Do I feel safe or what

Just read in the paper today that Shanghai plans to double the number of surveillance cameras in public places in the next five years to help improve police investigation, local authorities revealed yesterday.

The city will install about 50,000 more surveillance cameras over the next five years, mainly in squares, parks, underground spaces and also along roads - like they need more???? That will make over 100,000 CCTV cameras in the city. If I sneeze it will be caught on some camera somewhere.

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau said the large number of cameras will boost police investigation of criminal cases and help track suspects and hmmmm, I wonder who else? Maybe they will be used to catch all the guys and gals who hork on the street. It was illegal during expo but that was then - it's a whole different story now. Same for the guys who walk around in their PJ's. That too was against the law but seems I see more people every day shopping and going about their daily activities in their pajamas. Pretty weird.

Is it going to be cheap? The annual investment on the closed-circuit television is somewhere between 77 and 140 million dollars (US) by the time they are all installed. The city's docks, airports and railway stations will be fully covered by CCTV and probably our apartment complex if not already.

Though the large-scale installation of cameras is ostensibly for safety purposes, the newspaper quoted citizens who were worried about their privacy and freedom. I personally think this is one of the best understatements I've ever read since being here.

Chutzpah and other stuff

Where to begin? Let's start with poor Liu Xiaojing. She was sentenced to seven years in prison for poisoning her ex lover by putting mercury in his Sprite drink. Not nice you say. Well just three weeks ago, the courts upheld a one-year prison sentence against Ma Sai, her ex lover and the victim in the Sprite poisoning. Talk about Chutzpah, he was convicted of damaging Sprite's reputation after fabricating a story blaming the popular soft drink for his being poisoned with mercury. Ma, 22, learned Liu had intentionally put the toxic chemical into his drink but he collaborated with Liu to keep the poisoning secret and blamed the beverage company for the poisoning, even though he knew it was not responsible. Isn't love wonderful?

Finally to close out the week I think after reading this you'll understand why we will probably lose weight during our adventure here. It's all about understanding what you can and cannot eat. In this case ham which neither of us eat but is indicative of what's happening here. Seems a five-star hotel claimed it found old packaging material in ham it was using.

China Yurun Food Group Ltd said a rare malfunction in its mechanized packaging process was to blame for the incident in which plastic film and metal buckles were found in the ham purchased by the hotel in Hefei City, capital of east China's Anhui Province. The company said it had suspended a flawed assembly line of its subsidiary, Ma'anshan Yurun Food Co Ltd, which produced the ham, and started a recall of products of the same batch.

The hotel chef thinks otherwise and some food industry analysts agree that the material had been used previously and mixed with the ham before the new batch was packaged. They accuse the company of unwrapping expired ham, mixing it with fresh meat and relabeling it as new. A food industry insider supported the chef, saying the company might have failed to remove the used packaging before throwing old ham into the mixer.

The story again triggered concerns over China's food quality, and especially its meat industry. In March, a banned additive was found in frozen meat from a subsidiary of the Shuanghui Group, a major rival of Yurun Food. Clenbuterol, a chemical that can boost lean meat, was found in products from the Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co Ltd in Henan Province.

So there you have it. We just might become vegetarians.

Swim anyone?

Went exploring the South Bund neighbourhood across the river from our apartment with a few Guy Tai buddies and came across "Cool Docks", the old docklands of Shanghai that are now being redeveloped including the building of an artificial sandy beach next to the sparkling blue Huangpu River (it's really dark brown) where people can pay 20 Yuan ($3.00) for access to the sand and sun loungers - a little strange to say the least. Our apartment can be seen in the far left of the photo just behind the second last unbrella.

The entire area is undergoing a massive redevelopment with restaurants, bars, night clubs and boutique hotels starting to pop up. One of the hotels "The Waterhouse" is pretty unique. You should check out the website to see how a dilapitated warehouse can be converted into a swank 19 room hotel, restaurant and roof-top bar. This place is cool.

One of the casualties of this redevelopment is the disappearance of some of the poorest (yet still quite vibrant) neighbourhoods I have seen. If you close your eyes, you might not be sure just what year it is - people cooking and washing their clothes in the streets and vendors selling everything from silk to nuts and everything in between, all in a very close tight space. This is the Shanghai that I think we all imagine when we think of China - in a few years it will all be gone, replaced by 30 story apartment complexes the government is building to house the growing population in Shanghai. I have heard some estimates they expect the population of greater Shanghai to reach 80,000,000 by 2050. Theresa and I will be long gone (figuratively speaking of course) by then :)

What's not for dinner tonight

Today was not a good day for food in Shanghai according to the Shanghai Daily newspaper.

