jenny's birtdhay 18th september; jenyn's launch 12th september

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Kai Wing

test

Kai Wing SHIU ???

Using Blogspot

Ok, in closing down shiufamily.com
You will be able to access my blog still at http://kaiwingshiu.blogspot.com/

** My blog is moving.... **

I'm closing down my domain (www.shiufamily.com)

It costs me money, I can't access it from within China (banned it seems), and I might as well move to one of the hosted sites that is accessible in China like Xanga or Multiply (free), so that I and my friends are able to see it.

Please update your links... to er, all of these? I'm not quite certain which it will be yet. But certainly by late December I'm going to shut down this shiufamily.com website, because it's up for annual renewal.

http://shanghaikai.multiply.com (i think this is the most likely one)
http://www.blogspot.com/shanghaikai
http://www.xanga.com/kaiwingshiu

If anyone knows how to export my 345 posts away from Blogger and into another hosted blog, then that would be great! So far Multiply managed to import 100 or so entries, but it's missed out my first 6 months of being in China, which arguably are some of the most interesting ones.

An end to torture confessions?

I suppose it's fair enough that my blog is banned in China.  It's not my reporting though....

FT News, Education

Stop torturing suspects to getconfessions, says prosecutor

Bill Savadove in Shanghai

399 words

21 November 2006

South China Morning Post

1

English

(c) 2006 South China Morning Post Publishers Limited, Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

A top justice official has called on mainland police to stop using torture to extract confessions - the biggest cause of wrongful verdicts - acknowledging a problem widely criticised by foreign human rights groups.

"Nearly every wrongful verdict in recent years relates to illegal interrogation," Wang Zhenchuan , a deputy procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, told a seminar in Sanya , Hainan province at the weekend. He did not define what is illegal under Chinese law, but said the government needed to do more to protect the rights of suspects by curbing torture, Xinhua said yesterday.

The mainland saw at least 30 cases annually with wrongful verdicts due to confessions extracted by torture or other coercive tactics, but the true number could be even higher, Mr Wang said. Torture methods cited by rights experts included shocks from electric batons, cigarette burns, submersion in pits of water or sewage and exposure to conditions of extreme heat or cold.

China previously denied accusations by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, following his visit to the mainland in December last year, that torture was still widely practised in the country.

"Torture is on the decline but it is still widespread," Mr Nowak said at the time.

In March, following the release of a more comprehensive report, Mr Nowak said a major problem of China's justice system was that it was largely based on obtaining confessions, especially for suspects in rural areas and for political prisoners.

"The major reason for torture and ill-treatment remains the old system, with a lot of pressure on the police to extract confessions. My particular concern is the strong interest of the system that people finally admit guilt," he said.

The mainland has launched a political campaign to halt such practices. Under regulations issued in March, interrogations in major cases, such as murder and gang-related crime, must be both video- and audio-taped.

Another procuratorial official, Chen Lianfu, head of the office with the task of fighting malfeasance, was quoted by Xinhua, saying the government needs to better enforce rules to curb illegal practices in interrogation.

He Jiahong , president of the law school at Renmin University, said China should study other countries to help develop its legal system in this regard.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

"Mumbai like Shanghai" - Not!

Infrastructure

Mumbai still miles apart from Shanghai in infrastructure

Ashish Kumar Mishra

755 words

22 November 2006

The Economic Times

English

(c) 2006 The Times of India Group. All rights reserved.

MUMBAI: A quick Google search reveals how a catchphrase became a cliche. From visions of grandeur that Shanghai conjured three years ago, Mumbai has decided that as long as the roads don't have potholes, and trains run on time and buses do the same it will be content. The dream is being held in abeyance to focus on the execution.

No one knows for certain where the cliche 'Mumbai like Shanghai' first originated. It could have been the 'Vision Mumbai' report of '03, prime minister Manmohan Singh's speech before the state polls in '04 or Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh's post election statement.

Says Dr T Chandra Shekhar, metropolitan commissioner of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), who has been associated with the 'Mumbai Shanghai dream' ever since the inception of the 'Vision Mumbai' report: "Frankly speaking, even I don't know where the phrase originated from." But he is quick to add, "The idea was about having a role model. Just as individuals have role models, in '03 we realised that the city also needs to have a role model. Duplication is unwarranted and impossible but its the spirit that matters."

For the uninitiated, the spirit is the 'pace' of development that Shanghai has witnessed over the years (As a popular joke goes, in Shanghai, you take to bed a lake and get up in the morning with a high rise).

