The Difference between China & the USA

I picked up Friday mornings's Shanghai Daily and there it was "22 children stabbed at school by mad man". The first thing I thought was how wrong can a newspaper get it - even in China.

Then I realized they were not describing the horrible events in the US but something that had happened here in China the day before.

Seems a man rushed into the school, smashed a window and rushed into a classroom. He randomly stabbed 22 student in the stomach face and arms - thankfully none died. Min Yingjun, 36, is in police custody. A report in the Southwest Metropolitan Daily said he had been diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 16. Min's father said his son's condition had deteriorated this year. He said his son often ran off leaving the family unable to find him.

So there you have it - similar incidents with one big difference. In China there are no guns in the hands of anybody except the army and the police. Stop end of sentence. No guns period. 22 kids injured NONE DEAD.

I often criticize many things in this country but the fact is as far as personal safety goes Theresa and I feel safer here than in North America. We walk down streets here in Shanghai with a population of 23 million people that if they were in Toronto or Montreal we'd never go near. We walk at night without fear of being mugged or shot at and much of this comes from the fact we know the only people carrying guns are the police and army. I guess we could get stabbed or hit of the head with a hammer (the weapon of choice for killing here) but the fact is no guns on the street makes a world of difference.

Maybe the answer for the gun issue in the USA is to entice the NRA to forget about selling anymore guns in the USA and focus their energies on changing China's gun laws - why piddle with 330 million people when there's a market of 1.4 billion out there waiting for just what they've got.

You bought that beautiful bag in the USA?

The Shanghai daily newspaper reported today that thousands of fake luxury bags and purses have been confiscated and 73 suspects detained in southern China in a crackdown on what police say was a major source of counterfeit goods destined for export to the USA and the Middle East.

More than 20,000 bags and suitcases purporting to be famous brands such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Coach were discovered in the suspects' warehouses along with 17 manufacturing machines, 91 bank cards and deposit books, the Ministry of Public Security said.

Investigators said that more than 960,000 fake bags of various brands had been manufactured by this gang for export. So much for just buying fake bags in China.
They estimated the value of conterfeit goods is five billion yuan or $802,000,000 (US)

In January this year, police received information that the suspects were making fake Louis Vuitton and Coach bags in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, and exporting them to countries including the United States. Police launched a raid to capture the gang as they were in the process of exporting another batch of fake bags.

The gang is believed to have made such huge profits from the business that they had even managed to buy a large plot of land in Anhui Province where they were planning to build a factory, police said.
 

Looking for a job?

The Shanghai Daily Youth newspaper wrote yesterday that a Chinese condom manufacturer was looking to hire "lively and good looking women" age 18 to 25 as condom testers in Shanghai. The company was offering 3,000 Yuan ($480.00 US) per day to the women.

A reporter who followed up spoke with a man at the company who informed him they had been hiring women for months. The man, a Mister Chen told the reporter many young woman had already passed the interviews and that they already had enough males testers as well - there goes my chance for work!!

The company spokesperson went on to say although machines are usually used to test condoms, they had to hire men and women because the machines were too expensive for this company to purchase. He said it's a pretty easy job for women. It's the men who have to take notes and report back on many different aspects of the condoms performance.

When the reporter suggested these people were engaged in prostitution  Mr. Chen admitted the women are required to engage in sex with men but it was not prostitution. He was indignant and said if that was the case they'd be paying women far less!! He said women are only paid to test the condoms once a day - the company does not pay extra if they volunteer to do more testing every day.

When the newspaper contacted a lawyer about the legality of this activity they were informed it would be difficult to classify the job as illegal since at the moment there are no laws in China regarding condom testing. In a nutshell, this is a pretty good example of  the creativity of some people to play at the boundaries of Justice - condom testing - who'd have thunk???

It's vitamin C tablets from here on in

The market watch dog here in Shanghai has confiscated nearly 150 kilograms of oranges from a grocery in the city's northeast Yangpu District following claims that the seller had added colouring agents to make the oranges look fresher and more attractive.

The "coloured oranges" were discovered when a woman who purchased the oranges washed the fruit and realized its colour changed. Not only did the color change but the water used to wash the fruit turned red and stained her fingers.

Of course the owner of the fruit shop proclaimed his innocence saying the fruit arrived at his store like that. The oranges originated from a fruit wholesaler just outside the city. Calls by the Shanghai Daily were not returned other than they were told the boss was away.

"It is accepted policy here in China to cover fruit with edible wax to polish and enhance their appearance" said Yuan Yaxiang, head of the Shanghai Fruit Association so it's no wonder more creative sellers also add their own touch once in a while.

Over the past year and a half, I've written about phosphorescent pork, urine soaked eggs, fake eggs, harmful flavor enhancers, exploding watermelons, pesticide laced apples, cabbage soaked in formaldehyde, dog a la carte and now coloured oranges. The good news is we are still very healthy and eating very well - just carefully.

What is really ironic is that Shanghai is home to some of the best restaurants we have ever dined in. The food is wonderful and the ambiance surpasses many of the most popular restaurants in Toronto or Montreal - all of this so very weird which makes Shanghai an adventure not to be missed.

Beauty and the beast

Here's the story of a beautiful woman marrying a regular looking guy and the repercussions that followed when they had an "ugly" child.

It doesn't get more bizarre than this - well maybe in China it might, but I thought this story was worth noting on many levels.

According to the Shanghai Daily, it seems a man in North China who married a woman because of her looks (he claims she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen) filed for divorce after he found out that his beautiful wife was actually very ugly and had undergone extensive plastic surgery to change her looks before he met her. The kicker here is the court granted him the divorce.

How you say did he discover this ghastly subterfuge? The truth came out according to the man after his wife gave birth to a daughter who the man described as "Extremely ugly" (am sure he will make a great father).

It was only after accusing his wife of adultry because what other reason would account for her having such an ugly child that the truth came out. His wife had spent close to $100,000.00 US (I guess her parents were not struggling farmers) on plastic surgery to improve her looks.

The man was so outraged he filed for divorce seeking $120,000.00 US in compensation for mental cruelty claiming the woman lured him into the marriage under false pretenses and if you can believe it, the court accepted his claim.

So to all our friends - be forewarned - if you've had a lift, nose job, or breast augmentation and you plan on marrying a Chinese man, you'd better fess up before the marriage or you could get in trouble. As far as the ugly child goes - I guess based on the brain capacity of both parents, she'll probably have plastic surgery before she's 10. And if you are a plastic surgeon, China is the place to be - I don't think this case is unique. Last week I read a similar story of a Chinese woman who had extensive plastic surgery to try and look like Jennifer Lopez - In her case it all failed and she`s left looking pretty weird and scary.

