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.