Dog gone it!!

Seems on January 15, 2012 Chongquing police stopped a truck delivering more than 1,100 dogs to Zhanjiang in Guangdong Province where dog meat is a popular dish. The China Daily newspaper goes on to describe how the dogs were found in a pick up truck with 30 cm cages stacked eight high and with as many as eight dogs in each cage. Most of the dogs were injured or dead having died from suffocation, bone fractures and disease. Not a pretty picture.

The good news is once this horrible situation was made public, Chinese activists raised over $111,000 (US) in the form of cash donations, food and medicine to care for the surviving dogs. But there is a catch as with everything in China. Since the dogs were transported illegally, the animal quarantine station in the district insists the dogs must be removed from the temporary shelter and people's homes where they were placed because the area is a "livestock-breeding free district" and they must be gone by February 22 - tomorrow!!

So there you have it - Jumping from the proverbial pot into the frying pan. It doesn't get much worse than this. If the Chinese people do one thing in the next few years it should be to eliminate dog from their menus - its happening in the urban cities but head into the hinterland and watch out - that next stew you could be eating might just be good old fido!!

Not Again!

 

You would think after the international media coverage of the little girl who was run over by two trucks and left to die in the street that things might have changed.

I guess it takes longer than a few months to change a nation's attitude towards their fellow man. Yesterday a 70-year-old man fell down at a downtown intersection.  He called for help and struggled to get up but after 30 minutes of inaction by anyone, he died in front of the crowd of onlookers.

Why you might ask did no one do anything except call an ambulance that arrived after the man was dead. The answer is China's Ministry of Health published a guide last September telling people how to help elderly residents if they fall in the street. The 41-page guide, available to download from the ministry's website, advises people who see old people fall "not to help them up in a hurry, but to observe and inquire about their health conditions first and then act accordingly." The guide says that in many cases people's help could lead to more serious problems for elderly people suffering bone fractures, strokes or heart disease. It advises dialing 120 for medical help if people see someone on the ground unconscious.

So there you have it - call an ambulance and watch someone die - seems something got lost in translation.

Bouncing Yokes Mark My Return to Shanghai

I am back in Shanghai after a great visit with my family and friends and I thought as a welcome back post I would share something with you that could only ever be conceived of here in China - fake eggs.

Seems almost 3,000 eggs were removed from a supermarket shelf in the Panyu District of Guangzhou after a shopper complained the eggs he bought were fake. A local resident  surnamed Guo claims his daughter suffered an upset stomach after eating one of the eggs - Guo discovered the boiled yolk was hard and bounced three times on the floor like a rubber ball.

Zhao Qiangzhong, an associate professor from the school of light industry and food at South China University of Technology confirmed the eggs were probably fake and went on to say there are many ways to mix chemicals to make a bogus egg. Several other scientists have commented on the fake egg issue claiming among other things it's not very profitable to produce fake eggs.

Far be it from me to judge but  I just can't understand why anyone would entertain the idea of producing fake eggs or even wondering about the profitability of creating something like that.

That said, the next time I sit down for a breakfast of soft boiled eggs, I just might test one to see if it bounces - living in China is interesting to say the least. :)

Our Afternoon with Professor Zhou

As part of our cultural training Pfizer's relocation supplier arranged for Theresa and I to spend an afternoon "one-on-one" with Professor Zhou Chun, (that's him in the middle with his brother and sister), an 85 year old scholar and author who shared his life story with us. An amazing story of strength and personal tragedy that unfolded right in our living room.

He grew up in Shanghai in the mid 20's when the French concession was still really the French Concession controled by France and Shanghai truly was the Paris of the Orient. He studied German in hopes of going to medical school however when the Japanese took over Shanghai his plans to attend medical school vanished and he eventually joined the communist party where he rose to become one of Mao's personal translators.

It would take too long to tell his whole story here but the highlights include being sent to jail for five years for treason and then the labour camps for another 17 years only to finally be set free in 79 when he was assigned to teach English at a university here in Shanghai. The man retired when he turned 61 and went to live in Berlin in 87 and published two books in German - all about his life in China.

This man is a walking, talking repository of life in China from the 30's right through to today. We were truly honoured to meet him and spend the afternoon listening to him and sharing some of our thoughts of China with him.

Our New Year's Naked Stables Adventure

Don't let the fancy wheels fool you. Over the New Years weekend Theresa and I went to a beautiful eco-resort in the mountains near Moganshan called Naked Stables Private Reserve and got to explore a side of China we had yet to see.

The resort is built in the middle of a tea plantation and bamboo forest and very close to some very remote villages where we took this picture of a plow/car/tractor/who knows. The resort itself just opened in October and is going through some birthing pains  - like luke warm showers, freezing cold floors and a heating system that doesn't quite work. Add to this staff who haven't quite been trained yet and who speak very little English and you can bet there were a few "Howard" moments over the two days we were there.