Will that be rare or medium sir?

I have been very lazy about blogging over the last month or so primarily because I was back in Toronto but today's news in China confimred once again for me "Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas"

A restauramt in Shanghai is being investigated after it butchered a donkey outside it's premises. There is nothing wrong serving Donkey. It is just they butchered it outside the front door of the restaurant.

People living near The Old Lady Restaurant called police after witnessing the bloody scene by the restaurant's door. Shanghai Daily reporters who visited the restaurant found three donkeys tied up outside the restaurant waiting their fate.

The restaurant makes no excuses. In fact they have banners advertising "We are serving donkey meat now" and are flying other banners promoting donkey meat as healthy, especially in soups. The saying goes "In Heaven there is Dragon meat, In earth there is donkey meat.

The trouble started at 10 AM when students at a primary school across the street heard donkey screams and saw the animals throats being slit with blood covering the street - this is the middle of  urban cosmopolitain Shanghai. The restaurant continued to kill and butcher the animals in the street until the police came to stop them.

The restaurant has agreed to stop killing the donkeys in the street and will find suitable places out of site of people who might be offended.

So there you have it - a country that is fast becoming or already is the second most powerful country in the world and they are butchering donkeys in the street to serve in a restaurant - makes you wonder doesn't it??

No, not my ice cream too!!

First it was French wine - now it's ice cream.

Brands including Cold Stone, Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins have been found to contain excessive bacteria, Shanghai's consumer protection bureau announced yesterday.

DQ Blizzards were found to contain 4,600 parts per 100 milliliters of coliform bacteria, 10 times the national limit of 450 parts per 100 ml.

The ice cream was produced on June 25 at the Xujiahui Road outlet of DQ, the commission said.

Shanghai Shida Catering Management Co Ltd, DQ's largest Chinese partner, said the store closed for a time to do its own checks, but said the commission's results didn't mean DQ products had any quality problems.  "It is the result from only one cup of ice cream sold at only one store of DQ," said Yang Yating with Shida's marketing department. I wonder if DQ in North America would support this guys rationale. DQ has more than 90 outlets in Shanghai

The amount of bacteria found in Cold Stone's original flavor ice cream reached 32,000 CFU (colony-forming units) per ml, compared with the national limit of 25,000 per ml, the commission said. It was produced on June 26 at Cold Stone's Pacific Department Store branch.  Tu Yijing, from Cold Stone's brand promotion department, said she had not been informed of the results. Cold Stone has about 30 stores in the city.
  
The ice creams were among 22 sample products bought by the commission from 22 outlets randomly, it said. Ten failed tests, including Chinese brands, all for bacterial problems.

Some ice cream producers have very poor awareness of food safety, the commission said, and it suggested that the authorities should strengthen the supervision and training of producers of ice cream.

So there you go, we've got apples with insectcide, wine with pesticide and now ice cream with coliform bacteria. This is a great country if you want to loose weight.

The interesting thing is we are eating at great restaurants serving really good food (at least as far as we can tell). Neither of us has ever been food poisoned and we have both gained weight so as weird as the food seems to be, no complaints from us as far as our own personal dining is concerned.
 

Trip Advisor would love this

I can't resist sharing this article from today's Shanghai Daily.

A four-star hotel (I wonder who is doing that rating system) that repeatedly reported food vanishing in the past several weeks yesterday finally netted one of the thieves - a weasel.

Several weasels infested the Kingtown Hotel on Hongmei Road about 15 days ago. They hid inside the hotel kitchens and started stealing food. It all began with the sudden disappearance of 10 pork chops a chef had just cooked. He put the meat on plates and turned around to do something else. When he turned back, the pork chops were gone.

After that, instances of missing meat dishes were reported at the hotel every day, mostly at night. The mystery was solved when staff spotted a weasel 50 centimeters long.

But weasels are smart and swift. Workers couldn't catch them. The animals were thought to have hidden under the wooden floor, said Gu Peihong, a manager of the hotel.  Wild animal protection authorities in Minhang District arrived on Tuesday, setting up a cage to capture them. Weasels that are caught are released into nature, authorities said. Yellow weasels, once common in the city, now are rare.

By yesterday, only one weasel was caught and the others were still "at large," a hotel staff member said. So be warned - if you plan to dine at the Kingtown Hotel you'd better have someone guard your plate if you have to go to the washroom.

Chateau Lafite Monsieur?

Looks like we'll be taking a pass on expensive French wines while we are here. Shanghai police said yesterday they busted a ring of six people producing and selling fake Chateau Lafite Rothschild.

More than 4,000 bottles of fake Chateau Lafite were found in hideouts in the suburban Fengxian and Minhang districts of the city, police said yesterday. They estimated the value of the bust at about 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million).

On April 5, the police, working with the industry and commerce department, raided a company at Fengcheng Town and found hundreds of counterfeit labels and caps and a sealing machine. They followed the clues of less than great tasting wine and at a warehouse in Fengxian and Minhang districts, they confiscated 1,678 bottles of fake Chateau Lafite and 684 bottles of fake Chateau Margaux.

Police said the ring had purchased red wine from Hebei and Shandong provinces (known for producing cheap red wine) and bought caps, labels and packages from Guangdong and Shandong provinces and Shanghai to make fake Chateau Lafite. The suspects sold the fake wine to less than sophisticated buyers (mostly Chinese millionaires with no idea what good wine should taste like) in provincial regions of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Shandong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Guangxi.

As they continued their search, police found yet another warehouse with more than 2,000 bottles of fake Chateau Lafite.

The fake French wine was one of nearly 900 infringement cases solved by the city's police this year, said Yang Lieyi, deputy director of the commercial crime department of Shanghai police.

Yang said yesterday that police had detained more than 1,900 suspects in the first seven months for intellectual property crime, and the total value of illicit money reached nearly 300 million yuan (US$47 million).

So as of now just to be on the safe side, we'll be adding expensive French wine to the list of fake stuff we have to watch out for.

Will that be a little pesticide with your bordeaux Monsieur

In a few years some have forecasted that China will become the second largest producer of wine in the world. An article today in The Shanghai Daily sure helped me decide if I should be one of the consumers helping to grow their market share.

Seems a report was published last week that indicated some Chinese red wine on the market contained excessive levels of harmful chemicals. The Securities Market Weekly said 10 samples of red wine from three domestic wine makers, including China's leading Changyu winery, contained excessive levels of two pesticide residues, carbendazim and metalaxyl.