In 1987, Shanghai was a dilapidated, financial wreck. This was at a time when Tiananmen massacre had given China a bad name. However, with Zhu Rongji's term as Mayor from 1987 to 1991, the city witnessed a vast renaissance-like improvement. "One-chop Zhu" - the nickname he earned as Mayor of Shanghai for cutting through red tape - led the development and opening up of Pudong (Shanghai's hinterland). 'If you build it they will come' was the strategy followed by Pudong since it began its development.

The city undertook 10 major infrastructural projects (including bridges, tunnels, the metro, deep-water port) as a result of which Shanghai grew at 8-10% per annum in the '90s and Pudong at around 16 and 18%. Moreover, the $40 billion investment in infrastructure changed the face of Shanghai - entire blocks were rebuilt and its roads, buildings, transport and telecom emerged as the best in the world, an international airport, a subway and a pedestrian passageway across the Huangpu River separating that area from downtown Shanghai.

Taking cue from the above model, Mumbai's planners sat with their drawing board and drafted a mega development plan for the crumbling, reeling, overburdened and bursting metropolis. That was easier said than done. Says Dr Chandra Shekhar, "By that time we realised that slums were everywhere. If you need to widen the roads there were slums, construct rail corridors there were slums, build airports there were slums. Almost all the free land in the city had been occupied by slums and there was no way in which one could bulldoze them."

And that's where came in the most burgeoning and time taking aspect of Mumbai's transition into a world class city. What followed eventually were court cases, petitions, political dictat, delays and finally a stage where delay overtook delay. That's when the planners designed the 'resettlement with a human face' concept.

Things have changed but not very much. As a senior transportation planner puts it, "The projects are crawling along." But, its also important to understand that there couldn't have been any fast forward development.

Says Dr Chandra Shekhar, "The republican government of Shanghai could pace itself through quick evacuations and compensation policies met with little resistance. But, ours is a democratic set up and any resettlement has to go through political hurdles, slum lords, petitions, court cases and a whole range of approvals." Of course, while complex R&R issues cropped up, the development process took a beating, and crawled its way through all hurdles.

So can Mumbai ever become a Shanghai? Answers Dr Chandra Shekhar with a glint in the eye, "Not Shanghai, but surely a world class city. I lay my bet on Navi Mumbai and the hinterland. Once the Trans Harbour link connectivity and the Maha SEZ come up, they will bolster our economic development and give shape to that dream." The city of Mumbai waits for its Pudong with the same eagerness as the average citizen of the city awaits the 9:14 fast to Churchgate.

The World really is Flat

I've been reading Friedman's The World is Flat recently (http://www.amazon.com/World-Flat-History-Twenty-first-Century/dp/0374292884 ).  The book talks of Amazons, e-bays, Indian accountants doing US tax returns, but so far... no mention of Columbian drug lords.

The Columbian drug barons of this world got wind of China FDI, and the Workshop of the World.  Put two and two together, and hey presto, a neat little money laundering operation.

Drug gangs launder cash in China

149 words

21 November 2006

China Economic Review - Daily Briefings

English

Copyright © 2006 China Economic Review Publishing. All Rights Reserved

Colombian drug gangs are using China as a money laundering hub, using the proceeds of their illegal activities to buy Chinese textiles, toys and electronics for resale on the domestic market, Reuters reported. The claims were made in Beijing Monday by Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos Calderon, who said the authorities were trying to engage Beijing in talks over how to stop the flow of money. Santos said Columbia was also keen to impose controls on the sale of chemicals from China that can be use to create synthetic drugs in addition to legal products. The main purpose of his visit was to negotiate a number of free trade deals aimed at boosting Chinese investment in the South American country. Colombia wants Chinese firms to use it as an export platform to sell products to countries with which Bogota has free trade deals.

Beijing has secret underground tunnels? How cool is that!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1953214,00.html

Safe enough to eat?

Poisonous eggs.  Poisonous fish.  Even poisonous KFC (earlier in the year).  And an inefficient food safety system.

In a country where the food really can't be guaranteed to be free of chemicals or even toxins, and where apples and grapes are most certainly peeled before consumption, how do I know what is safe to eat?  Maybe I should stick to plain white rice.  Oh no, even no guarantees that your brand new rice isn't actually 17 years old. (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK84420.htm )

Probably the best way forward is to avoid eating too much of any one thing. 

