IF A HORSE DIES THEN YOU HAVE TO WALK: CHINA’S “CANCER” VILLAGES AND THE CHOPSTICK TAX 马死落地行* (4)
I was in mystical Yangshuo, China not long ago (post to follow in a day or two) and was deeply troubled by the unfettered growth in the region. Toilets emptied directly into the clear water of the Li River and I imagined it would soon be like the dark Pearl River in industrial Guangzhou. Last year 5 of my students were diagnosed with a variety of cancers; none of them is older than 22.
Close to Guangzhou is Dongguan. It is, like Shenzhen, a very new city populated by migrants from the North of China looking for greener, albeit toxic, pastures:
I was never so glad to get back to Guangzhou as the day after I visited Dongguan, China. And Guangzhou’s sky has an aversion itself to letting the sun shine. Dongguan is a huge city with natural and man-made amenities inversely proportional to the pollution. Even the countryside smells like the back-end of a bus.
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Posted 28 February, 2007 in 中国, Guangzhou China, Yangshuo China, Environment, Cancer Journal, China Editorials, China Cartoons, China Business, Asia
China Expatrapreneurs: A call for articles… (0)
I received several emails after my last post on China CEO expressing interest in helping put together a text on grass roots business leaders in China. We would tell their stories complete with insights as to how to succeed in small to medium ventures in the Middle Kingdom.
If you know if an expatrepreneur that should be included or want to contribute to the project please let me know. You may email me at santini47 at Yahoo.com or you can leave a comment below.
It would be done in a fashion similar to anthologies with rights reverting to the author upon publication/ And if there is any money to be made we will share in royalties or agree to donate them to a suitable charity.
Hop aboard!
Posted 27 February, 2007 in In the news, 中国, Chinese Media, China Business, China Editorials, China Expats, Expats, Asia
Coffee in China is good for your heart (4)
I went to the hospital a few weeks ago to visit one of five of my students afflicted with cancer this last year. And my heart hurts since returning.
A former student called me to ask if I remembered another classmate nicknamed “Coffee.” Of course I remembered the 1/500 treasure: A delightful girl with a fervor for learning, who had been a second year English major at my school. I try to remember most of my students, but Coffee was easy: She often emailed me with serious questions about cultural issues and after several meetings, at her request, we changed her English name to one better suited to a Business English major.
And I remembered that pretty young Coffee came from a poor rural family and had an older brother and sister. It was this knowledge that especially dismayed me when I was told that she had been diagnosed with bone cancer. I knew instantly that not only would she suffer ostracism associated with being handicapped in China–It it is an enormous social burden that she would not be able to afford to lighten–but the costs will prevent treatment that could help minimize her disability in this hyper-vigilant culture. Her father, aware of the same, took more than half a day to accede to the surgeons requests for a consent form to remove Coffee’s leg.
It takes no special education to know the shame and hardship ahead for his daughter and family. Please don’t judge him harshly. He loves his daughter and has already invested his life’s savings to see her through three years of college. He is back at home while Coffee’s mother must pay a daily fee to maintain all an day and night vigil at the hospital. They live two hours and many, many years away from China’s third largest metropolis.
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Posted 26 February, 2007 in The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Digital Cavalry, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, Cancer Journal, China Cartoons, China Editorials
China’s “Shocking” Internet Bootcamp (3)
Chinese youth are more addicted to video games. text messaging and online chats than any other group I have seen worldwide. Students will happily risk a failing grade in class in order to keep up with the daily movements of their friends. They text message each other so often that GPS is uneccessary.
Beijing has been concerned for a while and bootcamps for the addicted are springing up country-wide. The Beijing Military Region Central Hospital was turned into a boot camp for the Internet-addicted a few months ago. According to the director of China’s of the program, people treated there have a hard time distinguishing between real and virtual worlds. Me too, but it has nothing to do with the Internet and more with being an expat…
According to a recent post by Boing Boing: “The Chinese government is imprisoning and giving electric shocks to people it thinks have become addicted to the Internet. Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls “a grave social problem” that threatens the nation.
Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts said that the clinic is based on the idea that there are many similarities between his current patients and those he had in the past.
In terms of withdrawal: “If you let someone go online and then he can’t go online, you may see a physical reaction, just like someone coming off drugs.” And in terms of resistance: “Today you go half an hour, and the next day you need 45 minutes. It’s like starting with drinking one glass and then needing half a bottle to feel the same way.”
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Posted 25 February, 2007 in In the news, Chinglish, Just Plain Strange, Weird China, China Editorials, China Photos, Asia
So what do you have under your hood? (0)
Customs arrested a Mexican man for allegedly trying to smuggle a Chinese woman into the U.S. by hiding her inside a car’s engine compartment.
Is the irony lost on anyone here?
