tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91941081602371928622024-03-22T01:10:08.539+00:00Liam D'Arcy-Brown's ChinaCommentary & Thoughts from a Middle-Aged China Hand
林傑的博客Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-8365946750900062512011-12-01T18:52:00.000+00:002011-12-01T18:52:43.923+00:00Earthquakes and toads...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>316</o:Words> <o:Characters>1807</o:Characters> <o:Company>University of Warwick</o:Company> <o:Lines>15</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>4</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>2119</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>14.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s been a few months since I last posted – been busy doing talks on the Grand Canal of China and polishing off the manuscript to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chusan: the forgotten story of Britannia’s first Chinese island</i>. Still, no excuse, but when I was lying in bed listening to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Today Programme</i> on Radio 4 this morning and heard an item about some scientific research about toads and earthquakes it rang a bell in the Ancient China gland of my brain (a little to the left/east of my cingulate cortex, if you’re interested).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihml8KKjlcD06miDwkJbETpf3SblDGKftGua8Rr2XBdzBEECl7rdXS8Z5OBwklxsHvAB7gknGv06Lhf2vGiVXIMEIOstbb7e_OzzoI64CYBS2DN-5hNf91dyO1N_yCa9BHIqnPARchcAN/s1600/jijie0022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihml8KKjlcD06miDwkJbETpf3SblDGKftGua8Rr2XBdzBEECl7rdXS8Z5OBwklxsHvAB7gknGv06Lhf2vGiVXIMEIOstbb7e_OzzoI64CYBS2DN-5hNf91dyO1N_yCa9BHIqnPARchcAN/s200/jijie0022.jpg" width="199" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zhang Heng's seismometer from 132AD - put that in your pipe and smoke it, The West!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Apparently researchers have found evidence of a mechanism to explain the phenomenon whereby toads flee their watery homes before an earthquake: charged particles created by rocks under tension are concentrated in surface water near the epicentre (or something), and the toads clearly find the extra charge unpleasant. I imagine it’s rather like the icky feeling you get when you lick the terminals of a PP3 battery, but over your entire body.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">To get to the point, the Ancient Chinese, as with most things (electric toothbrushes and fragrance-changing air-fresheners aside) had noticed the link between toads and earthquakes and had used it in their scientific endeavours while we were still living in trees (or under the Romans to be precise).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">In 132AD, so the biographies of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Book of the Eastern Han Dynasty</i> record, the astronomer Zhang Heng invented a seismometer which could tell when an earthquake had occurred, and in which direction from the capital. It worked by means of a vertical rod which was displaced by the transverse waves from the quake, and which triggered a ball to be dislodged from one of eight dragons’ mouths. The ball then fell noisily into a receptacle below, the interesting bit being that the receptacle was of bronze cast in the shape of a toad. “When the mechanism was set off, a ball was spat out, and a toad caught it in its mouth”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;"> (</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: 宋体;">机发吐丸而蟾蜍衔之 </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: large;">in the original classical Chinese if you’re interested). I can’t see this choice of animal being a coincidence – the Chinese were eminent nature-watchers and must have observed the flight of toads before earthquakes. Hurrah for Zhang Heng.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-48443109623990645422011-08-02T17:29:00.000+01:002011-08-02T17:29:01.990+01:00Romantic Cowherds, Goddesses and Giant Pythons...<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The centuries-old Chinese festival of </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Qixi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">七夕</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> will this year be celebrated on Saturday, August 6th.</span></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbV2K5pATjrPjy6Or1upoJwjGbuZScZZoZa4BM1OJKQE5WVLjTVhsXS7C44mmPWCm4F8GLICCCpq5PXrG-b4lB02AtLuvxnJFMXg8j7qNpjUd71ge4Bdkvjuy1VN5n0-5TGgAuVXaXNxc/s1600/jumangchushan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbV2K5pATjrPjy6Or1upoJwjGbuZScZZoZa4BM1OJKQE5WVLjTVhsXS7C44mmPWCm4F8GLICCCpq5PXrG-b4lB02AtLuvxnJFMXg8j7qNpjUd71ge4Bdkvjuy1VN5n0-5TGgAuVXaXNxc/s200/jumangchushan.jpg" width="167" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Giant Python Emerges from the Mountains - yes, it <i>does</i> look a bit like a winkie...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Qixi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> literally means “the evening of the sevens”, and refers to the date in the traditional lunar calendar on which it falls - the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. There are various stories about the origins of the festival found across East Asia, but most of them are based on the legend of Niulang the Oxherd and the Weaver Girl.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">To cut a long story short, the mortal Niulang falls in love with Zhinü, the daughter of the Goddess of Heaven, who otherwise spends her days at the loom, and they marry. When the Goddess of Heaven finds out that her daughter’s been dating a human behind her back, and has even jumped the broomstick with him (she was, it seems, preggers), she grounds Zhinü, which involves making her sit at her loom weaving clouds for eternity. Bummer. Meanwhile, Niulang’s ox tells him to slaughter it and ride up to heaven wrapped in its hide, which Niulang duly does. This is proving to be a pretty weird trip for Niulang so far. The Goddess of Heaven, finding that Niulang has come to look for her daughter, sets the Milky Way across the sky to divide them once and for all, Niulang forever on one side and Zhinü on the other. Niulang and Zhinü - the stars Altair and Vega to be precise - are fated to be apart for eternity, but all the Earth’s magpies (which in Chinese symbolism are ideals of marital bliss) once a year fly up to heaven to form a bridge across the Milky Way which the two lovers cross to be together for the night. August 6th is that night. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Assuming the story’s true, then round about midnight Beijing time (5pm BST) you should see all Britain’s magpies flying off to do their bit. Where was I? Oh yes, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Qixi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> festival. The authorities whose job it is to publicize the Sanqing Mountains in Jiangxi province are, as usual, tempting lovers all across China to visit them (they’re an official scenic area, and really are beautiful) to soak up the atmos and to do luvvy-duvvy things.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Sanqing Mountains are associated with romance through the legend of the goddess Sichun and the mortal she fell in love with while bunking off from heaven, which was dullsville, to take a look at the human realm. To cut a longer story even shorter, Sichun ends up as a rock in the shape of a woman, and her lover ends up as a rock called Giant Python Emerges from the Mountains. They’re forever separated by a valley, and now romantic Chinese lovers travel to the Sanqing Mountains equipped with locks with their names engraved upon them, which they solemnly shackle to the handrails in the hope that they’ll never be parted.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So there you have it.</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-45811148886051608992011-07-08T15:11:00.001+01:002011-07-08T15:19:03.908+01:00Don't be Fooled by Fake Donkey-Hide Gelatin, You Idiot!<div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The most culturally bewildering story on the Xinhua News Agency wires today is titled “Handy hints: Three steps to telling real donkey-hide gelatin from fake”. I had to investigate...</span></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnSHeczZhvPTNbE2HrzuPoaVyswMjqdPhfSnuVZthrf1G4MkwYkI54MHUXGh4dGAjUw9LwBexxDcN0nQSu7MdOC5V7YnYNzGVf0HIWJWbv00Z2t30irarrBttO4xsdqMbbadbgSqubSdP/s1600/ejiao.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnSHeczZhvPTNbE2HrzuPoaVyswMjqdPhfSnuVZthrf1G4MkwYkI54MHUXGh4dGAjUw9LwBexxDcN0nQSu7MdOC5V7YnYNzGVf0HIWJWbv00Z2t30irarrBttO4xsdqMbbadbgSqubSdP/s320/ejiao.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"She gets the blokes, because she drinks donkey-hide gelatin"</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In traditional Chinese medicine, donkey-hide gelatin or </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao </span></span></i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">阿胶</span></span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> is used to improve your blood supply, especially if you’re a lady. It’s often eaten with almonds and sesame seeds, presumably to disguise the fact that it’s basically the rendered-down hide from dead donkeys.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The world of traditional remedies, though, is being upset by the practices of unscrupulous practitioners who are selling </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> that’s in fact been made from the skins of horses, mules and even pigs (which, let’s face it, can</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">’t even pass as</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> donkeys). This fake </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, apparently, affords no health benefits (no shit!) and can even be bad for you. </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> consumers are being advised to follow three simple steps to see if they’re getting Eeyore (good) or Shergar (bad). Whenever you buy donkey-hide gelatin, always remember the Donkey-Hide Gelatin Code: See, Snap, Sniff.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Real </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> is a tan colour, smooth and lustrous, with semi-translucent borders; the fake crap is often much darker, matt, and sometimes pitted. Real </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> is also very brittle, and if you snap a piece off it doesn’t bend; the fake stuff is flexible, its broken faces sticky. As for smell, gen-yoo-ine </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> has a faint whiff of soybean oil and a slightly sweet taste; fake </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> apparently stinks of rotten fish.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">If you don’t want to use the Donkey-Hide Gelatin Code (a name which, to be fair, I just came up with), or can’t remember it when it comes to the crunch, you can always try crushing up the <i>ejiao</i> and pouring boiling water on it (the article doesn’t advise as to what to do when the shopkeeper objects). Real </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> melts into a clear liquid, while fake </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ejiao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> goes murky. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Donkey-hide gelatin is contraindicated for people with coughs and colds or diarrhea. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-50504174773738652602011-07-06T22:45:00.000+01:002011-07-06T22:45:55.132+01:00China's Most Romantic Summer Getaways...<div style="font: 13.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 13.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 1.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">With China in the grip of heatwaves and torrential rains, the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yangtze Evening News</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> has published a not particularly timely guide to what it thinks are China’s top six romantic places, summer holiday destinations where tourists without the sufficient </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">kuai</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> to fly to Vegas might meet Mr or Mrs Right. </span></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4oB_W6ULpv4CxI4LNkERJW36yvvmPHnGQalzT9qU27TMUKEZzUnjMMSlk3J2Bydz3-dwz0ygUyab3md0eHBGAXCbVNYzxGhwegTvBEPeGc9rJ6vPH3fUXNzH0HrHX5gpf238mmFILo4h/s1600/qixianling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4oB_W6ULpv4CxI4LNkERJW36yvvmPHnGQalzT9qU27TMUKEZzUnjMMSlk3J2Bydz3-dwz0ygUyab3md0eHBGAXCbVNYzxGhwegTvBEPeGc9rJ6vPH3fUXNzH0HrHX5gpf238mmFILo4h/s320/qixianling.jpg" width="273" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Copping off at the Seven Immortals Mountains</td></tr>