FT News, Education

Food scares blamed on 'multi-monitoring' Safety management system is not efficient, experts say

Alice Yan

539 words

22 November 2006

South China Morning Post

4

English

(c) 2006 South China Morning Post Publishers Limited, Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

A nebulous and inefficient safety management system overseen by multiple government departments is to blame for the mainland's regular scares relating to foodstuffs and other consumer goods, according to leading food safety experts.

Li Jianrong , a food science professor from Gongshang University in Zhejiang , said the "multi-monitoring" scheme was one of the key factors behind the many food scandals in recent years and "governments should streamline their co-ordination and improve their working efficiency".

Food and other consumer goods scares are a staple of mainland news. During the past few months, consumers have been rattled to learn of carcinogenic Sudan Red dye detected in salted duck eggs from Hebei , and high levels of carcinogens in turbot fish in Shanghai. The Sudan scandal widened yesterday when authorities announced seven more companies were found making contaminated eggs in Beijing and Hebei, Anhui , Henan , Zhejiang and Hubei .

In September, Japanese cosmetics manufacturer SK-II got into trouble with safety inspectors in Guangdong, although it was later clarified that its products were safe.

Professor Li said the safety of agricultural products and livestock was monitored by five government bodies. Provincial agriculture departments had responsibility over farm operations, quality inspection departments governed processing and packaging, industry and commerce departments monitored the market, and public health departments dealt with the food as it was consumed.

Meanwhile, the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) and its local branches were entitled to co-ordinate with other departments and monitor the whole process.

"But the SFDA seems to lack the power to motivate other government departments. The SFDA is young and was only established in the late 1990s. And it doesn't have its own key labs," he said.

Pan Jiarong , from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, agreed, saying the existing government management system was not efficient enough to supervise the mainland's complex and chaotic food market. "In many cases those government bodies are duplicated, but sometimes there are procedures which fall through the monitoring gaps."

In a renewed effort to bring order to the system, the Ministry of Commerce has drafted rules for the distribution of food products and put the proposal out for public comment until Saturday.

Wholesalers and retail food markets would be required to sign agreements with vendors defining their food quality responsibilities, and markets would be encouraged to fix links with food suppliers.

But experts said scares perpetuated by rogue manufacturers in the past couple of years did not point to a decline in mainland quality.

Professor Pan said: "From the high media exposure, maybe it is easy to conclude that the food on the market is of poorer quality. But I don't think so and I think the problematic foods about five or 10 years ago would have been about the same proportion or even greater."

China Agriculture University professor Shen Jianzhong said people were now not only concerned about the quantity of food, but also its quality. A more active media industry was an additional factor. "The media is become more transparent than before and quickly publish reports about those problems."

Fujian officials find eggs with cancer-causing dye

Mimi Lau

366 words

20 November 2006

The Standard

English

Copyright 2006 The Standard Newspapers Publishing Limited. All Rights Reserved.

A duck egg scare in Hubei province has spread south to Fujian province, with Fujian authorities discovering 6,000 chicken eggs contaminated with the carcinogenic Sudan dye.

The eggs found in Fuzhou, Fujian's capital, came from the same Hubei company that produced the tainted duck eggs.

Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety said Sunday it has yet to find out if eggs from the company are being sold in the territory.

Fuzhou health officials said they found the tainted chicken eggs to contain a higher amount of the chemical than in duck eggs.

But, instead of the red-colored Sudan 1, the dye used in the chicken eggs was Sudan 4, which is mainly used to color oils, fats, wax and grease.

The use of Sudan 4 dye is banned in food as it could cause cancer if consumed by humans over a long period.

But Fuzhou officials warned it would be difficult to tell if an egg had been dyed with Sudan 4 because a dyed egg yolk would still appear golden yellow. The chicken eggs were found to contain 0.2 milligrams to 0.3mg of Sudan 4 which was a higher dosage than found in duck eggs.

A spokesperson for Hubei company Shendan Healthy Food told TVB Sunday they were not aware of the incident. A Hong Kong egg wholesaler, Yip Tie, said he has been selling boxes of Hubei eggs to local restaurants, but did not import eggs from Shendan Healthy Food. He is worried that the dye scare may affect his business.

Other Hong Kong egg wholesalers said they have been mainly importing cheaper eggs from Shandong and Liaoning provinces in the past few years.

Eggs from the Hubei company have been taken off the shelves in Fuzhou's supermarkets.

Amid the duck egg scare last Thursday, the Guangzhou Industrial and Commercial Administration Bureau ordered a ban on the sale of fresh and salted duck eggs in markets as well as the serving of duck eggs in restaurants.