But not to be concerned - The Ministry of Health confirmed yesterday that in fact pesticide residue in wine manufactured here in China is below the country's limits so we should all stop worrying and continue to drink Chinese red wine.

Yan Weixing, a researcher with the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said pesticide residue, which he believed was unavoidable in a modernized world, would pose no threat to humans if it was controlled and its risks fully assessed before use. What can I say - no problem if it is controlled and all the risks fully assessed.

"A certain amount of pesticide within the limits set by national standards will not pose a threat to health because pesticide residue is unavoidable in food," Yan said yesterday. A friend sent me a note a few weeks ago that said "get out before they kill you".

We aren't leaving but there will be no Chinese wine entering our bodies.

Mind your own business and stay safe

A few months ago we all read about the little Chinese two year old who was hit by several trucks and left in the street to die while people just walked on by. If you want to know why things like this happen, the following should put some of it in perspective.

Yesterday a young teenager was hit as she jumped in front of a truck to grab a one-year-old girl who strayed into traffic. Are you ready for this - According to traffic police in Foshan City in southern Guangdong Province that teenager must assume some financial responsibility for her own injuries. The truck hit both girls however the teen is credited with saving the little girl's life.

The Guangzhou Daily newspaper quoted police as saying the teenager's sudden movement impeded traffic safety and caused an accident that led to her right foot being broken. Therefore the police went on, she must share responsibility for her injuries. She is presently at Foshan No.1 People's Hospital waiting for a toe to be amputated because of a severe infection.

The little girl had fractures in her left foot and is being treated in the intensive care unit in a hospital in the provincial capital Guangzhou after two of her toes had to be amputated. To add insult to injury, the police said the little girl also has to share responsibility for her injuries due to her violation of the traffic rules.

Police also said a minivan driver who parked illegally was also cited for hindering the truck driver's view of the girls. He too is partial responsibility in the crash.

So there it is - be a good samaritan and try to save a life and you wind up in trouble. The only thing not mentioned here which I assume will probably happen sooner or later is the truck driver who hit the girls will come after them to pay for the repairs to his truck.

Green tea keeps them guessing

We just got back to Shanghai from a great holiday in Lijiang China and trekked the 28 bends of Tiger Leaping Gorge - an amazing bit of geography to say the least.

On the way there we drove by some apple orchards and guess what - as reported in a previous blog posting, all the apples were neatly covered with brown paper bags which according to the newspaper where I found the original story,  all contain dangerous pesticides. So much for eating any more apples here.

But I digress, the issue in this posting is green tea? 

An undercover reporter for a "60 Minutes" type TV program here substituted green tea as a urine sample at various hospitals and wouldn't you know it - he was diagnosed with several different ailments. To start the experiment he went to a major public hospital in Beijing for a health check up where he was judged to be heathy and in good shape.

Then he went to several private men's health hospitals and when asked for a urine sample, he gave the clinics a small vial of green tea as a sample.

He was stunned when doctors at a hospital in Shijiazhuang, in Beijing's neighboring Hebei Province, told him they found an excessive level of white blood cells in his "urine," indicating that he was suffering prostatitis, an inflammation of the prostate gland, and orchitis, swelling in the testicles - hmmm, that sounds serious. A doctor told him that he would need to undergo seven days of treatment, with each day costing 546 yuan (US$86).

At another private hospital in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province, a doctor checked the same green tea sample and diagnosed that he had spermatoceles, or cysts near his reproductive organs, and needed immediate surgery, costing 5,000 yuan.

What is even more bizzare is that after the story broke some doctors questioned the reporter's method of using green tea to judge the accuracy of medical tests. They told the Shanghai Daily newspaper it was very "unprofessional" for the reporter to use green tea as sample. How's that for a great response .
 
Still others said the journalist shouldn't have set out to trap hospitals because a doctor should not have to worry about whether a urine sample is authentic. Otherwise, they said, it would be a waste of medical resources to verify samples.

"Equipment is designed to check biochemical indicators like white cell counts in urine or blood,  not for whether the sample is urine or green tea," said Dr Wang Guisong from Shanghai's Renji Hospital.

There is something here  that I must be missing but as most expats say TIC - This is China.

Urinine to tell you a new story

We are now back in Shanghai for the rest of the summer and what better way to start a summer blog than tell you about the shortage of urine facing Chinese Pharma companies.

Seems all of a sudden plastic buckets are showing up at toilets in some elementary schools in an east China city that are being used by pharmaceutical companies to collect urine to make medicine, a national TV station reported.

It was previously reported in the Chinese media that residents in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi Province were surprised to see the red plastic buckets at boys' toilets at schools and shocked to see workers taking the buckets, full of urine to trucks every afternoon.

"Why you might ask are people bothering to collect and transport boys' urine especially when this is not virgin egg season?"

In response, some schools told China Central Television that a pharmaceutical company was collecting the urine to extract urokinase, a product that dissolves blood clots and which is widely used in the treatment of thrombotic diseases.  The schools said they weren't being paid to provide the urine.

Here's the real issue - pharmaceutical companies are finding it more and more difficult to collect urine because of improved hygiene in China's public toilets. How do you like that!!

Pharmaceutical companies used to collect urine by placing buckets at public toilets the station said. Large amounts were needed as only dozens of grams of the product could be abstracted from one ton of human urine.

But with the improvement in hygiene, the companies are no longer allowed to place buckets at toilets in major cities and they have to head to small villages or seek other ways of collecting urine.

A manager surnamed Yu with a company that was collecting pupils' urine told the TV station that some schools rejected their requests by saying that the buckets would be too smelly.  To make matters worse, Chinese pharmaceutical companies producing urokinase are facing strong competition from foreign companies who see China as the ideal place to collect urine given its huge population and I would guess very few ways to collect it in their own countires.

Medical experts are calling on residents to support urine collection at public toilets to ensure supplies so when you come to visit the small towns and villages of China, do your part and stop by any urinal you see that has a red bucket and make a donation.

Not just any woman in China can be an astronaut

When it comes to women in space, the Chinese have got it all figured out.

Their new Tiangong-1 space module has been specially designed for females, as the country's first woman astronaut will join the Shenzhou-9 manned spacecraft docking mission this week and live in the Tiangong for 13 days.


Despite the module being only 15 cubic meters inside, the female astronaut will have a separate toilet and bedroom that is soundproof to protect her privacy, Pang Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology, said yesterday. How's that for luxury!

"She will also be able to take a sponge bath with a larger water supply than that of her male counterparts and even bring some specially made cosmetics into space," said Pang. Take that you smelly men.

