Blogs » Society » Shanghai now has a food safety map

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• Shanghai now has a food safety map
• Escape Shanghai: The Giggling Tree is the Perfect Place for a Yangshuo Adventure
• In China, It Can Be Dangerous Writing Even About A Fucking Hurdler
• Midweek Music Preview: Symphonies, Hardcore, Reggae!
• How Is This Dude Possibly Asleep?
• This is what Hong Kong's Repulse Bay looked like in 1932
• Official caught smiling at deadly bus crash scene enrages internet vigilantes
• Photo of the Day: Lightning
• Now We Know Bumper Cars Can Be Linked Together And Driven By Young Children
• Former Liaoning city party boss flees to the US
• ‘China File’: Asia Society Great New Aggregator–Bookmark It Quickly Or You May Never Find It Again
• Man (Almost Certainly) Fakes Blindness To Feel Up Random Women
• Watch What Happens When A Cement Truck’s Brakes Suddenly Fail At A Busy Intersection
• Home schooling illegal but on the rise in China
• Water-transfer projects "essential", says Chinese scientist
• Gao Xiaosong on America
• Disgruntled retired woman firebombs board meeting
• Man in attack of car carrying Japanese ambassador roundly condemned
• Rich Chinese investors now playing with... nuts
• Turtle in the Mud

Shanghai now has a food safety map Posted: 28 Aug 2012 08:02 PM PDT The endless monsoon of food scandals seems to have finally caught someone's attention. The city now has an online food safety map that allows people to see if local food producers are licensed or not. [ more › ]

Escape Shanghai: The Giggling Tree is the Perfect Place for a Yangshuo Adventure Posted: 28 Aug 2012 07:55 PM PDT Date: Aug 29th 2012 10:02a.m. Contributed by: lynette00

In China, It Can Be Dangerous Writing Even About A Fucking Hurdler Posted: 28 Aug 2012 07:53 PM PDT In the history of censorship in Chinese media, surely we've seen more half-baked decisions and upsetting punishments. But surely, as well, we've never seen so many journalists punished for such small beer. Spare me your sermon about Liu Xiang as the face of the country's athletics program and a national hero, etc.: I'm arguing against the mechanisms that have underpinned this very apotheosis of a talented — but not heroic — athlete. The man is a hurdler. He should be relevant like every other hurdler in the world, which is once every four years, maybe two. No disrespect to any hurdlers, of course — I'm merely saying that China's mythologizing of athletes is remarkably short-sighted and harebrained, as if athletes couldn't fail. More to the point, it's as if someone decided sports is the one arena where powers that be are free to whisk national pride with no fear of political reproach. Yet — and here comes the recoil — there are real-world, very political consequences, aren't there? Behold, as reported by South China Morning Post (from behind their stupid paywall): Five editors with the Nanjing-based Oriental Guardian have been suspended over the paper's critical coverage last week of the Liu Xiang injury cover-up, a rights group and local media sources said. Editor-in-chief Chen Chaohui, deputy editor Yu Jiechen and three other editors were temporarily removed from their posts, but their final punishment is still unclear, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democracy said yesterday. Oriental Guardian, of course, was the paper that dared to publicize the silliness around Liu Xiang's stumble at the London Olympics, including — as we noted, aghast — a state commentator dripping with tears and slobbering with sentimental bullshit. On Oriental Guardian's August 23 front page, the headline blared, "Liu Xiang knew, CCTV knew and leaders knew – only spectators waited foolishly to witness the moment of miracle." It was a direct challenge of state media, which is always dangerous, but we're talking about CCTV's sports department. Surely no one could be so thin-skinned as to take offense? To the extent that Liu Xiang's bow-out received the over-coverage it did, the fault lies squarely with CCTV for its endless hyping of this hurdler, for running his annoying commercials every hour, for deciding, in a conference room, that a mortal could be Hero, even in failure. Here's what Liu had to say about the incident amid accusations that he was hiding injury: "When I lost my balance at the first hurdle, I felt my foot was whipped by someone and then I fell," he recalled. "I didn't know what was going on and just felt a lot of pain. I was sitting on the ground in pain and felt totally blank." "When a stadium worker pushed out a wheelchair, I saw it and didn't want to sit in it," he added. "So I hopped to the finish line. When I passed the final hurdle, this thought just popped up in my mind and I wanted to kiss that hurdle." As if we didn't see it all. As if the question was, "How much pain did you feel?" as opposed to, "Why didn't anyone help you from the track, as if they expected your encore hop? Why did you attempt to race if your condition was so bad that you had to undergo surgery immediately afterwards? Who told you to race, and did you feel like you couldn't? Why didn't you warm up before the race? What do you think of a CCTV commentator crying? Who gave you those acting lessons?" And while we're at it, how do you feel — as someone put it so eloquently on NetEase — about co-starring with CCTV in a world-class farce? I understand iconoclasts in media are frowned upon here, but who knew a hurdler was an icon. There he is, behold. The mighty hurdler who, in eight years, hasn't cleared one Olympic hurdle. Let us worship him and say, He transcends sports. How great that is!