</tbody></table><ul><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Wuyi Mountains</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Sitting on the border of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, 1,000 km² of eroded volcanic cones and sandstone peaks are carpeted in subtropical forest and cool groves of bamboo. The best way, they say, to appreciate the cool is to climb as high as you dare on the narrow mountain paths, offering plenty of opportunities for singletons (“bare branches”, as they’re called in Chinese) to give each other a helping hand. A raft trip down the famous Nine Bend River is the best way to see the scenery, though I fear that being squished in beside a chain-smoking middle-manager from Shanghai who constantly bellows into his mobile phone would be a sufficient turn-off for any would-be Casanovas. The </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yangtze Evening News</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> is kind enough to recommend local delicacies for tourists searching for a soulmate in Wuyi Shan: snakes, wild rabbit, mountain goat and muntjac deer lead the way, along with freshwater fish, birds’ eggs, fragrant mushrooms and bamboo shoots also popular.</span></span></li>
</ul><ul><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The bamboo forests of Sichuan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. At 600-1,000m elevation, the bamboo forests of Changning and Jiang’an counties are blissfully cool and also the place where some of the fight scenes in </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> were filmed. For the romantically inclined botanist, there are 58 varieties of bamboo to lose yourself in with that girl off the coach who’s been giving you the eye, from the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">nan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> bamboo which can grow up to 20m tall in two months, to the jet-black “crow bamboo”, the dead-straight “chicken-claw bamboo” and the slightly creepy, gnarled “human-face bamboo”. Delicacies: Yibin sliced lung, Chungking hotpot, poached fish, and “hairy duck’s blood luxuriance”. The duck’s blood dish is a spicy Sichuanese street snack, with beansprouts, eel, pork, sausage, bamboo shoots and all kinds of yummies, while the “Yibin sliced lung” is made from ox cheek, ox heart, ox tongue, ox tripe and lean beef, but not lung, oddly enough.</span></span></li>
</ul><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yinchuan, Ningxia Autonomous Region</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Bit of an odd choice, to go to the deserts of the Ordos region in the great bend of the Yellow River to escape the summer heat on a romantic break, but most savvy Chinese will recognise this as the place where the romantic comedy </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A Chinese Odyssey</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> was set (Westerners might recognise the set of the 1987 Chinese film </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Red Sorghum</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">). Yinchuan, guys, is where you can meet your very own Violet Cloud Immortal. The other big romantic attraction in this, the capital of a region populated mostly by China’s native Hui Muslims, is an oasis called Sand Lake, where you can see the “Big Five”, i.e. sand, water, reeds, birds and fish. Delicacies: lamb pilau rice (a big thing in this Muslim region), red-braised camel’s hump, white-poached Yellow River catfish.</span></span></li>
</ul><ul><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yellow Island, Qingdao</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. It gets into the 30s in Qingdao in summer, but the sea breezes keep the city cool, especially after sunset. For young singletons looking for love, the Yellow Island district across Jiaozhou Bay from the city is the place to be. The sandy beaches are less visited than Qingdao’s, and bigger - for example the 3km Golden Sands Beach - and perfect for romantic walks. Then there’s Pearl Mountain National Forest Park with its clean air, a rarity in eastern China. Delicacies: the beachside stalls do all manner of barbies, fresh seafood, and local fish dumplings.</span></span></li>
</ul><ul><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Seven Immortals Mountains, Hainan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Two hours’ drive from Sanya, the forests and warm mineral springs of the Seven Immortals Mountains are in the cool uplands of China’s tropical Hainan Island. They’re supposedly the spot where seven immortal goddesses descended to earth to have a bathe, a point not missed by the organisers of the recent Miss World pageant in Sanya. Delicacies: they don’t list any. Spit-roasted immortal, anyone?</span></span></li>
</ul><ul><li><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Wolmi-do, South Korea</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. The reporter clearly misunderstood the meaning of “domestic” when he chose a seaside resort in the Korean city of Incheon. Knowing nothing of Korean culture beyond their love of chillies, cabbage, the occasional spot of dog, and their enviably fast broadband access, I’m going to call it a day.... Delicacies: see above. </span></span></li>
</ul><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"></ol><div style="font: 13.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 1.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 1.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-14656584781966654412011-07-04T13:30:00.002+01:002011-07-04T18:03:06.805+01:00China's Top Ten Foods for Thirty-Something Women<div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The China Food Science & Technology Net has just posted its <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/travel/2011-07/04/c_121618106.htm">top ten</a> list of foods for women in their thirties.</span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVTTrni0zsbpSn50lWJp95tAzTKdnQnK19AKVQVEZkLCLXY-VaZ4THA0dm3C4pTUutObYl90sDltY7gTSCLnBO28_f5eie8_wt_ya1s7vot3es_klAQzSdGLozOGfeWmgIQT-vFrRB8rTG/s1600/zhuxue.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVTTrni0zsbpSn50lWJp95tAzTKdnQnK19AKVQVEZkLCLXY-VaZ4THA0dm3C4pTUutObYl90sDltY7gTSCLnBO28_f5eie8_wt_ya1s7vot3es_klAQzSdGLozOGfeWmgIQT-vFrRB8rTG/s320/zhuxue.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pig blood - recommended for anaemic female bus drivers</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Just as in the British media, there’s no shortage in China of articles telling women how to stay looking young and beautiful by choosing the right foods. A big difference, though, is the kinds of food that health experts recommend, and the reasoning behind those choices, which says a lot about how food fits within Chinese culture. </span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Here’s the list in full, with edited highlights of the justifications for each choice.</span></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Honey</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. This moistens the lungs and promotes healthy bowel movements, is an antiseptic, and good for the complexion. Drink a cup of honey-water each morning on an empty stomach to cleanse your system and make you beautiful.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Carrot</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. The Chinese call the orange carrot the ‘barbarian radish’, as it was unknown in China until introduced from Europe. It’s prized for its ability to attach itself to lead and mercury ions in the bloodstream, and is recommended for women who suffer from skin blemishes caused by using cosmetics with too much heavy metal content. This says as much about the danger of using Chinese cosmetics as it does about the properties of the humble carrot.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Seaweed</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Rich in iodine to expel unwanted substances from the blood, and sulphate polysaccharides to rid the body of cholesterol.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Tree fungus</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. These “wood ears”, a kind of crinkly, black mushroom, contain highly absorbent plant colloids which soak up dirt and debris in the gut and excrete them. They’re said to be very good for women who work in environments with lots of air-borne dust pollutants. Legislation might have put an end to this in the UK, but there are millions of women in China who work in very dirty, unregulated industries where this is a real concern to them.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Bitter gourd</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Very good for the complexion. These very knobbly, very bitter-tasting cucumbers are believed to contain proteins with anti-cancer properties, which boost the immune system and rid the body of dangerous toxins. They also help regulate and ease menstruation, which mean they well deserve their place on the list.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Lychees</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. The ideal food for relieving internal heat and stopping diarrhoea, lychees are also good for detoxifying the blood and improving the complexion. They nourish the kidneys, improve liver function, and keep skin supple. Women, the article notes, often suffer from rough, dry skin caused by weak kidneys that result from too many late nights.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Pig blood</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Think of it as black pudding without the added fat and rusk. The Chinese eat this in soups and rice porridge as solidified cubes with the consistency of an opaque, pale-brown jelly. It’s actually quite tasteless, and personally I can take it or leave it. Women, though, will definitely benefit from its high iron levels. It also gets broken down, apparently, by human stomach acids into byproducts which detoxify and cleanse the gut and help the body to excrete metals and debris. Like tree fungus, pig blood is recommended for women who’re exposed to lots of pollutants at work, for example drivers who spend their day breathing in China’s appalling traffic fumes. </span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mung beans</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. These detoxify the blood and promote the metabolism. Many women these days eat too many fatty, fried foods, which can give them itchy, blotchy and spotty skin. Mung beans are good at counteracting this, and also lower cholesterol, strengthen the liver, and dampen the allergic response. Try mung beans with honey for a detox beauty treatment.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Tea</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. No surprise that the Chinese recommend their national drink for female health! It’s good for alertness and bright eyes, and is refreshing and thirst-quenching. Tea polyphenols are natural antioxidants which detoxify the body.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cucumber</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. A bit of a left-field choice, these are said to contain what I can only translate as “cucumber acids”, which are said to be good for metabolism. They have high vitamin C levels, which give women a beautiful, white complexion and elastic skin, and which inhibit melanin production (in the Far East in general, a tan is a sign of being a peasant, while pale skin is an indicator of leisure and wealth). Cucumber acids are also claimed to inhibit the metabolism of sugars into fats, to keep you slim.</span></span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Bon appetit! </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Qing manyong!</span></i></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><br />
</i></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-58804306665465876262011-07-01T12:40:00.001+01:002011-07-01T12:41:01.740+01:00CNN blunders over Chinese eggs<div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">An <a href="http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/eat/ireport-most-disgusting-foods-world-053021">ill-conceived list</a> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">compiled by CNN </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">of the world’s most “revolting” foods has led to an outpouring of bile across China.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRp1d76Vj7_McwQuGGhsWOOOJ8ouoVqTTU9XS12BRTUl9IFMVdAzjyWCnvwa4chGlasoIoWKVK0qLjxXeryUlMXVAJwT1E-1J1hcWLeHiBD-M4QpcFMEZY2sBGleBotHO2pWvkJP8Rxkb6/s1600/pidan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRp1d76Vj7_McwQuGGhsWOOOJ8ouoVqTTU9XS12BRTUl9IFMVdAzjyWCnvwa4chGlasoIoWKVK0qLjxXeryUlMXVAJwT1E-1J1hcWLeHiBD-M4QpcFMEZY2sBGleBotHO2pWvkJP8Rxkb6/s200/pidan.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>pidan</i> - they taste better than they look</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The list contains delicacies (which, oddly, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">all</span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> hail from the Far East) such as dog meat and cicadas, most of which the various CCN reporters actually thought were quite tasty, but the controversy surrounds the short piece which the hapless Danny Holwerda put together on “century eggs”.