out on the government tab, knife-fish is down in cost by 50%...that is supply and demand in a communist country.

You know flu shots in Canada are based on what flu conditions are like in China, especially in the pig population and now we should worry about birds, or the avian “flew” because it is in Shanghai where 3 people died.  People have been told to wash their hands more often...(my editorial comment) and maybe they should stop pissing in the streets, and horking in buildings and start using actual soap and disinfectants in the toilets and on the floors and any horizontal or vertical surface that people come into contact with because this place is filthy...wash your hands...get a life because that’s what it comes down to!  That felt better.

Okay only two more, but these are good...

15 000 dead pigs were found floating in the Huangpu River which is also the source of drinking water for Shanghai.  The general public became aware of the problem when individual bloggers reported the sightings as the pigs made their way along the river from the interior to the coast.  The government made an official statement only after David Letterman started joking about it on his talk show and then government officials denied a cover up.  Transparency.  Officials are not sure if the market for dead pigs has dried up and farmers did not know what to do with so many corpses, or was it just the plague? so many questions, so few answers...

and finally in 2008 there was a baby formula scandal in China during which manufacturers put melamine into the formula as a result many Chinese families switched to European formulas.  A swiss company in cooperation with a Chinese firm was hit with scandal when those on the Chinese side faked batch codes and made fake formula under the Swiss brand name (Hero) which contained no protein, lots of bacteria and apparently worms.  Chinese officials did not remove or recall the formula until there were a few baby deaths.  So beware your partners.

...so what’s happening where you are?