Midweek Music Preview: Symphonies, Hardcore, Reggae! Posted: 28 Aug 2012 06:00 PM PDT Midweek Music Preview is a rundown of all the events happening on stages across Shanghai. On the docket this week: Fans of rock music of the harder varieties get lucky with Saving Molly kicking off Wednesday night at Yuyintang! Friday night leaves you with a choice of gentle piano pieces or rough death metal riffs. On Saturday night we have popular Chinese indie rock band Re-TROS couple up with two other bands, and Mandopop superstar Sun Nan. Fusion Reggae combo Longshendao takes over MAO on Sunday night, and last but not least, famous NHK Symphony Orchestra plays Tchaikovsky onTuesday evening. And if that's still not enough, head over to our calendar for more. [ more › ]

How Is This Dude Possibly Asleep? Posted: 28 Aug 2012 05:00 PM PDT Gaming can be — nay, often is — tiring work. Luckily, the chairs inside Internet cafes are so ergonomic, one can practically sleep more or less on or against them. (H/T Alicia)

This is what Hong Kong's Repulse Bay looked like in 1932 Posted: 28 Aug 2012 04:00 PM PDT Repulse Bay, Hong Kong 80 years ago. Absolutely fascinating. [ more › ]

Official caught smiling at deadly bus crash scene enrages internet vigilantes Posted: 28 Aug 2012 12:56 PM PDT Photos of a government official beaming at his colleagues at the scene of a road accident, in which 36 people were burned to death, have been circulating on the Chinese social media sites. Netizens set human flesh search engine in motion and soon found that the official has expensive taste for luxury watches. A long-distance double decker sleeper bus rammed itself into the back of a tanker transporting highly flammable methanol near Yan'an, northwestern China's Shaanxi province on the early morning of August 26. Both vehicles were set ablaze by the collision, and 36 people were killed by the inferno. Only three from the fully-loaded 39-seat bus managed to escape. While the nation is still mourning over the terrible loss of their countrymen and reflecting upon the extremely dangerous road traffic conditions in China, a sharp-eyed netizen @JadeCong, spotted the highly inappropriate grin on a government official inspecting the accident scene in one photo by the official Xinhua News Agency. He cropped the picture to accentuate the faux pas and posted it onto Sina Weibo, the Chinese hybrid of Facebook and Twitter boasting more than 300 million users. He wittily commented on his post, "The official's emotions have stabilized." The post received about 6,700 shares and 1,600 comments. Original Xinhua photo. Link here. In addition to the grin, The official, fat with a potbelly, put his hands behind his back. The couldn't-care-less attitude demonstrated by his buffoonish image has infuriated netizens, who took out the most fearsome non-state-controlled artillery – human flesh search engine. The crowd-powered information gathering method is often used by Chinese netizens to bring justice to personae non gratae – by identifying them and publishing personal details they wish to hide from the public. Before long, the netizens discovered that the official is Yang Dacai, the chief of Shaanxi Provincial Safety Supervision Bureau. Human flesh search engine result: The man is Yang Dacai, the boss of Shaanxi's Safety Supervision Bureau! One net user who authored a post on KDNet, a popular discussion forum, wrote, "When ordinary people die in an accident, the masses do not really ask you to cover your face with tears. But in the face of our compatriots losing their precious lives, you should have the courtesy to at least to show some respect, right? This is the bottom line of being a human." Another Weibo user @死心补钙 wrote, " 'Well-fed officials, emaciated people. If officials are skinny, the people will be well-fed.' This was what we were taught by the teacher when we were still young…It still applies even though life gets better now. You can just tell at first glance that people with greasy hair and fat ears are just up to no good~" The online community capped their public shaming of Yang with an even heavier blow: pictures of Yang wearing five different luxury wristwatches on various occasions were dug out and passed around, with all of their brands verified by watch connoisseurs: Rolex, Omega, Vacheron Constantin, Omega and Rado. The most pricey one of all can cost anywhere between 200,000 to 400,000 yuan, depending on specific materials used. The total worth of the five timepieces is estimated to be at least 350,000 yuan, or US$55,000. One netizen portrays Yang in his cartoon, who flaunts five watches on one arm and poses happily with a V sign. The formal cash salaries of Chinese officials are made to look paltry, serving the authorities' purpose of portraying themselves as men of the people. But it is no secret that almost all Chinese officials fatten on ill-gotten gains, and the luxury watches are just telling evidence. In 2011, one netizen gained nationwide attention for his watch-spotting hobby. He publishes on Sina Weibo details of watches that senior Chinese officials wore on public occasions, including makes, models and market prices, and was lauded by netizens as well as some media for standing up to and laying bare corruption, which made Chinese authorities so restless over the unwanted attention on the regime's rampant problem that his Weibo account was later censored. Luxury watches can be the last straw that breaks a corrupt official's back. In 2008, Zhou Jiugeng, the director of Nanjing's property bureau, was brought down by public furor over extravagant lifestyle that doesn't add up for a public servant after eagle-eyed netizens highlighted a Vacheron Constantin watch worth over $14,000 on his wrist in one web photo of him. He was convicted of accepting bribes from contractors and other officials and sentenced 11 years in prison.

Photo of the Day: Lightning Posted: 28 Aug 2012 02:00 PM PDT Want to see your picture here? Share your photos with us on Flickr and Instagram using the tag #shanghaiist! [ more › ]

Now We Know Bumper Cars Can Be Linked Together And Driven By Young Children Posted: 28 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT I'm not even going to try to explain this one. In Linyi, Shandong province, a kid was photographed crossing the road in a pair of bumper cars somehow (and for some reason) linked together. The kid straddles the connector in the middle and can accelerate, turn, and brake. It's all cute and funny until he gets run over by a car, amiright? Also: how in the world is a child driving through an urban area in a bumper car unsupervised? Youku video for those in China after the jump. (H/T Alicia)

Former Liaoning city party boss flees to the US Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:48 AM PDT Chinese media are now reporting that the former party chief of Fengcheng city, Liaoning province has fled to the United States, while the government launched a corruption probe investigating allegations that have been made against him. [ more › ]