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span>For those whose knowledge of Chinese food doesn’t yet extend beyond Blue Dragon sauces or the Lucky Fortune Chop Suey House on the corner, “century eggs” (also known as “thousand-year eggs”, or </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">pidan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">皮蛋</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> in Mandarin) are eggs that have been steeped in an alkaline solution until their proteins and fats are completely transformed. The albumen turns into a translucent, firm, brown jelly while the yolk turns into a grey-green creamy goo. If you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt, they have a very complex flavour with a tang of ammonia, salty, with a rich creaminess that’s used in Chinese cuisine to add depth to otherwise plain dishes; if you’re being Danny Holwerda, though, they taste “like the devil cooked eggs for me.” </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This has unsurprisingly led to little short of an internet hate campaign against CNN’s list and particularly poor Danny, who seems (I can only assume) to have eaten his </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">pidan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> as a Westerner would, taking a spoon, an eggcup, and a good old mouthful. This, though, is like offering someone a glass of Worcestershire sauce or a tablespoonful of Colman’s English mustard - </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">pidan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> are more a condiment than a snack, and aren’t generally eaten by themselves (though the Cantonese and the Taiwanese do really dig them). Instead, they’re usually chopped up into small bits and stirred into plain rice porridge, or piled up on soft but quite tasteless tofu, or else you might dip the end of your chopsticks into the yolky goo and then use them to scoop a mound of rice into your mouth.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I feel rather sorry for Danny Holwerda - a quick background check on him doesn’t bring to light any particular experience of China, and he probably thought that his editor was looking for the kind of light-hearted, hundred-word piece that makes a couple of cheap points at the expense of what to most Americans is an alien and bizarre cuisine. But while the other reporters were either locals or travellers who’d actually visited the countries in question, Danny apparently bought his eggs in an Asian supermarket in Texas and seems to have had no real clue what to do with them. His editor was then naive enough to include his short report nevertheless, even putting it at Number One on the list. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">China’s Xinhua News Agency has been reporting the brouhaha, and you can sense its glee at being able to portray the US as a nation of uninformed gluttons who mistake the Big Mac for food yet call other people’s delicacies “revolting”. The words “racist”, “ignorant” and “arrogant” litter the online comments. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You should never assume that what you consider delicious is going to be delicious to people with a very different take on tastes and textures. I remember being stuck in a Suzhou youth hostel with a Chinese bloke once, who’d travelled across Europe and who thought that European food was disgusting. He didn’t know what many of the things he’d been offered were, and described how in France he’d been presented with what sounded like a superb continental breakfast - croissants, preserves, bread rolls, butter, cold meats and all that jazz - but couldn’t bring himself to eat “any of that dog shit!” Beyond what you can sometimes buy in foreign-owned supermarkets in the big cities, the Chinese don’t eat baked bread, jam, sliced cold meats, and they don’t do butter unless they’re Inner Mongolian. Bread, butter and strawberry jam is as exotic and scary to most Chinese as preserved eggs are to Danny Holwerda, a point which CNN just doesn’t get. I can’t wait to read Xinhua’s list of the Top Ten Revolting American Foods: corndogs, Oreos, American “cheese”, hotdogs, Big Macs, Hershey “chocolate”, Reese’s peanut butter cups...</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-72770182904564594682011-06-30T13:16:00.000+01:002011-06-30T13:16:02.635+01:00Fares, please! for Chengdu's women-only buses<div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">From the start of July, the city of Chengdu in China’s southwestern Sichuan province will be providing a women-and-children-only bus route. </span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm8xOP08Tbf9H-tcUej8EOFQEe3rLc7K6zMMFiP3I62n5mkxMgsqPVMu9fxTiRnbeJVmOe8q6ILi-wzKdiTUFdBfr7G7N1gv8ojsfb-UVAmeJDIXmFU3DfWmDHCZvGtZk_1_joZhASvJ76/s1600/chengdubus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm8xOP08Tbf9H-tcUej8EOFQEe3rLc7K6zMMFiP3I62n5mkxMgsqPVMu9fxTiRnbeJVmOe8q6ILi-wzKdiTUFdBfr7G7N1gv8ojsfb-UVAmeJDIXmFU3DfWmDHCZvGtZk_1_joZhASvJ76/s320/chengdubus.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The driver of the No.905 gets the Dinoprostone suppositories ready</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The No.905 from Xiyu Street to Chengdu’s Central Hospital for Gynecology and Pediatrics will cost 2 </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">kuai</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> (19p) and will run every 45 minutes from 7am until 4.45pm. Like the designated bus-stops, the two buses on the 905 route are to be rose-pink, and have the charming slogan “All for the Women and Children” on their flanks. They do that thing where the bus lowers itself to make it easy to get on and off when you’re about to sprog, and have free, on-board mineral-water dispensers. The drivers are female, which is expected to make it easier for them to help passengers in need. The 38 seats are all upholstered, and there are more of them than there are in your average Chinese bus. </span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Having on many occasions seen pregnant women practically trampled under foot by crowds of commuters desperate to get a seat on what are invariably suffocatingly overcrowded public transport services, the idea of a dedicated route seems a stroke of genius. Buses in Taiwan have for years had seats set aside at the front (just as we have “elderly and disabled” seats in Britain) called the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Bo’ai Zuo</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> 博爱座 or “Universal Love Seats” (“Universal love” is a concept that can be traced back in traditional Chinese philosophy to the Confucian and Mohist thought of the Warring States period before China was even unified). Elsewhere on the mainland today you find a sign reserving seats for “old, weak, sick, disabled or pregnant” passengers, but then sixty years of communism have left most of the population so obsessed with their own personal gain that there’s normally a young, strong, healthy man sitting in them.</span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-7439451862952706442011-06-30T10:15:00.001+01:002011-06-30T10:17:02.090+01:00Last chance to visit the unspoiled Guangxi coast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For a couple of months now, the authorities in China’s coastal provinces have been announcing that they are, in effect, going to sell off nearly 200 uninhabited islands to the highest bidder.</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6B5OABcD2v0zGjpkcRJhtVSZ_BQ-RvxnTg8VQAup06Ej5n2BRa1skQ9nNd1Mii9Ky1-AK-xmW4JqxdvcOtpcUjnmwwaWiTUExi7uwDcmevKsOY54bys7bJmb4I-Q7BosfxJFSBlacE4yg/s1600/carendun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6B5OABcD2v0zGjpkcRJhtVSZ_BQ-RvxnTg8VQAup06Ej5n2BRa1skQ9nNd1Mii9Ky1-AK-xmW4JqxdvcOtpcUjnmwwaWiTUExi7uwDcmevKsOY54bys7bJmb4I-Q7BosfxJFSBlacE4yg/s320/carendun.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">"Ooh, I like what they've done with the garden. Can we afford the mortgage?"</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Territorial Water Islands Management Bureau in Guangxi, which lies squished between Canton (the bit foreign business travellers mistake for the rest of China) and the tip of Vietnam, has just said that 16 of its 500-plus islands, islets, sandbanks and shoals are to be sold off for “tourism and leisure”. They range from little more than hunks of mangrove to much larger islands that could, if you wanted, take 25 football pitches (albeit rocky and on a slope). The coast is heavily indented with estuaries and minor archipelagos, and the islands are mostly within a few hundred metres, or at most two or three clicks from the shore.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Guangxi’s interested in hearing from foreign capital in particular, and want foreign investors to apply with their plans to develop the islands as resorts. Investors will need to show, it has been stressed, that they intend to develop the islands with due regard for Guangxi’s environmental regulations before a certificate of land use is issued. One suspects, of course, that the “due payment of the relevant land-use fee” also mentioned by the bureau will in practice be the deciding factor.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Guangxi, which is most famous in tourism terms for the stunning karst mountain scenery of Yangshuo and Guilin, has in recent years been promoting growth in the number of scenic areas and in tourism infrastructure elsewhere in the province. They’re hoping to see a big rise in areas like leisure resorts and food tourism - Guangxi’s coast is after all within the tropics, with good seafood and tropical fruit a-plenty.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">IMHO, though, their hope to become a destination to rival nearby Thailand and ’Nam for overseas visitors will stand or fall (okay, fall) on the quality of the overall experience. Western tourists, and those from Australia and NZ, can very cheaply and easily get to Phuket, Chiang Mai or the Vietnamese coast, and the general hassle of transferring from Hong Kong to Guangxi and then through vast expanses of rapidly modernizing countryside to what will, let’s face it, be a half-arsed resort full of Chinese middle-management simply won’t be able to compete. Domestic tourists, who are more canny and on home soil, will flock to places like this on cheap packages, but backpackers will find themselves being ripped off by a system which encourages tourism to see visitors as one-offs who need to be fleeced at every opportunity. The luxury market, meanwhile, won’t even touch Guangxi when it has so much else to choose from.</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-13367099795887079922011-06-29T10:02:00.000+01:002011-06-29T10:02:49.296+01:00China's remotest village not so remote anymore<div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Heilongjiang provincial news media re reporting that workers are toiling to build the first proper road from Xilinji (the county town of Mohe County), to Mohe itself, the “Arctic Village” at the very tip of China. When it opens in September, the route will bring coachloads of domestic tourists to the banks of the Amur River, facing the Russian village of Ignashino, so they can say they’ve been to China’s most northerly point. (The fact that there’s another, tiny settlement named Wusuli a few miles further north and forty miles downriver is immaterial - Arctic Village is where the fun’s at, and it’s officially China’s most northerly point. The Chinese don’t let the truth stand in the way of a good story.)</span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCOSgkJ0wvMpJUuF3M7UxaE_m93cgV54WYdtaxuzoeSAXdgZ-q6CUlVXT05pD5eblaJ6xQNMPE4PRXvnjtq6POXLDS-3We9Ukpi60YfJlvN_UWa88Y4uYDTisksGBF8S7Pautl5SdeLow2/s1600/moheairport.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCOSgkJ0wvMpJUuF3M7UxaE_m93cgV54WYdtaxuzoeSAXdgZ-q6CUlVXT05pD5eblaJ6xQNMPE4PRXvnjtq6POXLDS-3We9Ukpi60YfJlvN_UWa88Y4uYDTisksGBF8S7Pautl5SdeLow2/s1600/moheairport.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Liam's private jet approaches Mohe airport</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’m very fond of Mohe, as in 2001 it was my final destination in the journey I made around the far-flung points of the Chinese compass for </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Green Dragon, Sombre Warrior</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. It took a rail journey on what was then the old lumber trail to cover the final, white expanse of 600 miles on the map between Qiqihar and Xilinji, from where I rode a battered old minibus through Scandinavian pine forests fifty miles to the Amur River. It wasn’t even tarmacked in places, where now tourist revenue has funded the new highway. I found a bed for a few </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">kuai</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> in a “hotel” where the toilet wasn’t even a hole in the ground, as the earth’s frozen most of the year. Instead it was a pile of poo below a raised wooden plank. For dinner I had all there was on offer - boiled aubergine with garlic and coriander - which was better than it sounds.</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That’s all changed now that the Chinese have invested in an airport for Mohe. Yes, an airport. I live in Kenilworth, a town of around 30,000 people, which keeps getting its plans to reopen its railway station turned down. Mohe has thirteen and a half inhabitants and three dogs, one of which is blind, and it has a bleeding </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">airport</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">.</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">During China’s eleventh five-year plan, Mohe County invested 1.2 billion RMB (£116 million) in its tourism infrastructure, including five-star hotels, the new airport, and (for pyromaniacs and the more mawkish tourists) a memorial hall for the massive fire of 1987 that wiped out the town of Xilinji and much of the county’s forest cover.</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’d recommend the trip to anyone with a few weeks on their hands, especially as it’s now a lot more pleasant than it was a decade ago. Of course, I can always boast I visited it before it got all commercial and sold out to The Man.