Two women pilots from the Wuhan Flight Unit, including a backup, were picked for the mission. Either Liu Yang or Wang Yaping will become the nation's first woman in space, said Qi Faren, former chief designer of the Shenzhou spaceship series.

They were selected from 15 women who met the most stringent guidelines set by Chinese scientists.
1) They must be married
2) They must have given birth naturally
3) They must have no scars on their body
4) They must not exude any body odor.

Our good Dr Pang says a scar might open and start bleeding in space and the cramped conditions would intensify body odor. They have just thought of everything

And here is the kicker for all you married ladies who gave birth naturally - Xu Xianrong, a professor with the General Hospital of the PLA Air Force, said the female astronauts must be married and have given birth naturally because this ensures their body and mental condition are mature enough. And these folks are sending a rocket ship into space - makes you wonder!!!

Dr Pang said added that female astronauts tend to be more "keen and sensitive with better communication skills than their male counterparts." He added women were also good at dealing with relationships with their space partners, which would be an important issue on a long mission such as a trip to Mars.

An apple a day keeps the .......

As I sat down to breakfast this morning with my yogurt and apples I opened the Shanghai Daily News to read the following headline "Apples ripen in toxic bags". After choking and thinking twice about the next swallow, I read that the Shandong Provincial Agricultural Bureau is probing allegations that paper bags coated with pesticide are widely used to cover apples growing on trees in two major apple growing areas in east China - a region that supplies billions of kilograms of apples to cities all across China  and also accounts for over half of all the apples sold in Shanghai. That made me feel better - I have a 50/50 chance I'm eating an apple that was not coated with pesticides.

According to a bureau official surnamed Su it seems that young apples are covered in pesticide coated bags until they grow to full size. Local farmers  buy the pesticide-coated bags from unlicensed workshops to keep their apples from getting worms and to maintain a fresh shiny look.

These unlicensed manufacturers have so far refused to disclose the ingredients used in coating the interior of their bags however it is believed they contain highly toxic pesticides including asomate and tuzet and a mixture of thiram, ziram and urbacid - none of which I recognize but they all sound nasty. One manufacturer is quoted as saying a sack of pesticide costing 30 Yuan ($4.70 US) can coat 20,000 bags selling for 1,000 Yuan or $160.00 US.

An orchard owner says almost all orchards are using these bags because grocery stores and restaurants are demanding that all apples they sell have a perfect appearance.

So it looks like apples now join a long list of other goods that come off our shopping list or we start buying imported ones. So does An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away? Im not so sure anymore.
 

It was only a matter of time

China yesterday called on foreign consulates to stop releasing their own air quality readings. I was wondering when this would happen given the wide variences in reporting that I blogged about a few weeks ago

The Government is now saying only they are authorized to monitor and publish air quality information and data. Here is the party line from Wu Xiaoqing, a vice environmental minister. He said "other sources may not be standardized or as rigorous as ours is". Now that's called Chutzpah!!

The US Embassy in Beijing and the US consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou currently release PM2.5 readings on an hourly basis. PM2.5 particles are a risk to health because they are small enough to lodge deep in the lungs and even enter the bloodstream.

Later, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told a press briefing: "Of course, if the foreign embassies want to collect air quality information for their own staff or diplomats, I think that is their own affair, but we believe that this type of information should not be released to the public." Of course it should not be released - why cause the public to be concerned about air quality when it is completely safe.

The sometimes sharp differences in air quality readings released by Chinese urban environmental watchdogs and those from the US consular authorities have stirred great debate among China's increasingly pollution-aware public. The US consular practice attracted public attention last year when Beijing was troubled by serious smog. The sharp variances in air quality reports released by the Beijing environmental watchdog and by the American Embassy spurred heated discussion.

The air quality yesterday in Shanghai reported by the government environmental authority was "good," similar to the "moderate" to "good" levels released by the US Consulate in the city. But there was controversy on May 14, for example, when the local government said the air quality in Shanghai was "good," while the US Consulate rated it "unhealthy for sensitive groups."

Wu said: "People may have noticed that the official PM2.5 readings released by Beijing and Shanghai watchdogs are basically the same as those released by some consular operations. However, the interpretations of air quality are sharply different.

As I said in a previous post the issue is how one interprets the air quality results. Wu said "It's because other countries use the air quality standards of their own country to evaluate air conditions here. That's obviously unreasonable." That's another Chutzpah quote worth noting. Yes of course it is unreasonable - in countries where clean air is a given why shouldn't the bar be set high. In developing countries with mass amounts of pollution in the air, you have to take that into account and set the bar lower - peoples health does not really enter into the equation.

Last night, the US air quality results were still available online and I hope they remain online - in the meantime I have to go and get my puffer :)

 

Two is one too many in China

As tomorrow is International Children's Day, I thought it appropriate to comment on China's one child policy.

It  has to be one of the more interesting social engineering  policies this country has adopted - the implications of which will be felt for generations to come.


A couple in eastern China's Zhejiang Province who violated the family planning law was recently fined 1.3 million yuan (US$205,000), the biggest such penalty levied by authorities.

The couple gave birth to a daughter in February after having a son in 1995. As the law was written, couples can have a second child under a few conditions such as both spouses being from one child families, or the first child has a non-inherited disease. In some provinces, rural couples are allowed to have a second child if their first child is a girl - hows that for sexual equality.  The couple in question did not qualify under any of these terms. They were wealthy business people who knew the consequences. Local regulations state the fine for having a second child should be four to eight times the average annual income of local residents with family planning authorities having the flexibility set the penalties at their discretion.

Since many of those who do violate the family planning law are rich families, they are given the maximum fines local authorities said. Ruian where this couple lived is in the jurisdiction of Wenzhou, which boasts many wealthy entrepreneurs. Nearly half of Wenzhou's families have two kids, and more than a dozen couples have been fined more than 1 million yuan.

The previous record fine, 1.25 million yuan was just recently imposed in April.

The Chinese government adopted the family-planning policy in 1979 to rein in the growth rate of the world's largest population. The law was enacted because authorities believed China's large population imposed undue pressure on the nation's sustainable development and was a bottleneck for China's competitiveness.

What is already evident is that China now has a gender imbalance. There many more boys born than girls which has created a serious social dilemma - their just aren't enough women around for men to marry - where that goes is anyone's guess?

We know how this will eventually end

And I'm afraid that it will most likely not be a great ending.

A three month old baby found alone in a downtown park a few weeks ago was reunited with his parents yesterday. The parents got their baby back after a warning and paying fines ending the two week drama.