‘China File’: Asia Society Great New Aggregator–Bookmark It Quickly Or You May Never Find It Again Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:28 AM PDT Loyal CHINA Debate readers know that I have a love/hate relationship with the Asia Society webite–love the often tremendous, innovative content, especially the interview aggregator,  'China Boom' (here's my March post about it) and hate that so much of this is buried in the website's bowels, never to found by routine search. In fact, the best things I have found on that website (like 'China Boom'), I found by accident, while looking for something entirely different. And, so it is with 'China File.' In fairness, it's still in beta, so maybe a major roll out will occur in the Fall when it's fully ready. But, if true to form, miss the rollout, and you'll never find it again. For fun, try to find on the website now. Here's part of China File's mission: Every day the ChinaFile team sifts through coverage of China to highlight and translate pieces we feel are particularly insightful, well-reported, informative or otherwise worth reading. Jerry Cohen and Zhou Enlai, 1972 I'll leave it to you to find the articles that most interest you. And, there is really something for everyone. For example, I just read my hero, Jerry Cohen, writing about his first trip to China. China File's current partners are: Caixin, the Hong Kong Economic Journal, the environmental site Chinadialogue.net, and the bilingual arts and literature magazines, LEAP and Chutzpah. But, to me, the most valuable of its parters is the New York Review of Books. Sometime when I'm wistful, I demarcate my life from before the NYRB and after. Since 1963, the NYRB has produced some of the great pieces about China, and these now are in (or soon will be completely) China Files' China Archive: The New York Review of Books China Archive is a collaborative project of ChinaFile and The New York Review of Books. The archive is currently under construction. When complete, it will contain a full and easily searchable collection of China-related essays and reviews that The New York Review of Books has published since its founding in 1963.  To access these on the NYRB's website using search 'China' (which produces results greater than just the articles about China, hassle) requires either a print subscription (for five years into the archive) or a full archive subscription at $69.00 a year. With China Archive, you get all the articles about China (without have to sort through a muddled search list) for free. Have a look and be sure to bookmark China File. Otherwise, you may not be able to find it again.

Man (Almost Certainly) Fakes Blindness To Feel Up Random Women Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:00 AM PDT Here's a perv with a plan. A man in Chongqing was recently filmed terrorizing the upper thighs of random women, only escaping censure or slaps to the face because people think he's blind. A gentleman surnamed Lu, finding this "blind" guy's behavior very strange, pulled out his cell phone and recorded 17 minutes of footage — which is… let's call it unconventional (but this story only has room for one weirdo) — before turning it over to a journalist. The deviant is shown also tapping at women's legs with a stick. A lady dared to approach him in order to help, but Lu the cameraman — nice guy that he is — called her away. Sina has an extended version of this story via this video (start at 2:18 mark). The journalist began showing people this "blind" man's picture and asking questions. But just when we think some real journalism is being done, here's the lone interview we're given: Source (an old man with a heavily accented voice): "He picks up soft drink bottles, picks up cardboard." Journo: "Oh. Well, is he blind?" Source: "He may be a blind, or he may not be a blind." Journo: "He is or he isn't, what are you talking about?" Source: "He can pick up trash, how can be blind?" Journo: "So his eyes aren't blind?" Source: "His eyes can see." The witness says the blind man in question has been out there collecting trash for two years. We then learn, from a lawyer, that even the blind can be charged and fined for molesting women. If he were just pretending, the penalties would be greater. (Sources can be so helpful, can't they?)

Watch What Happens When A Cement Truck’s Brakes Suddenly Fail At A Busy Intersection Posted: 28 Aug 2012 07:44 AM PDT This just had to happen during rush hour, didn't it? Recently in Shijian Town, Nan'an City, Fujian province, a cement truck's brakes failed just as it was approaching a red light. It plowed through eight vehicles — three sedans, four motorbikes, and one wagon carrying seven people — before coming to a stop. Very fortunately, everyone involved only sustained minor injures. Remember, a road accident investigator recently said, "Lessons must be drawn from the accident so that such tragedies will not reoccur." Thing is, accidents will always occur. It's just a matter of luck, sometimes. Because what preventative measure does one take to avoid a runaway cement truck with faulty brakes? Youku video for those in China after the jump.