</span></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-60258103429828460072011-06-28T12:13:00.001+01:002011-06-30T11:45:42.564+01:00£11.25 for a train seat to Beijing.<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Chinese Ministry of Railways is gearing up for the start of the new high-speed service between Beijing and Shanghai on Thursday 30th, and has announced more details.</span></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh25x9UvoLsLSCks9F8J-6nT1ZggvUufXE-bhrsksqnSU6A9E7hvWc47FU9y6FnUthLNoHticKndr-qztvkBaz7oJyVnICmCIDbXOwj4bMJjsm9BDhGPGZH1hetVK8U32cbI1yMg-dIAN4/s1600/ticket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh25x9UvoLsLSCks9F8J-6nT1ZggvUufXE-bhrsksqnSU6A9E7hvWc47FU9y6FnUthLNoHticKndr-qztvkBaz7oJyVnICmCIDbXOwj4bMJjsm9BDhGPGZH1hetVK8U32cbI1yMg-dIAN4/s320/ticket.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">tickets for the first service thanks to the nice people at Wikipedia Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are going to be 90 trains a day on the new line, 63 of them running at an average speed of 186mph and the rest just a teensy bit slower at 155mph. These fast services will have a daily passenger capacity of 154,000, and anybody who’s ever travelled in China will know that they’ll be running at full capacity around the clock from day one. The old Jing-Hu railway line will go on operating its 141 trains, some stopping, some slow, some fast, some direct, and carrying another 319,000 passengers every day. That’s 473,000 passengers pretty much every day of the year (China’s transport system doesn’t do bank holidays and Sundays), on just one single route.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As for choice, there’ll soon be everything from high-speed business class to stopping-service hard-seat class, with the cheapest tickets set at 158 </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">kuai</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> (£15) for what’s an 819-mile journey. Even the first-class tickets are set at 935 </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">kuai</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> (£90), which makes the walk-up prices for train journeys in Britain look more laughably unjustified than they already do. On top of these low prices, the Ministry has also announced that students are to receive a 25% discount on tickets, meaning that a student will be able to get from Shanghai to Beijing for £11.25. That’s </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">mental</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, I yesterday posted off my copy of the consultation document for the British HS2 high-speed rail link, which come 2026 will shave a few minutes off the journey time from London to Birmingham (once signal failures, strikes, the wrong kind of leaf/snow/air etc) have been taken into account. The tickets still won’t compete with flying, a swathe of countryside including dozens of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty will be bulldozed, and even then it’ll produce more carbon dioxide than at present because passengers will be forced to travel to fewer rail hubs to ride a train that soaks up electricity. Here in Kenilworth we’ll have to travel 30 miles to Birmingham to get on the HS2, which won’t stop at Coventry five miles away. China has no Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the new high-speed rail line. If anything, having travelled it many times, I can confirm that it’s pretty much one, big, long Area of Outstanding Man-made Ugliness for 819 miles.</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-68972679683898600622011-06-26T12:36:00.000+01:002011-06-26T12:36:55.283+01:00Yangshuo flush with tourist success<div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The tourist administration of Guangxi province has announced that it</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">’</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">s going to be upgrading all nineteen of the public “tourist toilets” in Yangshuo, in order to, as they put it, “take a step forward in raising the tourism service capability of the mountains and waters of the Li River”.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSX07qnFlyWToFM6c2EefB5r1dm64pwuoNg1iHShCaEP_WbpIVYRJ7Hv1tTJnEBSnax74wNAkAfCSOEdQwDxCMhS8TzaWdb_MX3WkpW4rOm8O1V-3soAVzHdk6ZNS2XCO10H5wrlT9iyQg/s1600/chinesetoilet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSX07qnFlyWToFM6c2EefB5r1dm64pwuoNg1iHShCaEP_WbpIVYRJ7Hv1tTJnEBSnax74wNAkAfCSOEdQwDxCMhS8TzaWdb_MX3WkpW4rOm8O1V-3soAVzHdk6ZNS2XCO10H5wrlT9iyQg/s320/chinesetoilet.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">(the kind of toilet that’s had its day...)</span></span></span></div><div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For those of you who don’t know it, the town of Yangshuo is set in one of the most beautiful parts of China, surrounded by near-vertical, pine-clad “jade hairpin” mountains and with the cormorant fishermen of the winding Li River running through it. It’s incredibly popular with both Chinese and Western tourists, and has long been a laid-back travellers’ hangout.</span></span></span></div><div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The nineteen toilets in question were built in the seventies and eighties, and they’ve have got a bit dated, it seems. According to the province’s renovation plan, all the new toilets will have wheelchair-friendly entrance ramps, water-saving cisterns, anti-smell technology, braille signage and blind-persons’ tactile floor tiles, baby-changing facilities and Corby trouser-presses (okay, I made that bit up). They’ll be better, in fact, than practically anything you’d find in a British city, where you can either (a) go for a McPoo, or (b) find a public loo with blue lighting (to stop drug addicts finding a vein), no paper, felt-tip adverts for gay prostitutes, an unnerving sense of impending violence, and the tang of stale piss.</span></span></span></div><div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="color: #292929; font: 13.0px Tahoma; line-height: 17.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Yangshuo Toilets will be star-rated, like hotels, from two to four stars, and will be free to use, funded by the tourist administration. There’ll be staff on hand around the clock. “Tourists coming to Yangshuo will not only be able to enjoy the unsurpassed beauty of the scenery, but also enjoy the high-class service of a star-rated loo,” said a tourism spokesman.</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-53135006606460895392011-06-23T10:16:00.000+01:002011-06-23T10:16:25.966+01:00The Yellow River's looking gorge<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Been away on the road for a week - all the way from the sirens and stabbings of Sarf Lahndan to sunny North Yorkshire, so travel’s on my mind right now. </span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMWbAZFgyTNsTSgxoYVvCBAeURD4LDnu93Ac4wi5ggwCobqRxbHGsQYn5uhdfsRqKQ25AAMmbnufDsVSp1MLHqIL0MwvWL66dsofIObY3PLL1i-Ya7sLiE9jTi-eulC7Or5GeMoEpqD467/s1600/xiaolangdi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMWbAZFgyTNsTSgxoYVvCBAeURD4LDnu93Ac4wi5ggwCobqRxbHGsQYn5uhdfsRqKQ25AAMmbnufDsVSp1MLHqIL0MwvWL66dsofIObY3PLL1i-Ya7sLiE9jTi-eulC7Or5GeMoEpqD467/s1600/xiaolangdi.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">2011 has been designated Great Yellow River Tourism Year by the Chinese government and, browsing the latest travel industry news, the trip everyone’s doing right now is the pilgrimage to Xiaolangdi Scenic Area in Henan province. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Yellow River has until recently been an underused resource for tourism in China, mainly because it flows through some very poor and inaccessible countryside, and also because it’s not itself navigable to shipping. Sitting atop a strip of silt tens of metres higher than the surrounding countryside, deposited over the millennia, the river has breached its levees and changed course dozen of times, flooding the plains and drowning millions. The Yellow River dam at Xiaolangdi was built in the 1990s to try to put an end to the bother of having a river that keeps changing its mind about how to reach the Pacific. The Scenic Area includes not just the vast dam but a host of mountain gorges (lesser-known but very attractive versions of the more famous but now-flooded Yangtze Gorges), and it has some truly very impressive scenery.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Each June, the 296 sq km Xiaolangdi reservoir gets flushed through to scour out the silt, and the enterprising locals now hold a wildly popular Watching the Waterfall Festival from June 22nd to July 10th. The river cascades through the open sluices of the 500m-wide dam, and the level of the reservoir drops by 30 metres, which is really quite a lot when you think about it, to reveal the old scenery of the now-flooded valleys. For any communists remaining in China, commemorative civil-war scenic spots such as “The Chen Xie Army Group Crosses the Yangtze” have been marked out, and for everybody else there’s a food festival of locally caught fish, an exhibition of weird-shaped stones from the river (“Ooh! This one looks like a willy!”), and a photography competition. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Local government has been quick to cash in on the festival by organising the kind of massed-rank, all-singing-all-dancing opening ceremony that would make Kim Jung-il jealous. Bow-tied choirs sing </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yellow River Elegy</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, the most famous and patriotic of songs, and other popular hits like </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Yellow River Boatman</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. They don’t do Christie’s 1970 Number One hit </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yellow River</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, which is a shame, but apparently it’s about a </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">different</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Yellow River. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Anybody thinking of going needs to be at the Kowloon Hotel in Luoyang for 8am. Tickets are 78 </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">kuai</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, and for that you get the bus ride to the dam and entrance to the ceremony. It comes highly recommended to anyone with a love of close-harmony singing and hydroelectric power generation.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-22217352328279688222011-06-11T15:00:00.000+01:002011-06-11T15:00:29.597+01:00All aboard! for China's newest railway<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Ministry of Railways has announced that it will be revealing next week the ticket prices for the new Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway. </span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoh22q10gjN603Z5sSKRT69_mzisCRzMr40Z30P5KwYOwu_0MQa08JsautkQJxyM_GlT0DH8BK55t13PgqvWrZTsm2VAlDcbBkd4L3y1zWnAzbEyE2ib3C6otsUHYKGP-Vx_S-GlZ_z5Gi/s1600/jinghutielu.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoh22q10gjN603Z5sSKRT69_mzisCRzMr40Z30P5KwYOwu_0MQa08JsautkQJxyM_GlT0DH8BK55t13PgqvWrZTsm2VAlDcbBkd4L3y1zWnAzbEyE2ib3C6otsUHYKGP-Vx_S-GlZ_z5Gi/s1600/jinghutielu.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s been just over three years (<i>three</i> years!!) since the Chinese started work on the 819-mile railway, and they managed, in fact, to finish laying the track last November. The original plan had been for the railway to be a Maglev, similar to the literally terrifyingly fast train that now links Shanghai Pudong Airport to the city in just eight minutes (a journey that used to take well over an hour by bus). The impracticality of such an enormously long Maglev (Shanghai’s, at 19 miles, is currently the longest in service anywhere) made the Chinese eventually choose traditional steel rails, otherwise we’d be looking at a journey time of under four hours. As it is, the new trains will still be running at up to 186mph, making Beijing less than a five-hour trip from Shanghai, compared to at least twice that at present.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The carriages, for any train nerds out there, are a variant of the CRH380 “Harmony” class already in service in China. In recent tests they’ve reached almost 303mph, and they’re two full Earth feet wider than Virgin’s fancy-pants Pendolino trains (the ones that crawl along the west-coast line because someone’s forever stealing the copper signal-cabling outside Rugby. Anybody trying to steal the cabling from the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway will of course be summarily shot). </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve travelled by rail between “The Big BJ” (having written my new nickname for Beijing down, I can see why it hasn’t caught on) and Shangers. Each time, because of high demand for tickets on the 10-hour service, it’s been an overnighter, and occasionally it’s taken the best part of two days - morning on day one to the evening of day two. The new railway will make it feasible to get from city to city and back within a day for a business meeting, whereas at the moment it can take hours just to get from Beijing Capital Airport through the hellish traffic of however many damn ring roads the place now has. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Beijing terminal, the new Beijing South Station, is reputedly the biggest railway station in Asia. When I first used it in 1991 it was a tiny, brick-built old Communist edifice way out past Yongdingmen, surrounded by unmetalled roads plied by donkey carts. It now makes Heathrow look ancient. Actually, the tiny, brick-built old Communist edifice made Heathrow look ancient, too, come to think of it.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Chinese are managing to modernise their country at such a dizzying speed it’s hard to know whether to be impressed or scared. Ten out of the top thirteen longest bridges in the world are in China. The very longest, part in fact of the new Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, is said to be so long I fear I’ve translated something wrong: the raised section of this Dan-Kun Ultra-Long Bridge between Danyang and Kunshan in Jiangsu province is over 100 miles long. Now that’s </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">mental</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-14144406501732066762011-06-06T19:09:00.000+01:002011-06-06T19:09:47.548+01:00China's computer whizz-kids prepare for war<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I remember watching a film once, where the Communist Chinese drilled under the Pacific to invade the US. It came to mind again recently when I read about the various cyber attacks the Chinese are accused of launching against foreign websites: what could be more “yellow peril” than an enemy disabling you by stealth from their comfort of their padded armchairs in the luxury section of an internet cafe in Hefei?</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdbbQAoIfaNxo_vwKDcnCil47iB7cdbShaRcksgwYEeTtZQn8Hq-iatgBKsVgliC3LYuDde91mTAvvMw4JvTsfNAUNPhTgiEY_f0dt69X-yrkmd4A6I4hs9Xmj2doNR3ukoUQDYC-ZBrA/s1600/wangba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdbbQAoIfaNxo_vwKDcnCil47iB7cdbShaRcksgwYEeTtZQn8Hq-iatgBKsVgliC3LYuDde91mTAvvMw4JvTsfNAUNPhTgiEY_f0dt69X-yrkmd4A6I4hs9Xmj2doNR3ukoUQDYC-ZBrA/s320/wangba.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So, I had a peek at how the Chinese are looking at their compatriots’ derring-do, and found a fair amount of pride in the achievements of China’s army of </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> (</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">is</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Chinese for “hacker” - it’s a straight transliteration of the English, but with the added bonus that the characters mean something like “black assassin”). This, for example:</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Q: How powerful exactly are these Chinese </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">?</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A: We stick a Chinese flag on the White House website, and you can doubt how powerful we are? That stroke of brilliance might have been a flash in the pan, but whenever our country needs us we’ll be ready to attack the enemy.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Or...</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Q: How do I get to be one of these Chinese </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">?</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A: Study English. Learn how to program. Read up on internet security.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another exchange discussed how a well-respected </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> who went under the name Lao Ying had been behind the White House Chinese flag incident, but lamented how </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> will now do pointless things like attack the Chinese social networking site QQ. Real </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> culture, said one poster, is about defending China - this is its most basic “moral characteristic” - you’re only a real </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> if you’re doing it for the sake of China’s national dignity.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As to who they are, bloggers agree there are only a very few of them, and they’re relatively young - they range from middle-school students through to the first couple of years of university, have started with an interest in assembler language, and have then spent a lot of time studying computing. The vast majority of kids who start out with an interest find it too much of a challenge and give up, and you’re considered an old-timer if you’re the wrong side of thirty. This, though, rather assumes that the Chinese government isn’t actively orchestrating hacking of foreign targets, hothousing talent and providing them with the technical wherewithal.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Anybody who’s spent time in a Chinese internet cafe will know exactly where </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">heike </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">talent is fermenting - even the smallest towns and villages have a </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">wangba</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> on every corner, and inside each one are dozens or even hundreds of teenagers for whom computers are a way of life. Add to this a pinch of Chinese nationalism, season with a heavy dose of anti-Americanism, and even if China only creams off the top one percent of talent when it reaches high school or university we’re still talking hundreds of thousands of tech-savvy, gifted programmers eager to crash Google, stick a flag on the White House website, or hack into the US military. With MI5 and SIS recruiting and training computer talent at a higher-education level, and no comparable body of nationalistically inspired, self-taught hackers to dive into, it’s little wonder that we don’t hear official complaints from China of Western cyber attacks on Chinese websites.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-76821806747351909302011-06-04T15:27:00.001+01:002011-06-04T15:28:57.217+01:00Tip for the day - £10 e/w on Shanghai to secede by 2161.<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Today’s the 22nd anniversary of the suppression of the student protests in Beijing. I remember watching the events on TV, having just been accepted as an undergraduate to start studying Mandarin that autumn, and not having a clue how things would pan out in the coming four years. Two years later, instead of spending a couple of terms in Beijing, we were sent off to Taiwan to study at Shida’s Mandarin Training Center. The CCP, sadly, are still “in charge” of China.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The release today in the </span></span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Daily Telegraph</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of leaked diplomatic cables which show that the PLA didn’t enter Tian’anmen Square with all guns blazing isn’t in itself a real surprise, since commentators back then quickly started backtracking on initial reports that tanks had quite literally rolled into the square to crush the students’ tent village, tempering them with an admission that the killings had taken place in the surrounding streets and avenues in the coming hours and days. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But one phrase from the leaked cables set me a-thinking: there was mention that the students had been portraying their demonstrations, and the fact that the widely announced martial law had not in fact been forcibly imposed in Beijing, as indicating that the Mandate of Heaven - the intangible, moral ‘right to rule’ perceived throughout Chinese history - had been revoked from the Communist Party.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">How long, though, normally passes between the first signs that the Mandate of Heaven has been lost and the actual fall of a Chinese dynasty? Chinese history isn’t particularly helpful in predicting </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">when</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> the Communist Party will eventually be replaced, but there are a couple of clues as to </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">how</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> it might happen.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Qin dynasty fell just four years after the first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, died, but his rule had been especially repressive, and his political successors especially weak. The Yellow Turban rebellion that’s generally seen as marking the beginning of the end for the Eastern Han dynasty kicked off in 184, but it was 36 years before the Han finally fell. It took four years for the revolts against Emperor Yang’s wars in the Korean peninsula before the Sui dynasty fell. The Tang, by contrast, limped on for anything from 30 to 150 years after the rebellions that most damaged it, depending on where you count from, while the Yuan lasted for around 17 years after the Red Turban rebellion.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But perhaps the most interesting historical models for the eventual end of the People’s Republic are the Southern Song and the Ming. The Southern Song lasted for 150 years after the entire north of China down to the Huai River valley was occupied by the Mongol armies in 1127, though the Ming plodded on for just a couple of decades after the Manchus in the far northeast stuck two fingers up and declared themselves independent. Both involved a dynasty surviving in a rump form, one in a new capital because its old capital had been captured, and the other in its existing capital, having to cope with the fact that its writ no longer ran in part of its own territory.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If I were a gambling man, which I’m not, I’d put a couple of quid each-way (</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">each-way</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, mind, not straight on the nose) on the big movers in one of the big coastal cities like Shanghai or Canton staging what amounts to internal secession, realizing that they have a brighter future being able to elect able leaders in democratic elections than being constantly stifled by the corruption and entrenched interests that come with Communism. Think Hong Kong, but on the mainland - a city where foreign investment feels more secure and where the citizens feel as though they have a real stake in their city rather than just being told to “be proud of our Shanghai” or some such tosh. It needn’t even take a military coup, just enough balls from the Party machine in whichever city to call municipal elections and see if Beijing is willing to risk sending the tanks in to stop it. Even the arrival of PSB goons to remove the prime-movers from office would cause economic jitters, not to mention causing a jostling to be seen in the best political light, which in itself could spark democratic change if somebody in a position of real authority thinks they can cement their hold with a legitimate vote.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After my purely theoretical municipal elections, the PRC would start to resemble China in the early seventeenth century, with an enclave in the ascendant still paying homage to the centre but in reality drawing power away until the dynasty finally loses its grip.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Right, that’s that, then. £10 each way on Shanghai to secede and the PRC to fall some time between now and the year 2161.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-85801666584865631702011-06-02T10:45:00.000+01:002011-06-02T10:45:18.467+01:00Step away from the Lucky Tree Fruit Juice, sir<div style="font: 18.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s not just Russia who takes the food safety of its otherwise drunken, dying-at-the-age-of-forty, mafia-befuddled citizenry seriously. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">China Food Quality</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, essential reading for anybody who wants to keep up to date with all the latest melamine-in-milk-related scandals, is reporting today that China’s snappily named General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has announced an immediate suspension of imports of a range of Taiwanese foodstuffs. The Taiwanese authorities had in recent days told AQSIQ that some manufacturers had been adding banned, non-food-quality phthalates to clouding agents that then went on to contaminate all kinds of products down the line.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD63Y_Q22zUi2jmUEucDocbJEgqzcIsAPrCJzHkQnTiSC6LpynaCJXAVvDAP-jJtvopirPDOp2ClOqHRaiS2ol6dJwseQja8vjO71-WuQfeO6HQ2Kp1U4Q92J_Db7wXNixasrrUdzsrC_o/s1600/banned_drinks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD63Y_Q22zUi2jmUEucDocbJEgqzcIsAPrCJzHkQnTiSC6LpynaCJXAVvDAP-jJtvopirPDOp2ClOqHRaiS2ol6dJwseQja8vjO71-WuQfeO6HQ2Kp1U4Q92J_Db7wXNixasrrUdzsrC_o/s1600/banned_drinks.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font: 18.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 23.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 18.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The affected products consist of sports drinks, fruit juices, tea drinks, fruit purees, jams, jellies... Those that can’t provide a test certificate to prove they don’t contain the banned phthalates will be denied entry to the PRC. This is, of course, a far more subtle and justified response than the Russians’ blanket ban on anything green or red that comes from the EU, which is patently just protectionism in a different guise. It seems that almost half a million bottles of very specific brands have been targeted and removed from the shelves.