First we have the discovery that a parasite that can cause epilepsy and lead to paralysis has been found in batches of (what we all love to eat here) eels imported from Indonesia and the Philippines. The government tested 26 samples of eels and 14 contained the parasite gnathostoma spinigerum. To make matters worse of course imported eels are prefered to the homegrown version because it's been known for a long time that the home grown eels are injected with birth control medication to stimulate their growth.

On the next page of the newspaper it was noted three food company executives were arrested yesterday because their company had been recycling expired steamed buns by adding chemical additives and coloring to make them appear fresh. So much for eating steamed buns off the street.

Finally I leave you with the problem of bursting watermelons which actually was covered today by the New York Daily News. Seems a group of 20 farmers in Jiangsu Province used a growth accelerator for the first time during a period of heavy rains. That caused hundreds of melons to pop like balloons, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The chemical is legal in the US. It's just possible no one told these farmers exactly how to use it.

Anyways, Theresa and I are looking forward to dinner tonight. Steaks from Australia and salad from an organic grower just outside Shanghai - no chemicals, growth hormones or any weird stuff - we hope :)

Hong Kong whirlwind weekend away

We just returned from a great weekend in Hong Kong and although the weather threatened rain and thunder showers every day (I gather not much different than Canada) we were pretty lucky and although we carried umbrellas, other than a few sprinkles and me worrying about which way to look when we crossed the street, we survived.

What a beautiful city - something I did not expect. It reminded us both of Vancouver - water, great vistas and although no mountains lots of very high hills with an unbelievable number of high rises clustered together where ever there was space to build and then some. The city continues to expand dredging the harbour for more land.

We ate at some great restaurants - Aqua offered a spectacular view of the city and nightly laser light show and Indochine 1929 was a laid back Vietnamese restaurant with excellent food.

We tried to see as many sites as we could, from the Giant Budda on Lantau Island and the accompanying 20 minute cable to the top of Ngong ping plate where it sits to the Chi Lin Nunnery in the center of the city and everything in between including the "ladies market" where we found some great bargains and the quaint Stanley Market, another bargain hunters paradise. We walked Hollywod Road with its multiple antique shops selling everything from $20,000 Ming dynasty jade statues to basic schlock - quite a contrast.

Overall we had a wonderful time and I suggest everyone should take in a few days visiting Hong Kong when they come to Asia.

Diamonds or rust

While walking the back streets of Shanghai last Sunday, Theresa and I came across this woman. What caught our eye was not the fact she was doing laundry in the street but that she was wearing what looked liked some really nice pearls around her neck. This is a country of contrasts and this lady kinda sums it all up. What we also loved were the pink rubber gloves - I guess she has to make sure her hands stay soft and smooth while doing the laundry. The wash basin was also kinda neat - a bathroom sink/vanity hooked up to an outside faucet. Now there is something you don't see everyday - very creative use of material and space.

Best sign of the day award

Went exploring with a few friends to Dishui Lake today, a man-made massive perfectly circular lake about an hour from Shanghai where a housing/business complex for 700,000 people is being built near the Shanghai container port - a facility that is processing 80,000 containers a day (hard to believe) making it the largest container port in the world. While walking near the lake which is quite deep, we passed this sign. Thought you'd enjoy.

The Jews of Shanghai - an amazing story

Today we took a 4.5 hour tour/lecture on the history of Jews in Shanghai given by Dvir Bar-Gal, an Israeli journalist who has lived here for the last ten years. It was a facinating voyage into the past and a story that very few know about. Anyone visiting Shanghai should take this tour. We walked through what remains of the Jewish district & ghetto and toured the one remaining synagogue/museum open to the public and learned a great deal about the great wealth that was amassed by many of the Jewish traders as far back as early 1900. It was a full half day in sweltering 90 degree heat but we really enjoyed it.

For you construction buffs

I am now back in Shanghai and start my mandarin lessons on Monday. Send your best wishes to my tutor, he will need it. Theresa and I plan to explore The Bund this weekend and then do some "Mother's day" stuff on Sunday. Temp outside today is 27 and blue sky (sort of).

This picture will give you a sense of construction in Shanghai. What you are looking at is what will be the tallest building in China - some 120 stories I believe. It's across the road from our apartment and the model of what it will look like is the picture I use for this blog.

The construction goes on seven days a week, 24 hours a day with the workers sleeping in dorms on site (the temp three story trailers with the red roofs at the bottom of the picture. I will post pictures as the building rises. As hard as it is to believe they expect the building to be finished in 2013.