Hubei authorities have also raided seven farms, killing 5,000 ducks and destroying 300 kilograms of duck eggs.

Beijing bans sales of contaminated fish

275 words

20 November 2006

Xinhua News Agency

English

(c) Copyright 2006 Xinhua News Agency

BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Beijing banned the sale of turbot on Monday after detecting excessive amounts of carcinogens in the fish.

A 12315 hotline has been set up so that citizens can report sales of the contaminated fish, according to the municipal food security office.

Several other cities and provinces -- including Tianjin, Xi'an and Liaoning -- have also started quality inspections of turbot after Shanghai announced Friday it had detected excessive residue including nitrofuran and chloromycetin in 30 samples of turbot. The chemicals are known cancer causing agents.

The finger has been pointed at fish farmers who knowingly feed banned chemicals to the fish.

Fish markets, shopping malls, and hotels in Shanghai have stopped selling turbot following government warnings.

The eastern province of Shandong, a major turbot producing area, has taken measures to monitor turbot farms.

It has also called on local authorities to trace contaminated fish and crank up inspection efforts in the cultivation, transportation, storage and sales of turbot and other fish.

Due to their low resistance to disease, the fish, introduced from Europe in the 1990s, are sometimes fed large quantities of medicinal supplements, which leave harmful, cancer causing residue in their flesh.

The State Food and Drug Administration has ordered local offices and authorities in coastal areas including Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Liaoning, and Tianjin to closely monitor the case.

China is currently assailed by severe food security problems as suspect food products continue to come to light. Recent cases include parasite-infested snails, steroid-tainted pork and ducks and hens that were fed cancer-causing Sudan dye to make their

yolks red.     

FT News, Education

Food trail

104 words

21 November 2006

South China Morning Post

1

English

(c) 2006 South China Morning Post Publishers Limited, Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

November 2006 Chicken eggs in Fujian found to contain Sudan IV, a red dye used in industry.

November In Beijing, red-yolk salted duck eggs found to contain Sudan II, a carcinogenic red dye. Thousands of ducks culled. Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety says the city does not import the tainted eggs.

July Sudan I red dye found in food in Hunan .

March 2005 Sudan I found in mainland KFC and Heinz products.

February ParknShop removes products containing Sudan I.

February UK blacklists 360 foods made with contaminated chilli powder containing Sudan I, which originated in India.

Whistleblowers in China?

So Hofstede says Chinese are a collectivist society?  Well today there are certainly some brave individuals looking to buck the trend and stand out for their views.

Spoiling For a Fight; Successful Chinese yuppies are bumping up against their country's authoritarian system--and for the first time they're learning to stand up for their rights.
By Sarah Schafer
27 November 2006
Newsweek International
Copyright (C) 2006 Newsweek Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Former physician Chen Xiaolan has made a name for herself exposing some of the many medical quacks in China, along with their bogus cures. Last year she persuaded government officials to close down a company in southern China that was selling a bogus remedy for fevers. Chen learned about the treatment, a bunch of herbs packed into a patch for the forehead, when doctors at a Shanghai hospital convinced her aunt to purchase one.

Chen wasn't always a professional patient advocate. But when doctors foist fake remedies on vulnerable patients to pad medical bills, she takes it personally. Chen once practiced traditional Chinese medicine in her hometown of Shanghai. She made plenty of money--but in the late 1990s, Chen, now 53, discovered that her employer, a state hospital, was injecting patients with a worthless serum. After undergoing the treatment herself, she exposed the fraud. Forced out of her job, she's now a full-time whistleblower, aided financially by her family and supportive government agencies. "Before, I wasn't interested in politics or any of that stuff because [my husband and I] were living comfortably," she says. "I would have liked to have continued that peaceful and happy life, but things were a mess in the hospital, and I couldn't ignore that."

For more than two decades, the Chinese--especially the educated middle class--have lived with a great compromise. They've applauded the sweeping capitalist-style economic reforms implemented by the Communist Party, but turned a blind eye to ongoing political and social oppression. Many in China's richest cities seem content with the party's rule. Some have studied abroad and returned to earn twice as much as their peers. Others have managed to escape from the countryside to attend college. Many are simply businesspeople and professionals who, for the first time in their lives, can afford to buy cars, take vacations and buy homes. Ask many what it would take to get them to man the barricades, and they're hard pressed to come up with an answer.