</span></span></div><div style="font: 18.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But why on earth would you want to add phthalates to food anyway? It seems to be down to price: they’re cheaper than palm oil and citrus fruit extracts, but produce the characteristic ‘cloudy’ quality associated with so many East Asian drinks products. I’ve probably drunk the bloody stuff myself, come to think of it - I’ve always been partial to those slightly cloudy, sweet fruit juice thingies, especially on a roasting hot, Chinese summer’s day. </span></span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-29477322882326543742011-05-20T23:16:00.000+01:002011-05-20T23:16:38.013+01:00China wearily ignores end of world<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As a Christian, though not the shiny-eyed, shouty-scary sort, I just had to get online when a friend emailed me to point out that tomorrow, if I hadn’t already realized, is the date set for the Rapture, if only to see what the Chinese have to say about the whole thing before it’s too late...</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For those of you without a detailed knowledge of the nonsense which in the more conservative parts of the US passes for theology, the Rapture is understood to be the day on which all Good Believers are taken up to heaven by God while all The Bad People (i.e., anybody who doesn’t share your particular wacky brand of Biblical scholarship) are left below to fight it out. Then there’s meant to be a bit of a wait (of varying length - see above on wacky brands), after which a kingdom of Jesus’ direct rule (with varying details - see above on wackiness) is ushered in. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">An imminently-to-be-ashen-faced Californian broadcaster named Harold Camping has calculated from clues in the Bible (see also </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Bible Code</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> for similar lunacy) that Saturday, May 21st 2011 will see the Rapture, handily forgetting that he also predicted that the same thing would happen in 1994. IMHO, this kind of ignorant, literalist rubbish makes a suitable mockery of the blinkered and reductionist thinking which certain strains of American Protestant thought are all too prone to; but at the same time it makes all of Christianity a target by association. I don’t set the vaguest store by the idea of the Rapture, and neither does anybody in my local congregation. I don’t find anything Biblical in the idea, which has fear and hatred seething just below its surface and no trace of the love which should be central to any kind of Christianity. But that’s just me.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So, I had a peek at what the Chinese </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">wangyou</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> made of all this, and the truth is - not a lot. The cult of the Rapture, spread in the US by garbage like the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Left Behind</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> series, hasn’t found the same apocalyptic foothold. A search for tomorrow’s date and the Chinese for Rapture (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">被提</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, or ‘the being taken up’) reveals a number of mostly world-weary and cynical teenagers and just a few US-inspired evangelicals. Typical exchanges read:</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Only Christians qualify for the Rapture - you pathetic heathens are dreaming!!”</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Has whoever started this thread got an itchy arse?”</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I know, I know - and I can’t fathom what that means either, but it’s typical of the mental stuff I trawl through to try to understand what’s going on in China. Elsewhere, the Christian Times website was dismissive of Camping’s claims, pointing out that they’re highly selective and scarcely even bother to mention Jesus, instead banging on about eternal damnation and judgment, and what on earth kind of twisted message is that?</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-15749552433575953222011-05-18T11:29:00.000+01:002011-05-18T11:29:33.923+01:00China not reeling from child sex-abuse scandal...<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I found an article in <a href="http://www.chinanews.com/sh/2011/05-18/3047874.shtml">China News</a> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">today which strikes an interesting counterpoint to social norms here in the UK. I won’t be reproducing the picture which accompanied the article, for legal reasons which will become obvious...</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The story concerns a kindergarten in Dongwan, not far from Guangzhou, where the reporter watched as a couple of dozen children aged between 3 and 6 played outside under the supervision of their teachers. To the reporter, the most striking - and to me, as a pretty average Westerner, somewhat disquieting - aspect of the scene was that the boys were mostly totally unclothed, the girls only slightly more modestly dressed. “Quite a few local residents were watching from beyond the railings,” writes the reporter, “while some took pictures on their mobile phones.” One family head was said to have reservations over whether having both sexes running about together naked was a good idea, and also wondered whether being unclothed and having water fights in what was a chilly wind was healthy. The head teacher responded to this by saying that the children were having a PE lesson, and that going naked was in effect sunbathing, which is good for their skeletal development and helps to ward off contagious viral diseases such as hand, foot and mouth (of which there have been several fatal outbreaks in China in recent years).</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">While the teachers were quite blase about the whole thing, some of the residents were less sanguine: “These kind of influences aren’t all that good. Yes, they’re all little kids, but the bigger ones are going on seven, and to have them running about naked, playing chase together, can’t be good for their development.” One mother of a two-year-old girl was of the opinion that it was “really quite indecent,” as she covered her daughter’s eyes and added: “my little treasure mustn’t watch!” Another onlooker, afraid her grandson would catch cold, was trying to get him to wrap up.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When interviewed by the reporter, the head of the kindergarten explained that going outside naked to get the benefit of the sunshine was part of their curriculum, adding that “it’s very popular overseas.” She recognized that the girls had to have a modicum of clothing for the sake of decency, but was happy with the boys being totally unclothed. If parents were unhappy, they could ask for their child to be excused.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another point that came up after a little bit of investigative reporting was that many kindergartens in the city didn’t provide separate toilets for boys and girls, to the disquiet of parents, and that the inevitable observations had led to some embarrassing “mummy, why...?”-style questions.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The reporter interviewed a professional psychological consultant, who was of the opinion that it was better to give even young children like these an idea of sexual differences, so as to avoid confusion over gender identities later in life, rather than lumping them all in together with no apparent differentiation. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">China does in fact have basic national regulations on toilet provision in kindergartens, with a requirement that boys are provided with urinals and girls with traditional squat-down toilets, but there’s no law to say that the two need be in separate rooms. Guangdong province, though, goes further and requires that boys and girls be separated. Other cities, such as Nanjing and Kunming, have instituted regulations requiring that new-build schools have to provide separate toilets.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But what about the elephant in the room? The one aspect of the story which I think is very telling is that there’s not even a hint that letting children run around stark b*llock naked in full view of the local adults is in any way asking for accusations of child abuse and paedophilia. The thought of allowing adults to take snaps of bare children over the railings has become so loaded that it’s positively chilling from a twenty-first-century Western viewpoint. But the professional child-development experts interviewed for the original piece in the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Guangzhou Daily</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> don’t allude to it in any way. After a full twenty minutes of pondering why this might be, a couple of thoughts spring to mind.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">China doesn’t have the equivalent of the UK’s red-top morale-outrage banner headline, whipping up widespread fears of child abductors on every street-corner. I can’t recall ever coming across a story in the Chinese media that would fall under the category of ‘child sex abuse’ or ‘child sexual abduction’, and after a quick check on the Chinese version of Wikipedia (no research expense spared here) it seems that there are no pages corresponding to either of these broad categories.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This, of course, isn’t to say that there are no child abusers in China. Far from it. I’ve seen horrific examples of children forced to beg, bawling their eyes out, with what will be awful consequences for their mental health later in life (if they have a later in life...), or being dragged around by adults who are clearly incapable of looking after them. There are countless examples in the Chinese press of children being abducted to work as slaves, beaten by parents, forced into prostitution and so on, but the UK’s standard model of the stranger at the school gates isn’t something I’ve come across. Maybe there are simply too many awful things happening to children in China already for people to worry about bogeymen. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 15.0px Times; line-height: 26.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-50819970036193531802011-05-15T14:29:00.000+01:002011-05-15T14:29:57.979+01:00China outshines UK for media freedom<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As outraged as anybody else by the idea that rich adulterers can claim that a right to family and private life allows them to have affairs and yet prevent anybody, anywhere in the world, from mentioning it, I decided to see what the Chinese internet - not known for bowing and scraping to English court rulings - had to say. Were the famously unfree Chinese openly discussing the sexual exploits of a premier-league footballer whom we in the Free World aren’t allowed to name? And what about the other less well-known celebs?</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I started by googling, in English, for ‘Billy Jones’ (the pseudonym of whomever claims to have tweeted the names of super-injunctors), ‘Twitter’ and ‘super injunction’, which instantly gave me a google cache list of the named individuals (the original pages wouldn’t open, but whether this is because Twitter had removed them or because of high traffic I don’t know). </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then, armed with the Chinese names of the footballer from his Mandarin- and Cantonese-language Wikipedia pages (Premier League is very popular in China, and Man U especially so), I searched a Chinese search engine for the name plus </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">超级禁制令</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, i.e., ‘super injunction’. There were hundreds of direct hits of users discussing this and earlier extra-marital affairs of the footballer. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When it came to the other people named by Billy Jones, the Chinese were </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">distinctly</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> less interested, though. Even the uproariously spurious Khan-Clarkson snogfest scarcely made a ripple on the other side of the Great Firewall, since nobody in China knows or cares who either is. The other injunctors, a handful of B-list TV celebs, don’t appear to have made the slightest impression on Chinese netizens. <i>Wangyou</i>, it seems, are utterly uninterested in the idea of outing sickening hypocrisy </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">per se</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, and more interested in what to them is minor gossip about a footballer who’s a household name - Jie Si - and a hero to hundreds of millions in China. </span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-13151892460801112092011-05-05T09:51:00.000+01:002011-05-05T09:51:26.399+01:00A rare canal time-capsule found in Liaocheng<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">After the discovery of a perfectly preserved Ming-dynasty woman in a grave in Jiangsu a while back I posted the first account from the archaeologists concerned. This time, even though the story’s far more relevant to my travel-writing, I managed to miss it for four months after it broke in China...