And right about now you are asking why would the parents be warned and fined.

The incident began when police received emergency calls about a baby found sitting in a stroller with no parents in sight. The police rushed to the scene, waited a half hour or so for the parents to show up and then took the baby to the hospital for safe keeping while they tried to find the parents.

The next day after seeing the baby's picture posted online by the police, the mother contacted the police station to claim her child. She said she was regretful for what had happened. She told police she and her husband left the baby in the park after they quarreled about who should take care of the child. In a huff. she caught a bus back to her hometown in neighbouring Jiangsu Province and her hubby hit the road for his home in Sichuan. Duh - what about the kid???

After DNA testing to prove the child was in fact theirs, the police let the parents take the child with stern warnings to shape up.

So there you have it - a great insight into the handling of children's services and welfare here in China - my guess is we will never hear anything more from this family and there is probably a good chance the kid gets sold somewhere in the hinterland never to be heard from again.

The proverbial Question "Is it safe to breath today?"

And the answer of course is it depends on who you believe.

Officially, Shanghai's air quality was "good" yesterday (see picture at left). But at the American Consulate it was a different story. Readings there indicated that the city air was "unhealthy for sensitive groups" throughout most of the day.
The issue of course is just what is an acceptable level of particulates in the air. Monitoring equipment at the consulate is basically the same as equipment at the Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center. The difference is China and America have different standards for air quality.

Data from the consulate, based on its monitoring machine in its offices on Huaihai Road showed that PM2.5 density began rising from 10am yesterday to a peak of 70 micrograms per cubic meter when the air qulaity was defined as "unhealthy". It remained at around 60 throughout the afternoon.

Here's the rub - China's acceptable daily limit for PM2.5 is 75 micrograms per cubic meter compared with about 25 micrograms in the United States.

The city's readings showed that PM2.5 reached a high of 68 at 11am in Putuo District and 82 in Zhangjiang in the Pudong New Area, the only two spots whose readings are made public. Granted the data from the consulate is only able to measure the air quality of the limited space around the consulate but you have to believe this number holds true for much of Shanghai.

So why worry when China says the air is OK? To begin with PM2.5 sized particles are about 1/30th the width of a human hair and we are at risk because these particles are small enough to lodge deep in our lungs and even enter our bloodstream - sounds wonderful doesn't it?.

Here's the best question of the day from a man named Shu Jiong who is an environmental professor at East China Normal University (do you think there is an East China Abnormal University). Shu questioned whether it was proper for the consulate to use US standards to evaluate Shanghai's air quality. He said, "the two countries have different demographic situations and are at different stages of development, so it will be more suitable to use the Chinese standard to evaluate the air quality in Shanghai". There you have it  - the real thinking behind the difference in standards. China is developing so its OK for it's industries to pollute the air and its citizens to breath more PM2.5 particulate.

Why didn't I think of that.

Who said there is no free press in China

Today's Shanghai Daily(one of the English mouth pieces for the Chinese Government) has illustrated the ultimate in free speech. They've done what I believe no newspaper has ever done in the Western world.

They sold their ACTUAL front cover to Mercedes Benz. This is not a wrap around - it is the front page. Talk about the rise of capitalism - this is over the top and then some. Imagine the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal giving up their front page for an advertiser. Rest assured Mao is turning over in his grave and calling on all the Chinese spirits to come rescue his lost flock.

In most countries and for most newspapers, the front page is off bounds - no ifs ands or buts. Any suggestion to an editorial team that this might generate gobs of money would be scoffed at and turned down.  Newsprint has fallen on hard times so I guess the Chinese are at the forefront of rewriting the rule book.

Study methods take a whole new turn

Throw out the misconception that Asian students are competitive and study 20 hours a day seven days a week with their heads buried in textbooks memorizing every word, every phrase, every formula because  a school in central China's Hubei Province has taken studing to a whole new level and hooked students up to intravenous drips to improve their memory and performance in exams. Xiaogan City No. 1 High School said each student was subsidized 10 yuan (US$1.6) by the provincial education bureau for amino acid drips ahead of National College Entrance Exams.

These folks believe the intravenous drips will improve memory and allay anxiety. Since these exams determine where a student goes for post secondary education, nothing is out of the question to get good marks. In many cities parents rent hotel rooms next to the exam centres to keep their kids relaxed and able to study up to the last minute. This includes providing massages and yoga sessions just before the exam.
 

Photographs posted on microblogging site weibo.com last Friday showed almost 30 senior students  hooked up to intravenous drips in their classroom. Web users claimed this proved this technique has becomes a tradition ahead of the National College Entrance Exams.

A school official, surnamed Xia, said students volunteered for the drip, and in order not to disturb their exam preparations it was administered in the classroom.

Here's a great quote - Sun Zhongshi, an expert with the State Food and Drug Administration, said there was a danger of cross-infection as a classroom was not the appropriate environment for giving intravenous injections, and was skeptical of the benefits of amino acid.

So you saw it here first. Next time your son or daughter has to write an exam, just hook them up to some intavenous solution and voila - you'll have a doctor or lawyer or architect on your hands in no time.

 

Why we worry about food!

Reports of Chinese cabbages tainted with formaldehyde in east China's Shandong Province, the country's largest vegetable supplier have exposed clandestine market practices and triggered a new wave of food safety concerns.Over the weekend, there were reports that vegetable dealers in Qingzhou had been seen spraying formaldehyde on Chinese cabbages .

In visits to farms and wholesale centers, Xinhua news agency reporters found that using the formaldehyde solution has been a popular, unspoken method of keeping vegetables fresh for at least three years and was not limited to Qingzhou. Many local farmers turn a blind eye to dealers treating the cabbages with formaldehyde. "It's a common practice to keep the cabbages fresh," says Yin Lihua, a farmer in Qingzhou's Dongxia township. "Otherwise, the vegetables stacked tightly in their trucks would rot in two to three days." China's wholesale vegetable dealers are not required to use refrigerated trucks for produce, and few can afford them. Yesterday morning, trucks were lined up near Yin's greenhouse, waiting to take the cabbages to faraway cities for sale.

Zhao Mingli, a dealer from the northeastern Heilongjiang Province, was caught by police while spraying the chemical solution. Zhao told them he used the spray to keep the cabbages in good condition during a 10-hour journey to Langfang, a city on the Hebei-Beijing border. "Vegetable dealers in Langfang openly demand formaldehyde-preserved cabbages because they sell more easily. I just did what everyone else was doing for three or four years. Zhao said 2.5 liters of solution costs only 7 yuan and can keep 20 tons of vegetables fresh. Zhao was one of dozens of vegetable dealers apprehended by police in Dongxia township. They admitted having sold formaldehyde-tainted vegetables to many provinces, and many said they ate the tainted cabbages themselves. "You just do away with the first layer of leaves, cut the root and rinse well," Zhao said.