But this political apathy is not a permanent condition. Increasing numbers of more privileged Chinese are bumping up against their country's authoritarian political system, especially as the government of President Hu Jintao attempts to tighten controls on the press, religion, civil society and the Internet. Many are learning, suddenly, that there's another side to the story of their nation's transformation. And they're learning something else, about themselves: some political goals are worth fighting for. Rebecca MacKinnon, cofounder of the international bloggers' network Global Voices Online, says she's seen more of these middle-class activists speaking out on her forum and others. Her network often helps bring the people behind these stories together and helps them publicize their causes. "This kind of experience really brings out the reserved strength in people," says MacKinnon.

In cities across China, for example, well-to-do Chinese have staged protests against corrupt property development. More than 70 percent of Beijingers now own homes, up from nearly zero in the early 1990s. Among the new crop of high-profile homeowner advocates is former college professor Shu Kexin, who turned his success fighting real-estate developers into a bid for election to the National People's Congress. (He lost.) Another advocate, Zou Tao, a golf-equipment dealer in Shenzhen, launched a campaign in April against rising housing costs, urging the public to "stop buying houses" and paying exorbitant prices set by developers in cahoots with local officials. Zou has received more than 100,000 letters of support from around the country. Thirty-three-year-old Yu Linggang is a successful government-relations manager for Lenovo Computer Corp. in Beijing. But he's been lobbying officials for a parcel of land on which to construct affordable housing for those less fortunate than he is. He's hoping that during next year's National People's Congress he will see some results. "My life is very good now ... I travel, I go to the gym. But this isn't enough," Yu says. "I think I should do something for society."

Some Chinese, such as Zeng Jingyan, learn at a young age that their dreams of comfort and stability might not materialize. Short and wispy with a surprisingly firm and direct way of speaking, Zeng, 22, graduated last year from People's University in Beijing with a degree in economics. As a volunteer for an AIDS organization, she met and fell in love with one of China's best-known AIDS activists, Hu Jia. The couple married soon after they met.

But even before the wedding, the relationship forced Zeng to confront her country's rigid political system. In April 2004, Beijing authorities detained Hu, now 32, upon his return from an AIDS conference in Shanghai. Zeng decided to fight, rather than hope quietly for the best. Despite stone-walling and intimidation by the police, she immediately sent word of Hu's detention to the hundreds of people on her e-mail list, which included AIDS activists, foreign press and international human-rights organizations. After 100 days, the authorities released Hu without charging him. The experience transformed Zeng, and she became a full-time rabble-rouser. "I have this idea to set up a team that will provide services for those whose loved ones are missing or detained," she says. Zeng and Hu continue to be hounded by authorities, and Zeng keeps an online journal about their experiences.

Indeed, courage such as Zeng's is already changing China. These well-educated activists are methodical, well organized and knowledgeable about their legal rights. They use the government's own rhetoric about creating a fair and lawful society against it when those rights are threatened. And they are claiming victories.

Take the recent case of chen Guangchen, a rights activist convicted in August in what supporters around the world maintained was a blatantly unfair trial. In a move almost unheard of in China, a higher court overturned the conviction earlier this month (though Chen must face a retrial). Rights activists say this proves that Beijing is listening. "This is the most important phenomenon, people taking the defense of their rights into their own hands," says Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch. "This is raising the cost of arbitrariness and unlawfulness by the government and law enforcement. These people ... just don't back down."

Last February a young woman named Nina Wu sought Zeng's counsel about her brother's detention, even though the two women had never met. In her own words, Wu, 36, had spent most of her adult life as a "comfortable little Shanghai capitalist." She put in long hours as an analyst at an investment bank, but was well compensated. She had a loving husband and a bright young daughter. She saw her country the way many Westerners see China--through the lens of the nation's glitziest and most prosperous city. Like many educated urban Chinese, she benefited from the decades of economic reforms.

But her views changed on Feb. 22 of this year, when her brother, documentary filmmaker Wu Hao, 34, was grabbed by security agents and detained. Without a word to his family, his friends or even his lawyer about where he was or why he had been arrested, the agents held him for five months. Some people thought Hao had angered authorities by filming illegal Christian church services. Others, including his lawyer, heard he was being investigated for spying.

The case turned Nina the ignorant yuppie into Nina the human-rights activist. She confronted the realities she had ignored for so long: the lack of rule of law, the party's obsession with secrecy, the government's restrictions on free speech. Though speaking out publicly against the Communist Party is still taboo, she published a detailed blog about her ordeal, describing her frustration with Chinese authorities, who dodged her questions and appeals for help.