According to an NBC News site “Officers removed the grill and said they found a Chinese woman lying in a non-factory compartment of the engine. Is there a FACTORY compartment?! She was freed and transported to a local medical facility.The driver was charged with alien smuggling and transported to the Imperial County Jail. The woman is now being held by CBP as a material witness for the prosecution.Officials said this is the second failed attempt in a week of someone allegedly trying to smuggle Chinese migrants inside an engine compartment.Last Thursday, CBP officers at the downtown port discovered two Chinese men hidden within the engine of a Chevrolet pickup truck. The driver, a 28-year-old Mexican male from Brawley, was arrested.
Posted 25 February, 2007 in In the news, Just Plain Strange, China Editorials
Chinglish Sightings (1)
Not featured in Lonely Planet:
Via the Hao Hao Report and Cox Washington is a upgrade on the Chinglish battle going on in Beijing: “Visitors to China’s capital can stroll through “Racist Park,” enjoy a plate of “Crap in the Grass” and stop by a Starbuck’s franchise for a cup for “Christmas Bland” coffee.
Now the Beijing government is trying to clean up such mistranslations and sloppy editing (including the inversion of ‘a’ and ‘r’ in carp on menus) before an expected 500,000 foreigners arrive for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
The campaign includes teaching 300 English phrases to 48,000 taxi drivers, helping private restaurants edit menus and standardizing public signs.
The English translations on signage range from charming mistakes to baffling renditions that spread anger and confusion.
In Shanghai, which will host several Olympic soccer games, at least one public toilet equipped for handicapped use is emblazoned with the malapropism, “Deformed Man Toilet.”
There is such a plethora of entertaining “Chinglish” – the unusual and sometimes incomprehensible phrases that result when Chinese meets English — that several online communities are devoted entirely to sharing entertaining snippets.
A collection of photographs posted on the photo-sharing Web site flicker.com includes of a Chinese sign marking a loading zone but bearing the English message: “VEHICLE-TAKING SPOT.”
Many of the funniest examples are found on packaging, such as instructions on a Chinese-made candle warning owners to “keep this candle out of children.”
The fact that hundreds of thousands of English speakers will descend on China for the Olympics prompted a government-led campaign reminiscent of mass mobilizations of the 1960s and ’70s.
In Beijing, several district governments offer citizens free English classes with the goal of boosting the number of foreign-language speakers from today’s 3.2 million to 5 million by 2008, when they will be called on to help the city “host a most excellent ever Olympic Games,” according to a poorly edited English version of Beijing’s “Plan of Action for the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program.”
Uh…
Posted 24 February, 2007 in Weird China, Just Plain Strange, Chinglish, China Olympics, China Editorials, Asian Humor, Intercultural Issues, China Humor
Shtikl me! (4)
Regardless of where you live, Shtikl is a must read. It is written by cyber-friend, philospher, teacher, artist, author, new dad and blogmaster Dushan. It has been a couple of years since I became hooked on his playfully circuitous logic. Enjoy!:
Posted 24 February, 2007 in Top Blogs, cartoons, Personal Notes, Humor
Love and Asian Internet Dating in China (0)
A dear friend of mine recently came to China to meet a beautiful woman that he had corresponded with for several months. The meet-up was a bit of a bust*: they needed an interpreter 24/7 and most of the expats and Chinese who met her came to the same conclusion that was confirmed a couple of weeks after my buddy returned stateside.
His intended was picked up in a raid of, um, entertainment businesses in Shenzhen and couldn’t write for a couple of weeks as they don’t have DSL in the provincial jail there. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny. OK, so it was funny and I have tortured him since it happened.
To go back in time a bit: I was startled last year when one of the staff directors here asked why foreigners seem to be attracted by the Chinese women that the natives find unappealing.
I wryly replied that he should consider it a blessing.
Lots of men look Eastward to find relationships. They frequent inter-cultural dating sites for a number of reasons: some good, some bad.
The women who use the Chinese dating services and chat services are, by and large, good women in search of an honest and lasting relationship. Most of them are divorced or highly educated and that puts them on the outs in many Chinese social circles. It is like American thinking not so many years ago.
Unlike some countries, the women here are not looking to sleep their way to an American visa. They come from proud families and are deeply rooted in their regional cultures. That does not mean that they will not relocate for the right relationship or the promise of a caring life together with a special someone. I have known several women who have followed their hearts to America, Canada and elsewhere.
Following are some general musings, concerns and comments on online love searches for Chinese women. A later post will list services and their ratings by friends and associates that have found their soul mates via the Internet.
Most Chinese make about $80–$200 U.S. dollars a month, so life is short of frills for many of the women on the net. BUT: don’t send any money unless you have been here to visit or unless you have enough knowledge to discern the truth of a request. There are scammers on the net, albeit a lot less in China than in other developing countries. Come here and meet the lady for which you are falling into cyberspace. The worst you will get is a great vacation.