That said, it was a great way to welcome in the New Year and to recharge our batteries (mainly Theresa - mine never really gets drained) :) for year two in China. We walked in the tea groves - am not sure what you call a field of tea and through the bamboo forests to villages where ladies were washing their clothes in the creek. We might as well have been in the 1800's - that's how it felt. Coming from Shanghai where at times it feels like 2050, seeing these villages was pretty weird though we've never walked in the Ozarks in the US so who knows, it might look the same there.

Christmas and Chanukah came and went very fast with the kids travelling with us to Thailand for some sun and rest and good Thai food and now we are actually getting ready for a trip to North America mid month - Theresa for business and me to play poker and visit friends and family - oh yes and for both of us to be home for Sasha's birthday.

Need a burial urn?

It's been a while since I posted anything here - I guess I am actually getting used to all the weird and wonderful things that make up daily living in Shanghai but I couldn't pass this up.

Seems the Shanghai Funeral & Internment Association has indicated the city's funeral parlours and cemetaries have at least 10,000 burial urns containing someone's ashes that no one has claimed or visits.

The reason for this glut of ashes and urns is that according to Chinese tradition the best time to bury someone is on the winter solstice so you are out of luck if you die from December 24 onwards (they allow two or three days for the burial to take place). Your family has to wait a year to bury your remains and thus the problem!!!

There is a fee of 100 Yuan ($15.70)per year to hold the ashes till burial time which many people can't afford or they pay the fee and then simply forget about burying their relatives during the next winter solstice.

So if your looking for a nice Chinese burial urn, you might be able to pick one up at a great price at the local funeral parlour - you have to deal with the ashes and the ghosts that might be upset.

You really have to wonder???

I am sure you might have heard this already but the latest craziness here comes from northwest China's Gansu Province where least 18 pre-school children were killed when an overloaded kindergarten minibus collided head-on with a truck. The bus driver and a teacher also died in the crash. Another 44 children were injured, 12 of them seriously.

Terrible does not describe the accident, but what is just so crazy is the school bus was a mini van built to carry nine passengers but 62 children were crammed inside.

A preliminary investigation found that the bus had been driving fast on the wrong side of the road (what else is new) on a street shrouded in heavy fog when the accident happened. The collision with the truck occurred at around 9:15am in Zhengning County of Qingyang City.

The minibus was taking the children to a kindergarten after picking them up from remote farmlands. Five people, including bus driver Yang Haijun and four children, died at the scene. The teacher and 14 children died later either on their way to hospital or while they were being treated for their injuries. Of the 44 children who survived, 12 sustained severe injuries with two of them in a critical condition.

"This accident says a lot about the problems with the local government's role of monitoring school safety," said Liu Shanying, a public administration expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

To me it says that no matter how advanced and comopolitan the urban cities of China may be, there majority of the rural population has a long way to go to catch up. My guess is someone on the school board or in fact the whole school board will be executed for this but that won't solve the problem. The Chinese are extremely resourceful, especially the poor but this action was clearly irresponsible and crazy.

Fresh air anyone

Monday was a nasty day here in Shanghai. As the Shanghai Daily news called it, "foggy weather" grounded more than 70 flights when visibility dropped to less than 400 meters. Fog my eye -

inhalable particulates as they call pollution here rose more than seven times the normal rate on Sunday and Monday.

The "fog" is the result of particles adhering to water molecules in the air when there is high humidity - all the better to see the nasty little bits of sulphur and other noxious chemicals that I'm inhaling most days though to be honest I have not noticed any real change in my breathing or lung capacity since we've been here.

My guess is if you were born here in the last ten years and stay here, your lungs will definitely be impacted by what's happening here. For those of us lucky to have been born in North America we should be very thankful for the clean air we get to breathe every day and do all we can to insure it stays that way.

Who wants to play poker?

The police in Baoshan District busted one of the largest illegal card games in China where gamblers dropped hundreds of thousands of Yuan on a daily basis. Got to give the organizer's credit - the games were played in the middle of a dense forest and moved to new locations every day or even moved between games to evade detection.

Seems the organizers would start their first card game at 5:00 to 8:00 PM and then take the players to a local resturant for dinner while other gang members moved the game to a diiferent part of the forest where they tapped into the electricity supply for lights etc. The gamblers were provided with free shuttle service to and from the games. Pots ranged up to 600,000 Yuan or approx $95,000 (US). And if you were losing you could always get an advance from the house, with interest calculated daily.

71 people were detained in the raid near the holiday resort of Zhangshu Village. So much for having a good time on vacation.

Throwing the baby out with the bath water

We should never complain about healthcare in Canada. This from the Shanghai Daily News. Seems in Guangdong Province some medical folks got themselves into a little hot water when they pronounced a premature baby dead and put it in a plastic bag in the washroom for attendants to take away with the trash. When the baby's uncle and aunt requested to see the body, they discovered the baby was alive. The baby was rushed to the neonatal care unit while the parents were videotaping everything (I wonder why???). Doctors report the baby is doing fine.

I don't mean to come down hard on China - the people and the country have accomplished so much in such a short time but you really wonder if maybe the folks here need to sit back, take a deep breath, and relax for an hour or two every day to enjoy life.