Home schooling illegal but on the rise in China Posted: 28 Aug 2012 06:47 AM PDT Home schooling is technically illegal in China, but parents here are turning to it in droves as a viable alternative to public schools. Some have even set aside lucrative careers to invest all their time into the education of their kids. [ more › ]

Water-transfer projects "essential", says Chinese scientist Posted: 28 Aug 2012 02:31 AM PDT Xia Jun tells chinadialogue that China must press ahead with "essential" water-transfer projects, but needs a less chaotic approach. Xia Jun is president of the International Water Resources Association and head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Water Resources Centre. He spoke to Xu Nan and Zhang Chun in the run-up to World Water Week in Stockholm.  See China's South-North water transfer is 'irrational' chinadialogue: Is it correct to say that China has plenty of water, but it's unevenly distributed? Xia Jun: Not necessarily plenty – we have a high global ranking on overall water resources, but on a per capita basis we're much weaker. China has a large population, and while the economy has being doing well in recent years compared with the rest of the world, there are still lots of deeper issues. China lies in the monsoon zone, and most of its precipitation comes during flood season – it is very unevenly distributed both geographically and over time. This leads to differences across regions, and you often have floods in the south while the north suffers drought. The north and north-east of China produce two-thirds of its grain, and those areas have huge plains and excellent light but lack water. The water and soil aren't in the right places. And in some sense climate change is worsening these problems. So China's water issues are quite complex, and there are significant pressures. cd: We've seen a lot of public debate over water transfer projects. What role and impacts do regional water transfers have? How should we evaluate all the projects getting under way? See "China's South-North water transfer is 'irrational'" XJ: Some of the national-level projects are extremely important for a developing nation. Unlike many European countries, China's rainfall is not equally distributed. China needs to figure out how to save the excess water of the flood season and use it in the dry season. In the recent droughts in the south-west, we saw just how lacking drinking water infrastructure is in some places. And even if the infrastructure catches up, there's still a need to be able to transfer water during a drought. So the ability to move water around is essential, to distribute the water more evenly. Of course you need to work in coordination, to balance the ecological impact. But you can't store and transfer water without dams and reservoirs, can you? Lessons have been learned since the US started building dams in the 1960s, and the ecological impact is better understood. The question now is making environmental improvements and shifting attention from construction to overall coordination, to gain benefits from unified management. cd: Hydropower development has taken off in China, particularly in the south-west. But there has been some controversy – for example the Three Gorges Dam has been successful in controlling floods downstream, but some claim it has exacerbated factors that cause drought, or even that it has redistributed tensions in the earth's crust. How should we view the ecological and hydrological effects of large dams? Xia: Do we want to go back to a primitive state of nature? Nobody does. As the old Chinese saying goes, you can't expect a horse to gallop but not to graze. The overall aim of economic development is the right one, but there's a need to minimise the ecological impact. We need more high and new technology, and extremely good planning. China's potential for hydropower development is among the highest in the world, and current exploitation rates are not high – much less than in the US, Russia or Brazil. But China has a problem with disorderly development. The power authorities are developing hydropower, while the water authorities are managing the river basins – there's a lack of coordination, a lack of a system to harmonise and link the two. That would allow hydropower development but prevent rivers drying up. That