For the record, formaldehyde is used as a disinfectant and embalming fluid and has been declared a known human carcinogen. It is also a skin, eye and respiratory irritant. In 2008, China banned it as an illegal food additive however that hasn't seemed to concern these farmers.

So now you know why we pay so much for produce that is flown in from Australia or grown on farms managed by expats who care about what they are eating.

Quick, I need a hit of BBQ sauce

I genuinely thought I'd heard it all but this is pretty hard to top. The Shanghai Daily newspaper reported today that an additive that enhances the flavor of braised pork is causing people to become addicted to the dish .

The Shanghai Food and Drug Administration yesterday warned local restaurants after it was found that the additive was also available here in Shanghai. The additive, dubbed "King of Meat" can be found in many food markets and is used by many restaurant chefs who know the secret of the taste and don't eat the pork dish themselves - isnt that reassuring.

The Shanghai FDA said yesterday the three relevant ingredients in the composition of the additive were legal synthetic flavors that can be used in all kinds of food, except raw meat in which the use of the additives is banned.

Makes me feel all warm and cosy to know the law says the additives can't be used to cover food that has gone bad or to make counterfeit products. The Shanghai FDA said local restaurants should avoid using or use a minimum amount of the additive while cooking pork with brown sauce and other dishes.

The additive is made of chemical synthetics that contain chlorine and it can irritate the human gastronomic and digestive systems, Mo Baoqing, a professor of Nanjing Medical University, told the newspaper.

What is so spooky about eating in this country is that China has no clear provisions for dealing with such synthetic additives - that's why we've made a conscious decision to stay away from street food and other local dives.

The "King of Meat" mixture is also being sold online. Online vendors boast the special additive is made of "natural spices" and is widely used across the country. "It should be safe as long as you don't put too much of it into dishes," said a Shenzhen-based vendor. "We don't know what the additive is made of, but we haven't heard of anyone being poisoned or harmed by it." Online stores said the additive can be used in almost all kinds of meat products to enhance their taste and get rid of any bad smell. A 500ml bottle costs about 70 yuan (US$11), and most buyers were restaurant owners, the vendor said.

I'll remember that the next time we eat out.

Talk about monkey business

Seems a member of the staff of the Wuhan Zoo in Central China's Wuhan city went above and beyond the call of duty yesterday to save the life of a rare monkey.

Senior breeder Zhang Bangsheng came to the rescue after a three month old French Langur monkey ate a peanut offered by a visitor. The problem you ask - the peanut was not digested and became lodged in the monkey's tush causing a serious obstruction. Since the zoo did not have access to any laxatives, the zoo attendant did what anybody would do - he licked the monkey's behind to stimulate and arouse it and sure enough, out popped the peanut.

Kudos to Mr. Zhang for the quick action however of all the possible options he might have had to free the peanut, I just wonder how he zeroed in on this one. This brings a whole new positive perspective to the phrase "ass kissing".

Teacher was just having a bad day

Police in Shanghai are investigating a Chinese teacher who threw a mechanical pencil at a nine-year-old pupil, leaving the pencil's lead sticking into one of his eyes. After emergency surgery at 2am yesterday at Xinhua Hospital, the pupil said he could sense some light with his injured left eye, but still could not see things clearly.

The incident occurred at the Shuifeng Road Elementary School in Yangpu District during lunchtime on Wednesday when the teacher threw the mechanical pencil at the student from about a meter away.

The student is reported to have said that his teacher used to be a good and kind who "would not give the students a lot of homework." But he said he couldn't understand why she had become so angry and thrown the pencil at him.

The teacher is now under investigation by both the police and Yangpu District Education Bureau officials.  What is the quote of the day comes from the education authority which said "the teacher might simply have lost her temper." Her behavior was a one-time aberration as she had previously enjoyed a good reputation and was regarded by pupils as a kind teacher, a bureau official said.
 

Are you urine for a treat?

If you can believe it, this is the anniversary so to speak, of my first blog or two after arriving in China and that time is here again.

It's the end of a school day in the eastern Chinese city of Dongyang, and eager parents collect their children after a hectic day of primary classes. But that's just the start of busy times for dozens of egg vendors across the city, deep in coastal Zhejiang Province, who ready themselves to cook up the unusual springtime snack favoured by local residents.

Basins and buckets of boys' urine are collected from primary school toilets. It is the key ingredient in "virgin boy eggs," a local tradition of soaking and cooking eggs in the urine of young boys, preferably below the age of 10. There is no good explanation for why it has to be boys' urine, just that it has been so for centuries.

The scent of the eggs being cooked in urine is unmistakable as people pass many street vendors in Dongyang who sell it, claiming it has remarkable health properties. "If you eat this, you will not get heat stroke. These eggs cooked in urine are fragrant," said Ge Yaohua, 51, who owns one of the more popular "virgin boy eggs" stallS and he is quoted as saying. "They are good for your health. Our family has them for every meal. In Dongyang, every family likes eating them."

Now here's how you too can make Virgin eggs - It takes nearly a day to make the eggs. First you start off by soaking and then boiling raw eggs in a pot of urine. After that, you crack the shells of the hard-boiled eggs and then let them continue to simmer in urine for hours. You must pour on extra urine to make sure the pot does not boil dry.

Mr. Ge said he has been making the snack, popular due to its fresh and salty taste, for more than 20 years. Each egg sells for 1.50 yuan (24 US cents), a little more than twice the price of the regular eggs he also sells. Many Dongyang residents, young and old, said they believed in the tradition passed on by their ancestors that the eggs decrease body heat, promote blood circulation and reinvigorate the body.

The eggs are not only bought from street stalls. Residents also personally collect boys' urine from nearby schools to cook the delicacy at home. The popularity of the treat has led the local government to list the "virgin boy eggs" as an intangible cultural heritage.

So there you have it - we have not tried them and don't plan on trying them anytime soon but now you know how they are made so you can give it  a try.

No matter how tough life might be, don't complain

The Shanghai Daily reported today that a poor migrant worker and his family have been living in an abandoned toilet  for six years.

In that time frame, Zeng Lingjun, now 33, created a home for himself in the restroom, furnished it with simple furniture, got married, and had a baby, who is now 14 months old.

