Chinese Box

Irony of the Day

Just got an email advertising that the UN World Tourism Oranization is holding a "high level dialogue" on tourism and biodiversity in Guangzhou.

Guangzhou people are of course famous for "eating anything with four legs except furniture" "eating anything that flies except airplanes" and "eating anything that swims except a submarine." But I see no way they are going to bring that up to their gracious Chinese hosts.

I really hope shark fin soup is on the menu.... except not really because that would be horrible.

Department of WTF

Going through a bunch of Chinese news right now using google translate. I just noticed that "Xinhua" is translated as "Reuters." That seems like a recipe for trouble.

Sort-of fact of the day: Foreigners not wanted in Shanghai

I haven't had time to go through the news on this, but rumors about the extent of the "crackdown" in Shanghai (broadest possible use of that term) are getting a bit crazy. Supposedly all foreigners need to show their passport before they get on the subway, I would assume with 90% of the countries in the world on their way there that such a plan would stop all subway traffic, but what do I know.

Here's a good rundown of the real news (as opposed to the crazy hearsay that I'm printing). A google search for "shanghai" and "crackdown" pops up some interesting things.

Coming up next: An orgy!

I'm too sleepy to write this now with the research that goes around it, but I feel like I'll get a lot of hits if I mention that tomorrow I plan on blogging about the hubbub surrounding the Chinese orgy law. Some of the "discussions" are getting weird.

Sort-of Fact of the Day: Fakes day!

Someone just told me that March 15th is fakes day in China. Or 打假日. On this one day of the year, every report you take to the police of a store that sold you something fake claiming it is real, they will follow up on, and register in their list of complaints.

I assume on the other days they laugh at you and send you on your merry way.

Interesting sort-of fact of the day

According to a seemingly trustworthy building manager in the building I just moved into (more about that later) you shouldn't trust any housing agency whose name begins with the character 中. I'm not sure whether the similarity of names is coincidental or an attribute of eternal truth, but from my experience its proved pretty right on.

Interesting sort-of fact of the day

Follow-up from my recent comment on the alcohol market.

I was at dinner with a consultant yesterday, who said that if you look at government expenditure in the yearbook, far and away the largest category is "other."

Chinese medicine is my arch-nemesis

I come from a medical family, so whenever I hear people talking psuedo-medicine it kind of drives me insane. China is unfortunately filled with psuedo-medicine, because of the very very very common belief that slight fluctuations in body temperature can massively change the inner workings of your body - the most crazy thing I've ever heard was that cold feet can give you diarrhea.

Here is a conversation I had today with a Chinese friend, which is so wrong in so many ways:

Her: When we have a fever we usually just go to the hospital for an infusion.

Me: What?!

Her: Yea, its just two hours and it cures your fever

Me: What?!, no the Chinese haven't cured the common cold.

Her: Not cold, fever. But when flu season starts you see the hospitals are filled with people waiting for an infusion

Me: What?! How could you possibly think that works?

Her: Its because you're red blood cells and your white blood cells are fighting, and you get a fever because one has the upper hand, and you need the infusion to even them out.

Me: What?!

Her: Well what do you do?

Me: Water and bed rest!

Her: Yea, we Chinese don't have time for that.

Bizarre things heard around Wenzhou

I'm in Wenzhou, which is a very bizarre town. I just want to throw out some of the quotes I've picked up so far.

Yea, my friends are constantly buying houses

A really easy way to make money is to borrow from banks and then lend to illegal banks

No one would buy a good that said made in Wenzhou, we write 'made in Shenzhen' on all of our products

All Shanxi coal barons were from Wenzhou

Yea, the government doesn't care about us, which is why we've been so successful

We mostly produce for Chinese brands

It's easy to get lost in Wenzhou because the streets were all built by private businessmen

The government built a new train station to employ migrant workers during the financial crisis

Chinese people don't buy Chinese cars, only Africans and middle-easterners.

And to top it all off, someone working at the hotel I'm staying at just knocked on my door and handed me a carton of milk. Downright bizarre.

Shaolin investments

Our upcoming magazine features a quote from the head of the Shaolin temple, declaring that he is not interested in listing the temple on the domestic stock exchange.

There are limits to everything isn't there.