Nina's blog was her best weapon. It attracted worldwide media attention for Hao, who was released in July. Neither he nor his sister has spoken publicly since then. And it's still unclear what Hao's alleged offense was. But Nina Wu's view of her country has changed. In one blog entry, she wrote that she worried about the nation's future. And she tried to warn her happy-go-lucky peers enjoying the good life: "You won't know the existence of the underlying rules of the game until you get in trouble with them." For many Chinese, the hard lessons are yet to come.

Get on the globalisation train - by reading global bridge blogs!

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/top/about-global-voices/

This website contains an index of blogs which are specifically about describing a country to the outside world.  Maybe I should register myself on it.

Pace Tradeoff - can China keep up with itself?

The article below is an example of how China wants to change, and does so through policy and education, but ultimately the people are not so quick to keep up with what the Government wants them to do.

The government used to be very much more prescriptive - "you jump when I tell you to jump".  But it's moving towards a more market driven and democratic system of "I'll let you decide for yourself if you want to jump or not".  Trouble is, this level of freedom looks good on paper, but there are practical issues relating to the removal of controls (think US students turning 21 and going crazy on beer), and the readiness of the wider environment (in the example below, the way patients were treated by the health system). 

REINSTATE COMPULSORY PRE-MARRIAGE MEDICAL TESTS

By Liu Shinan

709 words

22 November 2006

China Daily

English

Copyright 2006 China Daily Information Company. All rights reserved.

Vice-Minister of Health Jiang Zuojun revealed a few days ago that less than 3 per cent of China's newly-weds have a medical examination before they tie the knot. He said the rate had fallen dramatically since China scrapped the compulsory pre-marriage medical check three years ago.

China dropped its compulsory test for couples getting married in October 2003 in the new "Regulations on Marriage Registration," a move advocating increased respect for citizens' human rights and privacy. The following year, however, the rate of pre-marriage medical checks plummeted drastically. Take Beijing for example. Only 5 per cent of couples planning to get married received a medical examination. As a result, the incidence of congenital defects among newborn babies soared to 1.4 per cent. The incidence had been about 1 per cent during the six years from 1997 to 2003 in the Chinese capital.

The rate of voluntary medical check-ups is even lower in other places. In East China's Fujian Province, for example, only 0.98 per cent of newly-weds received examinations in 2004. In the same year, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province also reported a low check-up rate 0.43 per cent and a rising incidence of congenital defects.

Falling rates of pre-marriage medical checks across the country also increased the risk of AIDS and venereal diseases spreading.

The situation was so serious that Heilongjiang's people's congress passed new regulations in 2005 to resume the practice of compulsory pre-marriage medical examinations.

This is an embarrassing dilemma for the central public health authorities: Resuming the compulsory treatment would mean a kind of retrogression in civilization; but continuing the present policy would be tantamount to giving up an otherwise effective defence blocking marriage and birth-related diseases and defects.

Actually this dilemma reflects the relationship between compulsory administration on the part of the government and the voluntary action of contributing to social goodness on the part of citizens in a broader sense. Less administrative measures and more voluntary public action is certainly the ideal for good management of society and progress of civilization. Voluntary public action, however, is based on citizens' awareness of their responsibility to society. This awareness needs time to build up. For some issues, it is a slow course.

China began its compulsory pre-marriage medical examinations about 20 years ago. Over the period, Chinese citizens gradually developed a sense of obligation about pre-marriage medical examinations. And people's awareness of its importance became increasingly stronger until the time when compulsory check-ups were abolished. Why the sudden collapse, then, of people's willingness to take the test?

The easiest explanation is that people lack conscientiousness. The sudden removal of the requirement gave them the liberty to evade obligation. The final reason, however, lies in the way compulsory examinations were conducted in the past.

First, the examination was conducted in a way that put more emphasis on people's obligation than on helping them understand the importance, even the vital need, of the check-up. Examinations were done in government-designated hospitals, where doctors and nurses behaved like bureaucrats. Newly-weds were ordered about in different departments. Marriage-related health education was also conducted in a condescending manner rather than in a friendly way. Unpleasant experiences caused repulsion in the recipients of the examination.

To make things worse, the medical examination was costly. A fairly large number of, if not all, hospitals even turned it into a profit-making business. Those being forced to undergo examinations felt they were being ripped off.

Under the circumstances, people took the examination more as an obligation to the government than a necessity for their health and that of their offspring.

Given the fact that AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases have shown a tendency to spread quickly and that the worsening ecological environment has increased the risk of foetal defects, compulsory medical check-ups must be resumed.