In the space of less than 20 square meters (approx 200 sq ft), Zeng placed planks over the squat toilet and used the planks as a bed, which faced a small television set placed on a table between two urinals. He also hung a clock on the porcelain wall.

On the opposite wall, Zeng has pasted a red paper cut-out of the Chinese character "xi," or happiness - a Chinese tradition to court good luck. "I am satisfied with what I have now," said Zeng, who came to Shenyang 13 years ago with only 50 yuan (US$8) in his pocket. "Life actually is better here than where I used to rough it out."

Zeng has rented the toilet from a hostel near the long-distance bus station for 8,000 yuan ($1300 US) a year since 2006. He was also given, for free (imagine that), a space in front of the hostel where he sits on a stool and polishes shoes for 10 yuan a pair. Zeng earns about 2,000 yuan a month ($300 US) from the job, nearly double the minimum wage set by the Shenyang government.

Zeng told the newspaper that he is so content with life that he named his child "Deyi" - which means satisfying one's desire. But living in a toilet is not always as "comfy" as he describes.

Though the restroom has long been deserted, Zeng said he has to flush the toilet frequently to "wash away" the stinky odors that creep down through the pipes from the functional toilet above his home. And long-term exposure to the humid atmosphere has left his child with eczema.

Zeng said he wants to find a better paying job and move his family into a proper home. But earning extra money is not easy, as he still has to wire money home to his aging parents in the countryside and the family will soon have to spend money on the child's education.

So the next time you are complaining about life in general think about China's millions upon millions of rural migrant workers in cities and towns. Many live in undesirable conditions, have limited access to health care, education, and social security resources.

Maybe things are changing

Just back from Cambodia where corruption is a fact of every day life and this article in the Shanghai Daily caught my eye. It's a small story but I think represents something that will hopefully change soon. It concerns a physically fit candidate who scored extremely high marks in a civil service exam and was subsequently denied the job because he failed a physical. Why you might ask would a physically fit student fail a basic medical check up? The answer in China is easy.

Three government officials and two doctors have been charged with bribery and abuse of power. It is claimed they prevented the top scoring student from getting the job by claiming he was anemic. And why would they do that? It was done because an important government official wanted his daughter to get the job which she did.

So the bad news is corruption at all levels here is still quite prevalent. The good news is these people plus three more involved in the charade are being tried and will hopefully be convicted.



Strong Medicine But Maybe Not A Bad Idea

Far be it from me to support Capital punishment but there is an appeal here for a crime that in the past has killed or injured far too many innocent people.

A few weeks ago two motorcycle drag racers here in Shanghai were detained and charged with dangerous driving under new guidelines that for the first time can lead to the death penalty, the Shanghai Daily News reported. Previously, racers faced a penalty of less than 15 days if they caused no harm.

The two were tracked on surveillance cameras speeding through red lights from Pudong to Puxi on busy and crowded streets. Patrolling officers tried to stop the two but they eluded capture.

The two racers were later identified from surveillance camera footage (big brother has powerful eyes). One of their bikes was unlicensed and the other had stolen plates.They confessed to their crime and the case has now been handed over to the prosecutors.

City police have warned locals not to drag race in the streets, saying they will intensify crackdowns on dangerous driving. "Street racing seriously disturbs the traffic," police said. Now that's an understatement if I've ever heard one.

Not sure how long it will take for this case to actually be decided - can't imagine they will be sentenced to death but I'm sure this new law has given street racers something to think about.

Today is Lei Feng day

Today is Lei Feng day and to celebrate about 1000 Chinese students dressed in 1960s Chinese army uniforms staged an art performance at Shanghai's bustling metro stations this morning to call on the public to follow the example of Lei Feng, the nation's most famous Good Samaritan.

What confuses me is on the one hand, Lei Feng was a soldier of the People's Liberation Army who died at age 22. After his death, Lei was characterised as a selfless and modest person who was devoted to the Communist Party and Chairman Mao. In 1963, he became the subject of a nationwide posthumous propaganda campaign portrayed as a model citizen. People were encouraged to emulate his selflessness, modesty, and devotion to Mao though today scholars believe the depictions of Lei Feng's life was almost certainly a propaganda ploy of the Communist Party.

On the other hand, the law has spoken and yesterday a pizza restaurant that gave its location as "the French Concession" has been fined 47,500 yuan (US$7,541) for violating China's advertising laws. The recently opened branch of Pizza Marzano used the name of the former colonial concession as their address in advertising leaflets. In a statement, the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau  said the restaurant had evoked the bitter history of Shanghai under colonial control which humiliated the public and went against mainstream values.

So what really is more important here - promoting a soldier who died along with thirty or forty million others during The Great Leap Forward or punishing a company for evoking the bitter history of Shanghai under colonial rule?

You decide. 

Child Beggars To Be Shipped Out

The above headline comes verbatim from today's Shanghai Daily newspaper. The copy is below and I promise no more depressing posts for a while - next week I'll look on the bright side of life in China - and for those of you wondering why all the posts - Theresa has been travelling all week so I am starting to talk to the walls.

The copy (as it was published today):
All straying minors and child beggars in Shanghai are expected to be sent back to their hometowns by the end of this year, authorities said yesterday. Similar campaigns taken by the city in recent years have met with limited success because the minors often would simply return to the city soon after being pushed out. Officials said it may be different this time, because this year's campaign is a nationwide action. The minors' hometowns will be responsible for not letting them stray into the metropolises again. "We will contact local governments to register their information," said Zhou Zheng, director of the Shanghai Aiding Center.  Several local departments, including police, urban management and civil affairs officials, will patrol the streets, Metro stations, busy business areas and transport hubs to find the children.

I can't really say much more - the article speaks for itself.

Let`s Hear it for Macho Men & Cute Girls

A high school in Central China's Henan province recently set a code of behavior for students to become "macho boys" and "cute and clever girls".

Zhengzhou No 18 High School, which specializes in art education, granted the titles "macho boys" and "cute and clever girls" to 44 students (22 boys and 22 girls) at the beginning of the new semester, so other students would emulate their behavior.  Duan Yaping, 44, the school principal, said some students used to think that misbehavior like smoking would make them look cool, so the school has chosen role models for them, according to a report of Zhengzhou-based Henan Business News.

Twenty-eight behavioral characteristics are needed to become a "macho boy" including having neatly groomed short hair, not dressing strangely, respecting girls and admiring heroes according to a notice on the school website. The characteristics of "cute and clever girls" include no roughhousing with boys (we know what that means) and having self-respect and decency.  In its working plan for this semester, the school said that it will teach students to form good habits, such as "writing well, walking well and speaking well", as part of its social etiquette education.