My friend was asked by his cyber-paramour to pay for English lessons and a small operation. The fee requested seemed small to my American buddy but would have bought the girl a full-time tutor for a year and gotten her more plastic modifications than Cher and Phyllis Diller combined.
NEVER send money for a plane ticket unless you have verified that your beloved has a visa in hand. I know of two men who spent several long hours together in a Denver airport unknowingly waiting for the same girl. It is a long and winding road to a visa, even a fiance stamp, now that Homeland Insecurity is involved. Be in this quest for the long haul. And don’t be frivilous: a fiance visa is a once in a lifetime deal for a Chinese woman. If you decide not to marry after the trial period your Asian siren does not get a second chance to find Mr. Right.
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Posted 24 February, 2007 in Confucius Slept Here, Personal Notes, cartoons, Internet Dating, China Editorials, Expats, Asian Women, Japan, China Expats, Intercultural Issues, Humor
Looking for Love in All the Wong Places: Internet Dating in China (5)
A dear friend of mine recently came to China to meet a beautiful woman that he had corresponded with for several months. The meet-up was a bit of a bust*: they needed an interpreter 24/7 and most of the expats and Chinese who met her came to the same conclusion that was confirmed a couple of weeks after my buddy returned stateside.
His intended was picked up in a raid of, um, entertainment businesses in Shenzhen and couldn’t write for a couple of weeks as they don’t have DSL in the provincial jail there. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny. OK, so it was funny and I have tortured him since it happened.
To go back in time a bit: I was startled last year when one of the staff directors here asked why foreigners seem to be attracted by the Chinese women that the natives find unappealing.
I wryly replied that he should consider it a blessing.
Lots of men look Eastward to find relationships. They frequent inter-cultural dating sites for a number of reasons: some good, some bad.
The women who use the Chinese dating services and chat services are, by and large, good women in search of an honest and lasting relationship. Most of them are divorced or highly educated and that puts them on the outs in many Chinese social circles. It is like American thinking not so many years ago.
Unlike some countries, the women here are not looking to sleep their way to an American visa. They come from proud families and are deeply rooted in their regional cultures. That does not mean that they will not relocate for the right relationship or the promise of a caring life together with a special someone. I have known several women who have followed their hearts to America, Canada and elsewhere.
Following are some general musings, concerns and comments on online love searches for Chinese women. A later post will list services and their ratings by friends and associates that have found their soul mates via the Internet.
Most Chinese make about $80–$200 U.S. dollars a month, so life is short of frills for many of the women on the net. BUT: don’t send any money unless you have been here to visit or unless you have enough knowledge to discern the truth of a request. There are scammers on the net, albeit a lot less in China than in other developing countries. Come here and meet the lady for which you are falling into cyberspace. The worst you will get is a great vacation.
My friend was asked by his cyber-paramour to pay for English lessons and a small operation. The fee requested seemed small to my American buddy but would have bought the girl a full-time tutor for a year and gotten her more plastic modifications than Cher and Phyllis Diller combined.
NEVER send money for a plane ticket unless you have verified that your beloved has a visa in hand. I know of two men who spent several long hours together in a Denver airport unknowingly waiting for the same girl. It is a long and winding road to a visa, even a fiance stamp, now that Homeland Insecurity is involved. Be in this quest for the long haul. And don’t be frivilous: a fiance visa is a once in a lifetime deal for a Chinese woman. If you decide not to marry after the trial period your Asian siren does not get a second chance to find Mr. Right.
(more…)
Posted 24 February, 2007 in Confucius Slept Here, Personal Notes, cartoons, Internet Dating, China Editorials, Expats, Asian Women, Japan, China Expats, Intercultural Issues, Humor
Solving China’s Power Problems–One Pint at a Time (1)
With everyone up in arms, or threatening to be, over China’s unquenchable thirst for energy I thought a bathroom break was needed:
Remember the old joke about the fellow who was in an Irish Pub’s W.C. pouring his pint down the urinal? When asked what he was doing. he replied, “Cutting out the middle man.”
Well, you might want to hold that thought (pun, bad as it is, intended) for a while. There might just be a renewable energy solution for China. A company in Singapore has developed a credit-card sized battery—powered by urine! This biodegradeable power source is initially for use in for medical test kits that test for problems in, well, urine.
The Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering (now to be known as the Whiz Kid Reader) published the results. They describe the altered AA Battery as one that will last about 90 minutes and produce 1.5 volts–the same as a standard AA battery. When a drop of urine is added to some copper chloride paper, a chemical reaction takes place and produces electricity.
Researchers said the power, voltage, and lifetime of the battery can be improved by adjusting the geometry and materials used. . .And probably the brand of Ale.
That reminds me of a friend who came across an electric fence in the middle of the woods and….
But I digress….
–Thanks to http://Milanosblog.com
Reprinted from September 17th, 2005