means a comprehensive management system, covering water usage as well as compensation mechanisms at the system-level, and overall management strategies. In the past, China habitually thought that construction was necessary for economic development, not that the construction projects could have both positive and negative impacts which needed to be balanced. Under China's system of management, if you're preventing floods, that's all you think about – there's not enough consideration of overall goals. This wasn't understood enough in the past, and led to management being divided across the ministries for water, agriculture, environmental protection, land and resources. There's an urgent need for reform, for unified consideration of water for cities and the economy, for the ecology, for agriculture. China urgently needs to study effective coordination mechanisms. cd: Are there examples China could learn from? XJ: Singapore. Their per-capita and urban water usage is falling, but GDP is still increasing. Traditional theory expects those figures to move in step, but Singapore has broken that pattern, mainly by increasing water efficiency and recycling, while maintaining good economic growth. But Singapore has a smaller population and is richer than China – it can afford desalination. Some of its methods can provide pointers and warnings for China, but we can't just copy it wholesale. We need our own methods. China is making improvements. Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen now have water bureaus, although management systems in other cities are still fragmented. There has also been good work on overall management of the Yellow River basin, where 80% to 90% of water can be controlled. For a time, water control was the only important thing for the basin, and water use was not properly managed, leading to 10 years of intermittent flow and water shortages at key industrial and economic locations downstream. Then management was improved, the health of the river was taken into account and allocation of water and regulation of both water and silt were considered – quite a large reform. In 2011, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission won the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize in Singapore. cd: What impacts have decades of industrialisation and urbanisation had on China's water resources? Xia: In 2004, the Ministry of Water Resources carried out a nationwide survey and evaluation of water resources. The results show that there was a significant change in the way water was used around 1980 – just when China started reform and opening up, and rapid industrialisation and urbanisation took off. There is still some potential for hydropower development. But river water is being overused. Generally, exploitation of a river's flows should be kept below 40%. When you get to 70%, that's a warning level. But already 80% to 90% of water in the Hai River is being used – assuming the same precipitation, surface flows are over 40% lower.  China's management of water resources used to be quite crude, especially in the cities. In the past, rain and floodwaters were dealt with together, and the old flood prevention standards are no longer appropriate for today's situations. In 2030, China's population will reach about 1.6 billion, and more water use will be inevitable. Pressure on water resources will continue in the long term, and increase. The overall management of water quantities, quality and the ecology are major challenges for any developing nation. China needs to make one top-down change: unifying water management and bringing in overall planning for resource usage, energy development and the environment, creating a rational management system for river basins that is both unified and responsive to climate change. There needs to be a lot of social participation built into the mechanisms, but the increase of social participation isn't always liner – ebbs and flows are normal. The Thames River of the 1960s was terribly polluted, and it took time for that to be recognised. China needs to learn those lessons and make fewer mistakes. You can't just grow the economy to a certain point and then start worrying about polluted water. Xu Nan is managing editor at chinadialogue's Beijing office and Zhang Chun is an intern.  Homepage image by NCCARF