A teacher from the school who asked to remain anonymous told China Daily that the art students are not so compliant as other students so the school had to form a code of conduct to keep them from being rebellious.

I reviewed the "macho boy"checklist and I just made it under the wire with a little cheating. Theresa on the other hand was a shoo in as a "cute & clever girl".

The More Things Change, The More They Are The Same

Two things in the paper today caught my eye - one is kind of amusing, the other quite the opposite.  First off it seems a new British pizza parlour chain opening in Shanghai has got themselves into hot water with the populace because they advertised their new location as being "in the French Concession". This use of the phrase "French Concession" has outraged local Chinese residents and law enforcement officers of the Municipal Market Watchdog (sounds like the language police in Quebec) have started an investigation.

 Talk about nationalism - the French Concession is a beautiful vibrant district in Shanghai that has existed since 1849 (albeit no longer a French territory since 1943). To take offense at the name seems petty to me, especially given the beautiful streets, trees and architecture that the French left behind. What I think is sad but it's business, the chain humbly apologized saying they were foreigners unfamiliar with Chinese culture and were truly sorry for offending anyone - talk about eating humble pizza pie.

The other story that caught my eye is about a jerk who ran a website spreading rumors of a SARS infection in Baoding, Hebei province. The courts found him guilty and he was ordered to spend two years in a labor education institution. According to local police, the person, surnamed Liu, spread rumors about SARS to boost his website's clicks.

The guy gets an "A" for creativity and an "F" for being an idiot but the use of the phrase "Labor Education Institution" ran a chill up my spin. It just rings too close to what was happening here during the Cultural Revolution. Frankly I'd be much more comfortable if they had just said they "threw the guy in jail".

The idea that McDonlads, KFC and Louis Vuitton can be found in a country that also has Labor Education Institutions makes you wonder..........

Women Flushed With Success

 Dissent is alive and well in China

Today the China Daily News reported that Wang Lailin, 20, a university student from Zhengzhou, in Central China's Henan province, felt her first flush of success after she used the men's toilet in Beijing.

"Women were waiting outside and some were using the men's toilet. So I followed them. It was quicker and I saved time as I had a train to catch," she said.

Wang is one of those who has benefited from the "Occupy Men's Toilet" group, which wants more public conveniences for women. Female students in Beijing on Sunday occupied cubicles in the men's toilet near Deshengmen. Their purpose was to make sure that women who were waiting outside could use the facilities first. Volunteers outside the toilet held banners demanding "More conveniences for women, more gender equality", and "If you love her, don't let her wait in line".

The first occupation on Feb 19 at a public toilet in Guangzhou, set off a fierce public debate. The occupation the women said is on a temporary basis out of understanding for men's needs. "We only occupy the men's restroom for 3 minutes, holding it for women who are in a hurry to go to the toilet. A new round of 'occupation' follows 10 minutes later.

An elderly man in his 70s, who declined to be named, was angry at the occupation. "How could you do this? Men's toilets are built for men, not for women. What if a man wants to go to the toilet? It's over the top," he said.  And then there is this comment from an urban planner "The number of women's cubicles should be increased in some places, such as shopping malls, because women go shopping more often than men". Hmmmm, might have to call this one a somewhat sexist observation.

My advice to all women visiting China, not that I have had any personal experience but I'd take a pass on using any public washroom, mens or womens.

I can't bear it anymore

Sorry for the puns in the last few posts but I couldn't resist this.

Faced with resistance from animal activists and the general public, a Chinese pharmaceutical company about to issue an IPO to raise funds for expansion allowed more than 100 reporters to visit a farm where it breeds bears for their bile. You got it right - their bile. Seems for nearly 3,000 years, bear bile has been used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) to cure eye and liver ailments which some TCM experts claim is of "irreplaceable" medical value.

At the bear farm of Guizhentang Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, based in the eastern province of Fujian, a Xinhua reporter saw about 60 bears roaming outdoors. A farm worker said more than 600 bears were kept in the farm, with some in the open and others in concrete bungalows covered with wire netting.

The reporter was also allowed to witness the bile extraction process. A bear was placed in a small cage about the size of the bear and then a practitioner disinfected the permanent shunt in the bear's abdomen. He then inserted an 8-centimeter-long fine tube into the shunt and extracted about 100 milliliters of bile. Finally, he removed the tube and disinfected the shunt again. The whole process lasted about 30 seconds, during which the bear was consuming liquid food and remained quiet. The reporter noticed that there were more than 100 cages used to conduct this procedure.

Far be it from me to question the value of TCM, in fact its popularity is growing in the western world an an alternate medicine but somehow farming bears for this purpose sounds barbaric - The Animal Free Asia Foundation (to be fair they do have their own agenda) has stated of 165 bears they examined 36 had gallstones as large as 7 cm. I don't think you want to try and understand how painful that might be! Of those 165 bears, 99% had cholecystitis and 66% had gallbladder polyps. Not a pretty picture.

It looks as though the IPO will be approved and the company will expand their operations so just remember this post the next time you take a hit of some TCM - it just might contain some bear bile.

-

Wok softly and carry a big cleaver

Theresa and I participated in a Chinese cooking class this weekend that was not only fun but quite educational. Three caucasians and three chinese plus a Chinese chef and interpreter made up the class which started with each of us chopping off the head of a live fish (I think they called it a snakehead fish though it didn't look like a snake).

The menu for the day was watercress fish stew and Cantonese stuffed eggplant. The class was 2.5 hours and we got to eat our cooking at the end of the class. Needless to say the fish stew was a washout - no taste but smelly and filled with fish bones that could choke a horse - interestingly, our Chinese class mates had no problems with the soup or the bones - they ate their soup bowls dry.

The other dish we made, Cantonese stuffed eggplant was real yummy - pork & shrimp mushed up between two slices of eggplant all fast fried in a wok with garlic, ginger, red pepper, coriander, chili sauce and rice wine.

The class was educational as well. we learned how to wield a cleaver (though Theresa did cut her thumb) and how to correctly use a wok - did you know you are supposed to heat a wok with no oil in it till it smokes, then swirl some oil around the entire wok, then discard that oil and add more oil again before you throw in the food to be cooked. We bought a seasoned wok at the school plus a cleaver so now we are ready to take on any Chinese recipe - next class (we are on a waiting list though - this place is popular) is farmer's pork stir fry and deep fried stuffed crab claws - hmmm am getting hungry already.