</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg88pIgmmoWTvStQMdEFl9mhZzZdIJhOs4fLDeUqoUCjPDYCgpSLvRZv0Jra74yIJEnv3OmTugNjUEhG1wsZnYHzzIoS_HgacLhLysrkksUMa1gl0jpJunr9wCFf2tc4sb6bGgETTT81dFB/s1600/m_sb122204_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg88pIgmmoWTvStQMdEFl9mhZzZdIJhOs4fLDeUqoUCjPDYCgpSLvRZv0Jra74yIJEnv3OmTugNjUEhG1wsZnYHzzIoS_HgacLhLysrkksUMa1gl0jpJunr9wCFf2tc4sb6bGgETTT81dFB/s320/m_sb122204_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Not that a surprisingly well preserved stone-built lock from the old Grand Canal is going anywhere soon. In August of last year, with work going on to prepare the ground for the South-North Water Transfer Project which in a few years’ time will carry water from the Yangtze to Tianjin, partly along the route of the Grand Canal, a stone flash-lock was uncovered in the city of Liaocheng </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">聊城</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Before the Grand Canal became disused in its Shandong section around a century ago, Liaocheng was one of its major inland ports. The canal’s sudden disappearance from the landscape left its structures decaying but otherwise intact, unlike further south where widening and modernisation in the twentieth century destroyed what remained of the original fabric. Liaocheng alone is said to have a dozen more buried lock sites waiting to be investigated.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The photo gives an impression of quite how enormous and expertly constructed the locks on the Grand Canal were, with a mouth more than 6m wide and a total depth of 7.5m. The stones were beautifully finished, and held in place by swallowtail-shaped iron ingots set into their joint faces. The vertical grooves into which slotted the wooden boards forming the weir of the flash-lock (according to written records it was first built in 1471 and rebuilt in 1758) are clearly visible. Thousands of pottery, jade and metal artefacts, dropped no doubt from barges passing the lock, were discovered during the excavation, which took four months.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">With the South-North Water Transfer Project due for completion in 2013 (don’t hold your breath), the lock is set to be renovated as part of the route. The plan seems to be to preserve the lock alongside a new, wider channel that will have the capacity to carry the anticipated volumes of water north without putting strain on the fabric of the lock itself. There are plans to restore the wharves associated with the lock, and to turn the whole area into a visitor attraction. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The whole story, with more photos, is in Chinese on the <a href="http://sd.sdnews.com.cn/2010/12/22/994004.html">Shandong News Net</a> website. </span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-53770436454496559172011-05-04T11:54:00.000+01:002011-05-04T11:54:06.817+01:00And the winners of the May Fourth Youth Medal are...<div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s May 4th again, anniversary of the eponymous uprising of China’s young turks against the humiliatingly unfair terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and so the Communist Youth League (in association, of course, with the All-China Youth Federation) has announced the recipients of China’s 15th Annual May Fourth Youth Medal (pictured below).</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7z55fun30hy8d3ZOkun9d9XEHv8ohtHnghWXGwej4i6Z-fhXitfOXlTI3SVFPli0wuhgSRZxsy3GKQcNvMSfEpNc3NMD4e9lDSbzUDFgfDGEXC2fGb7IQe3-mjDMAAq_w5k1fIA9E5Rr/s1600/f15e2429ea705bdd99250a8e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7z55fun30hy8d3ZOkun9d9XEHv8ohtHnghWXGwej4i6Z-fhXitfOXlTI3SVFPli0wuhgSRZxsy3GKQcNvMSfEpNc3NMD4e9lDSbzUDFgfDGEXC2fGb7IQe3-mjDMAAq_w5k1fIA9E5Rr/s1600/f15e2429ea705bdd99250a8e.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Communist Youth League </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">共青团</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, whose antecedents date back almost to the original May Fourth Movement in 1919, has long been a springboard for the Communist Party’s top-flight leaders - President Hu Jintao himself was First Secretary during the mid-1980s - and the leadership has a close hand in the choice of recipients. The fact that the medal is a recent innovation, tapping into and directing China’s youthful energy, is significant.</span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">While the May Fourth Youth Medal is ostensibly awarded to people who’ve embodied the spirit of patriotic etc etc, selflessly served the blah blah, and been courageously innovative in yaddah yaddah, it’s interesting to see just how this year’s winners are not just a carefully crafted representation of ethnicity and gender but also an aspirational list of the fields which China’s highly technocratic leadership (President Hu, for example, is an engineer by training) wants to see more of.</span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Of the 25 medal-winners, seven are female (not ideal, but better than many international awards) and five are from some of China’s largest or politically more sensitive ethnic minorities - the Hui and the Uighurs (both Muslim), the Tibetan Qiang, the Mongols and the Manchu. The more intriguing choices are...</span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A senior engineer in the State Cryptography Administration (control of the internet domestically and cyber-warfare overseas spring to mind) and the assistant head of a PSB criminal investigation unit in Shanghai (where six policemen were recently murdered by a man who’d been beaten up by their colleagues). In military terms, we have a captain in the People’s Armed Police in Xinjiang (which violently put down what amounted to an attempt to overthrow Chinese rule not long ago), the captain of an optical surveying unit of the PLA, and the commander of a PLA guided-missile battalion.</span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then there’s a primary-school teacher in Guizhou (one of China’s very poorest provinces, where education for many rural children is a real problem), and a Tibetan-minority businessman who lost his family in the 2008 Beichuan earthquake.</span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In the science and industry corner we have a researcher into electrical discharge, an assistant-director of the National Flight Testing Research Institute and an aluminium-alloy worker at a Tangshan carriageworks (aircraft, railways and metallurgy being boom industries in China), a quality tester at a textiles mill in Ningbo (Zhejiang produces textiles for world markets, and quality control has long been an issue for foreign buyers), and the head of Harbin Industrial University Intelligent Control and Systems Research Institute. As for the arts, always a popular choice in a country that emphasizes such signifiers of ethnic pride, we have a performer at the Beijing Dance Academy and the Mongol vice-president of the Inner Mongolian Opera</span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 18.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div><div style="color: #333233; font: 14.0px Times; line-height: 15.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">After such an aspirational wish-list of achievements and ideas, it seems almost patronising to the restive Muslim natives of Xinjiang, then, that the only Uighur on the list is a farmer from a village outside Korla. Still, better than nothing...</span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-2127624441020261822011-04-28T15:05:00.000+01:002011-04-28T15:05:43.695+01:00How the Chinese count their population...<div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The National Bureau of Statistics today released the results of its latest population census, and the headline figures are all over the Western media. It’d be far too obvious to comment on them directly in this blog, but there is an angle that I’d like to share with any non-Mandarin speakers.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When I was tracing the length of the Grand Canal of China for </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Emperor’s River</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, several times I came across a phrase which has become a shorthand in recent years for the awesome size of China’s population. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The phrase is </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">shisan yi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">十三亿</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, “the 1.3 billion”, and it’s a great example of how the Western counting system, which we might assume is universal, is in fact only one way of conceptualizing large numbers.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Traditional Chinese numerals start with one to ten, as you’d expect, with a single character for each (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">). Eleven is ten-one </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">十一</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, 12 is ten-two </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">十二</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, through to 20, which is two-ten </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">二十</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, and then all the numbers up to 99 are very predictable: 58 is five-ten-eight </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">五十八</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, for example.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It gets different after 100, since the Chinese carry on using a </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">single</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> character for each factor of 10, whereas in Arabic numerals we add an extra nought. So, 100 is </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">bai</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">百</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, 1,000 is </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">qian</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">千</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, and 10,000 is </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">wan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">万</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. When the Chinese want to express “69,000”, they say </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">liuwan jiuqian</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">六万九千</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, or “six (times) ten thousand (and) nine thousand”. The Chinese for 100,000 is </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">shiwan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">十万</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, i.e., “ten (times) ten thousand”; one million is </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">baiwan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">百万</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, “(one) hundred (times) ten thousand”; ten million is </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">qianwan</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">千万</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, “(one) thousand (times) ten thousand”. So, 12,345,678 is said as </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">yiqian erbai sanshisi wan wuqian liubai qishiba</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">一千二百三十四万五千六百七十八</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, or literally “one thousand two hundred (and) thirty-four (times) ten thousand (plus) five thousand six hundred and seventy-eight”. Even after twenty years I still have to stop and think hard before translating numbers.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But things really start to hurt your brain when the numbers get bigger and denser. The Chinese have a single character </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">yi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">亿</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> meaning 100,000,000, and this is where my original phrase </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">shisan yi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">十三亿</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, “(the) one point three billion”, comes in. It literally means “ten-three-onehundredmillion”, or “thirteen (times) one hundred million”, or 1.3 billion in our terms, so when the Chinese say their total population according to the latest census - 1,339,724,852 - it comes out as “thirteen (times) one hundred million (plus) three thousand nine hundred and seventy-two (times) ten thousand (plus) four thousand eight hundred and fifty two”.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Chinese counting is made even more fun by some extra little points. Firstly, the Chinese use the Arabic system (1, 2, 3...) alongside their own traditional numerals, so you see both everywhere and have to think in one but write in another. Secondly, there is a complimentary series of characters for one to ten, one hundred, one thousand etc which are used when there’s a chance of fraud and where the everyday written characters could be altered. Compare, for example, one to ten in normal and long form...