Gao Xiaosong on America Posted: 28 Aug 2012 09:13 AM PDT Gao Xiaosong (高晓松)is a Chinese media personality known for his music, film work, and perhaps most influentially in his role as a judge on China's Got Talent (中国达人秀) and Super Girls (超级女声). Despite a drunk driving arrest that ended his position as judge on China's Got Talent 2 in May 2011, Gao remains popular. He's now the host of his own talk show on the Chinese video site Youku: Xiao Shuo (晓说). The weekly show features Gao commenting on subjects ranging from World Cup football to American health care reform in an episode recently discussed by the New Yorker's Evan Osnos. Gao, who has lived and traveled in the US, later published another episode on America, this time focused on racial dynamics and, perhaps surprisingly, geography. (Watch on Youku here: 第二十期:"看美国"系列之《美国人与物》) In the episode, he describes the US as a melting pot for immigrants the world over. According to Gao, the largest ethnic group in the US are WASPs, or White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Other racial and ethnic stereotypes are played equally fast and loose: Jews are good at art and doing business; ethnic Germans are innately warlike; Italians are mobsters. Gao offers up such statements with breezy assertions that the truth is self-evident: Jewish acumen in business and art is behind Hollywood's global influence and military men from Pershing to Eisenhower were ethically German. When discussing Italians, a clip from the Godfather plays in the background. Gao's comments and the degree to which they are or are not racist in the Chinese context is a tricky topic. In China, the use of ethnic stereotypes is perhaps as common as it was in mainstream American society in the 1950s, and it is often not intended to be malicious. The overwhelming majority of Chinese people have had no face to face contact, and they tend to be taught about foreigners in the same way former generations of Americans and British were taught about eskimos. So Gao's comments can sound a little rough translated directly into English. (Listen to this Sinica podcast discussion of racism in China for more on the context of Chinese stereotyping of different types of foreigners). But what is clear is that Gao is proponent of America's openness to immigration; he says, that US is only second to Singapore in terms of its welcoming nature and lack of discrimination against Chinese people. Gao also talks about American geography, particularly its importance to the question of the China-America rivalry. He has a pilgrim's perspective on America: the soil is fertile, the land flat and water resources are abundant. China, on the other hand, become mountainous past the eastern seaboard and stays that way until the deserts of Xinjiang. His travels in the US also lead to unpredictable conclusions: The I-95, an interstate highway running through busy East Coast cities, is declared a beautiful drive, while Yosemite National Park is nothing but barren hills. Here are some notable quotes translated from the episode of Gao's show described above: Gao Xiaosong on America – a selection of quotes "Of course, ethnically English people, or WASPs as they're known, are America's largest ethnicity. WASP refers to white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Now what do WASPs do? WASPs established and maintain America's mainstream values, its fundamental value system even today. When we're talking about American spirit, the American dream, American mainstream values, we're talking about these people. All American presidents have all been WASPs, though more recently things have started to change. As a black guy, Obama clearly doesn't count; the first letter is WASP, after all, is a "W" for "White"! Before Obama, the only non-WASP to get elected was John Kennedy, an Irish Catholic. And although Obama's skin is black, his campaign platform and the personal and cultural attitudes he's shared are WASP attitudes. That's why Americans voted for him. What else are Jewish people good at [other than business]? Music! At one point more than half of the world's violinists