But it should be done in a different way from the past practice. It should be free and people should be given the freedom to choose their hospital for the examination.

Email: liushinan@chinadaily.com.cn

Sophistication without complexity?

I think many companies in China are growing in sophistication.  In doing so though, the potential for them to get bogged down in reports, statistics, meetings and cross cultural misunderstanding is immense.

Finding a way to develop sophistication but still staying lean and nimble, will be a key success factor in the future for medium to large enterprises in China.

Distracted by the middle east, is the US missing out on Globalisation?

Extract From The Forgotten Battleground; Markets are supposed to be smart. So what are they trying to tell us?
By Fareed Zakaria
27 November 2006
Newsweek

"There is no way to turn off this global economy, nor should one try. Every previous expansion of global capitalism has led to greater prosperity across the world. The story of the past 100 years is one of an ever-expanding pie. But this is a massive, complex process and requires enormous focus and attention. And while other nations around the world, from China to Chile, are playing to win, the United States as a government has barely focused on any of the major challenges or opportunities that it presents. We're too busy settling disputes between Sunnis and Shiites in downtown Baghdad."

Hazardous pollution in Beijing

Apparently the smog in Beijing isn't just unsightly... it's bad for your health.  It's not great out here, but it seems quite commonplace.  I wonder how much lung cancer there is in Beijing....

My colleagues also tell me that this is nothing... there are many manufacturing towns that are far, far worse.

FT News, Education

Beijing smog hits worst level

Emerald Dong

207 words

22 November 2006

South China Morning Post

7

English

(c) 2006 South China Morning Post Publishers Limited, Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

Beijing's pollution index soared to hazardous levels yesterday as heavy fog continued to blanket northern China from Liaoning to Shandong .

The fog has cast a pall over the region since the weekend, leading to road closures and flight delays. But experts said that although pollution contributed to the grey outlook, there was no direct relationship between the density of the fog and pollution.

Pollution in the capital reached the worst level on the index yesterday, soaring to 415 for the 24 hours to noon, the China Environmental Monitoring Centre said. Readings of up to 100 are not considered a danger to health, while pollution levels above 300 are considered hazardous.

He Lifu , a meteorologist with the Central Meteorological Observatory, was quoted by the China News Service as saying the widespread, dense fog was mainly due to a drop in temperatures.

Zhao Jinghong , a weather forecaster from the Tianjin Meteorological Observatory, said fog was common in winter. "The fog aggravates the worsening air condition and the pollutants offer nuclei for fog to form around," Ms Zhao said. "But even back in the days when pollution was not so serious, the fog was still as thick as nowadays."

The dangers of contact lenses.

Leading the News: Eye-care company recalls contact-lens solution

A Wall Street Journal News Roundup

211 words

22 November 2006

The Wall Street Journal Asia

2

English

(c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. 

Advanced Medical Optics Inc. voluntarily recalled 2.9 million units of its 12-ounce Complete MoisturePLUS contact-lens solution after three lots sold in Japan were found to have bacterial contamination.

The Santa Ana, California, eye-care company said it stopped all manufacturing at its Chinese facility.

The recall comes after rival Bausch & Lomb Inc. suspended sales of MoistureLoc contact-lens solution in Singapore and Hong Kong in February and the U.S. in April. It initiated a global recall in May. Bausch later acknowledged the solution was the potential "root cause" of increased risk of a rare fungal infection.

Advanced Medical Optics said charges and costs to complete its recall are expected to be $35 million to $40 million in 2006 and 2007. The company also expects the recall to reduce revenue for the remainder of 2006 and 2007 by a total of $40 million to $45 million, as a result of expected product returns, supply shortages and temporarily lost market share.

In midday New York Stock Exchange trading, Advanced Medical Optics was at $36.01, down 8.3%.

Banned in China

Yes I'm in China.  Writing on a blog seems ok.  But it seems my blog is not accessible to people in China.

I publish both to blogspot.com and to my own domain.  My own domain used to be ok... but now it is inaccessible within China.

Kinda takes some of the fun out of it.  I'm thinking of moving elsewhere, so that I'm a little more accessible.

On 11/20/06, 子非魚 < anonymous-comment@blogger.com> wrote:

Just wonder if you are still in Shanghai, I thought Blogger has been blocked in China?