</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十 (normal)</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">壹, 贰, 叁, 肆, 伍, 陆, 柒, 捌, 玖, 拾 (long)</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; line-height: 21.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Thirdly, the character </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">yi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> (meaning 10,000) was traditionally written </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">儀</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> until the 1950s, when in the PRC at least it was simplified to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">亿</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, which is scarcely worthy of such a big number. To add insult to injury for foreigners, the Mandarin word for “one” is pronounced </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">yi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> with a high flat tone (though this tone can change depending on what character follows it...) while the word for “ten thousand” is pronounced </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">yi</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> with a falling tone. It’s not unknown for students starting out in Mandarin to ask for “ten thousand cups of tea, please”....</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-57791106959402071142011-04-24T13:44:00.000+01:002011-04-24T13:44:18.668+01:00Happy Easter from the Communist Party 共产党祝你复活节快乐<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As expected, an outdoor meeting by the Shouwang Church in Beijing today has been broken up by the PSB, and around 30 worshippers arrested and taken to different </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">paichusuo</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Pastor Jin Tianming </span></span></span><span style="font: 13.0px Arial; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #333233;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">金天明</span></span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, who’s under house-arrest, had already made it clear, after previous run-ins with the authorities over outdoor services, that he saw the Bible as commanding Christians to worship </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">en masse</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, and that since Shouwang were unable to meet in a restaurant they’d been renting and hadn’t been allowed to move into a premises they’d paid some ¥27m for, their outdoor prayer meetings would be the prominently visible “city on a hill” which the Bible calls for. If worshippers are arrested, it is, Jin says, a price they are happy to pay.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But the Communist Party, which is of course constitutionally atheist and very wary both of alternative sources of authority (i.e. God) and, in light of what’s happening in the Middle East, of large public gatherings, is not too keen on Chinese Christians meeting in public to set others an example of tacit “disobedience”. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are estimated to be 15m Protestant Chinese in officially recognized churches, and another 5m Catholics, but these appear by some estimates to be dwarfed by the 50m Christians in unregistered churches. The Protestant Shouwang Church (</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">shouwang</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">守望</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> is Chinese for “lookout” or “keep watch”) was founded in 1993 and is one of Beijing’s largest “underground” churches, that is to say, its applications to be officially recognized have been refused because its leaders will not follow the Communist Party’s line on what they can and can’t teach. I don’t blame them: nobody in China was ever asked if they wanted to be ruled by the Communist Party, which seized power at gunpoint in 1949, against the run of play, as it were, and has held on to it by crushing any opposition ever since then. The PRC’s Constitution “guarantees” freedom of religion, but that mealymouthed guarantee is made meaningless by the Party’s fear that allowing dissent in this sphere will be the thin end of the wedge and ultimately undermine their rule. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On a lighter note, I found a Chinese (ostensibly Christian!) website this morning with a bizarre explanation of what Easter means, aimed at a domestic audience. I’ve translated it in full to see if anybody can throw light onto the whole Ba’al thing...</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Easter is the second-biggest Christian festival [?!]. According to the Gospels, after Jesus’ Passion he was resurrected “on the first day of the week”. Because of this, Christians called this “the Lord’s Day” to commemorate Jesus’ resurrection, and gradually the phrase “the Lord’s Day” came to replace the term “Day of Rest”. Activities were held on it, and later it developed into today’s “day of worship”. In the UK, most holidays have their origin in religion. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon of the spring equinox, and originally commemorated the birth of Astarte, half-sister and lover of of Ba’al, a god of West Asian heterodox religious tradition. But today, for most people, Easter is just a commonplace festival when people enjoy the beautiful spring sunshine.”</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-80528419121681393072011-04-19T15:04:00.000+01:002011-04-19T15:04:02.335+01:00“Royal Wedding” goes t*ts up<div style="font: 14.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The story probably won’t make the broadsheets, but in the town of Jiangning </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">江宁</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> on the outskirts of Jiangsu’s capital, Nanjing, everybody’s talking about their very own royal wedding.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFrdZLbA32lXbq5GM11IzIm0Q7JCswt5ytezXKqJ2Z37yzF3KsMpjqhsijy7o3OQdwUyeP8I1dOAxZipsTbZtElaKdl2KzaiH8igqmNmJFP8G38pwErc73zAGOhATU1ej6_UsuSbqhqsX/s1600/W020110419277682661022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFrdZLbA32lXbq5GM11IzIm0Q7JCswt5ytezXKqJ2Z37yzF3KsMpjqhsijy7o3OQdwUyeP8I1dOAxZipsTbZtElaKdl2KzaiH8igqmNmJFP8G38pwErc73zAGOhATU1ej6_UsuSbqhqsX/s320/W020110419277682661022.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A Jiangning couple, it seems, decided to celebrate their marriage “in the style of the British royal family”, with an old horse-drawn coach tarted up with “European-style lanterns” and “all kinds of delicate, European-style ornaments” to make it look “extremely classical and elegant”. Those of you who’ve spent time in China are probably already ahead of me in picturing something that wouldn’t look out of place in Michael Jackson’s ranch: there was red velvet and gold spray-paint galore, with incongruous-looking attendants in bride’s dresses, and grooms dressed like Ruritanian soldiers complete with epaulettes and bearskins. Think </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My Big, Fat, Gypsy Wedding</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> but with Chinese people. The couple were reported to have spent ¥50,000 on the event (around £5k), whose centrepiece was a large “happiness” character made up of ¥100 banknotes, and to have invited 700 friends and family.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It really shouldn’t have taken much forethought for the organizers to realize that gunpowder and equines don’t mix. When the entourage neared the venue that had been hired for the occasion, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">¥10,000-worth</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> of firecrackers (presumably “British royal family-style firecrackers”) were lit. Who was to guess that the horses would take fright at a noise that’s intended to put the fear of God into any demons who happen to be passing?</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The resulting photos, splashed across the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yangtse Evening News</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, show the terrified horses being reined in just as it looked as if the carriage would overturn. The bride was reported to have regained her composure before the procession continued on its way.</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194108160237192862.post-42782501927463901482011-04-18T13:01:00.000+01:002011-04-18T13:01:57.620+01:00Dogmeat and Rock-Ear Fungus Stew Anybody?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNXuByQjdis8AkPa2wcIfv3P4TjFD08_Xn4tFvPHfK8YAP0zpYhpWjtJ21d67vtkWFKNQXKiF6tsTJsagqbZBMoRuW30JzaOEvbg3RGtrlJU9skP7ZgTJdo8CIUtuUrsEA9kERfDWOLGAZ/s1600/3880705_195328029158_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNXuByQjdis8AkPa2wcIfv3P4TjFD08_Xn4tFvPHfK8YAP0zpYhpWjtJ21d67vtkWFKNQXKiF6tsTJsagqbZBMoRuW30JzaOEvbg3RGtrlJU9skP7ZgTJdo8CIUtuUrsEA9kERfDWOLGAZ/s1600/3880705_195328029158_2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There have been reports in today’s papers of animal-rights protestors in China stopping a lorry full of stolen canines (dare I say “hot dogs”?) headed for the pot. In typical Chinese fashion, the protestors had to buy the animals’ release. This reminded me of an ancient Buddhist tradition called </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">fangsheng</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">放生</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, in which the faithful pay to be given a trapped animal, often a turtle, and then release it into the wild. Chinese towns to this day often have a street named Fangsheng Pool Street or something similar, where this once happened. The tradition has crept back in recent years, often attached to Buddhist temples, where you can see elderly peasants sitting beside a cage of small mammals they’ve trapped out in the fields. You pay them a few </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">kuai</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> for the karmic privilege of setting a ground squirrel free (presumably to be recaptured the same night. The circle of life and all that...).</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8457736/Activists-save-dogs-destined-for-Chinese-dinner-tables.html">Telegraph</a></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> notes that the Chinese have been eating dog for centuries - it’s millennia, in fact, as I discovered in Pei County </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">沛县</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, up in Jiangsu Province, when I was travelling the Grand Canal of China for </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Emperor’s River</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">. Pei is where Liu Bang, founder of the Western Han dynasty, grew up, and legend has it that “turtle sauce dog meat” was accidentally invented by a local dog-meat butcher called Fan Kuai who was trying to stop Liu Bang from stealing his dog stew, which he’d only been able to do by crossing a river on the back of a giant turtle from heaven. I didn’t say it was plausible...</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Anyhow, to get to my point, there are records in Chinese literature from at least the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC) of recipes for dog, but it seems to have been the imperial patronage of Liu Bang which made dog stew one of the vogue dishes of the Han dynasty (the Heston Blumenthal “snail porridge” of its day, as it were). In a short piece by the Han scholar Mei Cheng </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">枚乘</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, there’s mention of a recipe which you can all try at home (if you’re willing to break countless laws on animal welfare, not to mention hygiene and health and safety, and good taste). </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><u>Dogmeat stew with rock-ear fungus</u></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Rock-ear fungus (</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">shi’er</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">石耳</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, aka </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">shanfu</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">山肤</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> or </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Umbilicaria esculenta</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">) is a rare and valuable Asian lichen. You can harvest it by being lowered down in a basket to the vertical mountainous rock-faces where it grows. As for dogs, well, they’re </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Canis lupus familiaris</span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">a domesticated form of the wolf, and can be found on any high street.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Take chunks of dogmeat on the bone from a plump, well-fed dog, and poach until cooked through. Discard the bones and chop the meat finely. Meanwhile, wash the rock-ears to get rid of any dirt and leave to soak. Combine the meat and fungus in a pot and add water and seasoning and bring to a boil. Take some rice flour, add a little water to make a paste, and pour into the soup to thicken. When the dish is ready, put the dog-meat into a serving dish and garnish with the fungus. Enjoy a true taste of the Han dynasty!</span></span></span></div>Liam 林傑http://www.blogger.com/profile/05665274781478613262noreply@blogger.com0