and pianists were Jews. So, Jewish people are adept in music and business, which is why Hollywood could only happen in America. In other places people are either good at business or good at art; England, France, China are all like this. But only Jews love doing business and creating art and the result is Hollywood. It's their place. When I was hanging out in Hollywood, we never said "cheers", only "mazeltov." The vast majority of people in American high-tech, from Silicon Valley to NASA, are Chinese engineers. Chinese IQs are about even with Jewish people; together they're the two smartest ethnicities in the US. It's just that they have different interests. Smart Jewish guys are doing business, whereas smart Chinese guys are doing research. One time I heard someone say about Silicon Valley that "our most important product isn't a PC but IC." "IC" means Indian and Chinese. In Silicon Valley, if you're not Indian you're Chinese. I think the reason America attracts so much immigration is because god must have given them the world's best land. There are plenty of reasons why China doesn't attract much immigration, but one reason for sure is that there's just no room. Once I drove from Key West, the southernmost point in the US, to the Canadian border… and the whole ride up there were forests along the road. I drove along I-95 [major north-south highway along the US east coast] and it was forests all the way, really beautiful. As everyone knows, the main river in the US is the Mississippi, which is really similar to the Yangtze. America has a ton in common with China. In this case, though, the quality of the rivers is different. Their lengths are about the same, but the Mississippi moves about 10 times more freight than the Yangtze. The US has almost everything [in terms of natural resources], which is why kinds of extreme conservatism like isolationism frequently crop up. The thinking is, "What do we need from anyone else? Why should we get involved with anyone else? If there's a war somewhere, it won't affect us; that's their problem. We've got everything we need right here." So the US has seen different waves of this kind of isolationist thinking, during both the First and Second World War. Because there aren't places in the US clearly better than others [in terms of natural resources], the population concentrated in any one direction. Whereas in China, everybody is in the southeast along the ocean because everything is there: flat land, the ocean nearby, good transportation, etc. So the population has exploded in the southeast and so has industry, business, education etc. But the consistency of land across the US means there's no particular direction that people will head. The US is probably the only country in the world like this. So how to beat the US? Alright, well tech people are running to the US, performers are running to the US, even politicians can immigrate. The governor of California was an immigrant from Austria! Of course there are plenty of reasons why America attracts lots of immigration, but at the end of the day the main reason is their system. You know, freedom, equality, opportunity, no discrimination. If you're Chinese, you know that of anywhere in the world, other than Singapore, you get the least discrimination in the US. If you go to other countries Chinese people are seriously discriminated against. If you go to Europe, well yeah, France is beautiful, Paris and the Left Bank are nice, but you won't be accepted in society, people will always say, "you're not French." In the US it doesn't matter what you look like, everybody will think you're an American. If you look like me everyone thinks you're American. Whether you're black, white, red, you've got a feather in your hair, doesn't matter. Now of course plenty of people will curse at me, say I worship the US or something like that. America has lots of problems, the main thing I'm going to talk about are those problems, but I just wanted to touch on a few positives first. Links and sources The New Yorker: So let me explain how American health care works Youku: 晓说, 第二十期:"看美国"系列之《美国人与物》