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Posted by 子非魚 to KW in Shanghai at 11/20/2006 02:10:18 PM

A new form of Drama emerges - video blogging

http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,72138-0.html?tw=rss.index

Lonelygirl15 - a new craze of TV drama - but each episode only 2 minutes long, and launched via youtube.com

Who says you need to sit in front of the TV for 40 minutes to watch Lost, or Prison Break?

WSJ Interview with Lenovo CEO about cultural differences

WSJ: What kind of cultural issues come up between the American and Chinese sides of the company?

Mr. Amelio: Every day there's something. On both sides, you need to have great trust in your colleagues to know that their intentions are good, even though the words might not come out right.

In the U.S. and Europe, we have highly opinionated executives who like to make their voices heard. The China team tends to listen more and express themselves more thoughtfully. The Americans and Europeans need to know that if a Chinese colleague is nodding silently, it doesn't mean they're agreeing. We also have a program in place to teach our China team better confrontational management skills.

The Chinese team also tends to be very, very thorough -- and sometimes when you want to get something implemented, it's important to have conciseness.

Sometimes it's great to rally the whole team around something that everybody is interested in. Last week, we had an event where we brought in the 1992 Chinese Olympic ping pong champion, and had him play our executives. Our chairman is the reigning champion [at the company].

Plea for help - car crash victims

Terrible business. 

Two very real problems here in China.  Firstly that the roads aren't that safe, what with unpredictable pedestrians, cyclists, buses, trucks, no-one wearing seatbelts, and vehicles built like the volvos of yesteryear (tanks not crumple zones).  Secondly that seemingly the national health system can't provide medical costs relating to life support for this young child.

I think this sort of plea is quite common here.  Could be because there are scams.  Could be because there are a lot of tragic things that happen in China.  Could be the lack of health & safety regulation.  Could be because with a billion people, anything and everything happens every day.  Anyway, coming via my choir, I imagine this is a very real request for help, for a not insignificant sum of money.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: IFC Shanghai <ifcshanghai@yahoo.com>
Date: Nov 13, 2006 3:08 PM
Subject: Fwd: [ifcbeijing] Please help an IFC member in need
To: IFC Shanghai <ifcshanghai@yahoo.com>

（中文请见下）

Dear IFC,

Li Yuxia, one of our sopranos, recently had a tragedy in her family
and is in dire need of financial support. We would like to call for
help of any form and magnitude among the greater IFC community.

In a car accident in early October, Li Yuxia's father was killed,
her brother and sister-in-law seriously injured and her 6-year-old
nephew left in a coma, from which he has still not waken up. With
her mother already retired and living on 1000 RMB per month, and her
nephew's parents both unable to work for at least 6 months, Li Yuxia
is now the sole wage earner in the family. She has been desperately
searching for ways to provide the 50,000 RMB per month for her
nephew's ICU and related treatment, which has complete depleted her
brother's family's savings. She herself is in the final year of her
Ph.D. studies at Peking University, which she does not want to give
up but may be forced to in order to start working full time.

So let's sing in our hearts a requiem for the dead and think in our
minds about what we can do to help the living. Cash donations would
be much appreciated, as would any advice/recommendations on how to
obtain funds, or perhaps suggestions of work opportunities (Li Yuxia
is researching English Literature and has perfect spoken/written
English). Please contact me to offer help: kholahan@wesleyan or 1350
100 1426.

Thank you very much!

亲爱的IFC同志们：

李玉霞（女高）不久前家庭遭遇不幸，现在迫切需要帮助，请IFC各位伸出援助之手。

事故总是会发生，甚至我们身边最亲的人也不放过。十一期间，李玉霞的父亲与兄嫂一
家外出，不幸遇到车祸，父亲当场身亡，兄嫂重伤，至少半年内均无法工作，而李玉霞6
岁的侄子重度昏迷，至今尚未苏醒。现在全家的收入就只有李玉霞母亲每月1000块的退
休金，兄嫂家只有很少的积蓄，对于小侄子每月5万圆左右的重症监护病房费及其它治疗
费用来说，只是�shy;水车薪。兄嫂基本上有医疗保险，而小侄子的治疗费用就全落在李玉
霞的身上了。她本人现在仍在北大读博，尽管不想就此休学，但很可能必须放弃，才能
找一个全职工作挣钱。

那么让我们心中唱着悼念死者的挽歌，脑中想想怎样帮助还活着的人吧。任何形式的帮
助都将感激不尽，不管是捐钱，还是有什么可能会有用的信息，请联系我 - 邮件:
kholahan@wesleyan.edu，或电话1350 100 1426。

多谢大家！！

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