Disgruntled retired woman firebombs board meeting Posted: 28 Aug 2012 05:10 AM PDT by Barry van Wyk on August 28, 2012 The front page of the Jinan Times (济南晚报) in Shandong today carries the gruesome tale of an attack by a retired but disgruntled former employee on a board meeting at a water supply company in Shaoyang (邵阳市) in Hunan province. Just after 10 am yesterday morning, when the company's Party leadership committee was having a meeting on the sixth floor of a company building, a retired former female employee of the company, Shi Mou (石某), suddenly burst into the room and started spilling gasoline all over the room and igniting it. In the ensuing fire, three people were burnt to death and four were injured. Among the killed and injured were the company manager, the company Party secretary and deputy secretary, and the deputy manager of operations. The suspect herself tried to commit suicide – not by burning like her victims, but by jumping from the sixth floor of the building. Her suicide attempt failed, however, and she is reportedly currently receiving treatment in hospital under police custody (although according to a Weibo post she may already have died in hospital). So why did this woman decide to commit this heinous act? At this point there is no definite answer. There is some speculation that her anger may have had something to do with the company only offering one of her two kids a job, but there is clearly much more to this story. A few other interesting front pages from around China today: Beijing Morning Post Jingling Evening News The front page of the Beijing Morning Post (北京娱乐信报) reports on a new government proposal to halt the practice of tourism companies forcing tour groups to go to pre-determined shopping locations. Tour guides who keep doing this could be fined as much as 30 thousand yuan. While the front page of the Jingling Evening News (金陵晚报）reports that the average waist measurement of Chinese men have grown by 12 millimetres in the last 30 years. Links and sources Jinan Times (戾气何来) Beijing Morning Post (强迫购物旅行社将被停业) Jingling Evening News (中国男人的腰围 30年粗了12厘米)

Man in attack of car carrying Japanese ambassador roundly condemned Posted: 28 Aug 2012 02:35 AM PDT The man who ripped off the Japanese flag from a car carrying the Japanese ambassador to China, Uichiro Niwa, has been condemned both in Japan and China. [ more › ]

Rich Chinese investors now playing with... nuts Posted: 28 Aug 2012 01:35 AM PDT With few investment options because of limits on property purchases and problems in the stock market, the Chinese are putting their money in some pretty odd places -- like walnuts. [Reuters] [ more › ]

Turtle in the Mud Posted: 26 Aug 2012 06:00 PM PDT It turns out that our first mistake doing business in China was giving our hosts a gift of dessicated turtle bones wrapped in bamboo and silk. They were polite enough to accept our offering and one of the younger staffers even commented on how well preserved the carapace seemed to be, but we never did get that contract, and they stopped replying to our emails. Chalk it up to cultural differences. This is an advanced show,and it's a bit different from anything we've done to date. While we have a reading here that teaches some of the basics in parsing classical Chinese, our focus is more than just providing a resource for those interested in reading classical Chinese, since we also have the chance to highlight some of the debates that real Chinese people continue to have about traditional Chinese philosophy, and Zhuang Zi in particular. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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