Things in China that are probably tainted...

1. toothpaste (DEG)
   
2. dog and cat food (melamine)
3. juice (dye)
4. pigs (wastewater)
5. convenience store prepared foods (fake expiration dates)
   
6. milk powder (flour, sucrose)
7. toys (lead paint)
8. McDonald's drinks (Taihu water)
9. fish (heavy metals, hepatotoxins)
10. watermelon (tapwater)
11. cold medicine (DEG)
12. candy, pickles, crackers (formaldehyde, dyes, industrial wax)
13. Budweiser beer (counterfeit)
14. bottled water (bacteria)
    

This list started out as a joke.... but I lost my sense of humour at 14 when I had to start actually thinking of more internationally documented cases in the recent past. Feel free to add a comment if you think of any more.

Suzhou, at last

I have nothing to do until 6:00 pm tonight, so it's going to be a long day of blogging. I thought I'd start the day off on a light note with some pictures of Suzhou Lou Yuan.

Randall and I grabbed the express train to Suzhou, which was nice, but meant that we had no time to decide what we were going to do. I met a girl on the train named HeYan, who was also headed to Suzhou and she invited us to go with her to LouYuan. I had no idea what that was and we didn't have any other plans, so we followed her. After a brief stop to get train tickets - and by brief I mean long and exhausting task of waiting in a "line" - we grabbed a bus out to the other side of town, where the park is. The whole train station was a mobscene and under construction, which is unfortunate because it's normally a nice area with gardens are parks to wile away time in.



Lou Yuan turned out to mean "amusement park", a novelty in China, but an experience nonetheless. The park is built at the base of a small mountain with a lake in the middle. It wasn't terribly busy, being a Monday, so we didn't see the ferry move at all, but the power boats were running around the lake trying to scare their passengers. For about $1.50 each, we gave it a go. I have to say it was the only thing I did all day that made me feel nervous, but hey, the driver wasn't wearing a life jacket, so it must be safe... As a sidenote, most Chinese people do not know how to swim. I always found this interesting considering how inseparable I was from the water growing up in a "cold" country.



One of the first things we did was go on the Chinese version of Wonderland's Top Gun, which was the biggest ride in the park. I seemed a little longer than the Canadian version but it didn't go as fast or have long drops. HeYan was pretty excited, I think. This picture is taken just outside that ride. HeYan is watching me try to figure out what the water wheel does. After much experimentation, I discovered that the waterwheel actually does nothing.



Randall and me outside the waterfall...



This is a picture of me riding an ant in Carrot Village... I should mention Carrot Village is designed for three year olds, so I will not post the pictures of me getting stuck in the tunnel network because I refused to obey the recommended age limit. I imagine, however, you'll find them on Randall's blog in the near future.



Following this we went on several more rides, all of which had no lines at all, surprisingly enough. Bumper cars was fun. Apparently, the Chinese are slightly confused about when it is acceptable to hit other people with your car... Then we took a cable car up the mountain. These are some nice views of the area and the park.







Randall stitched together this panorama of the park...



We then opted not to take the easy way down and took this parasail dealy thing down. This was actually far less terrifyingly dangerous than it looks. Thankfully. They took a picture of us and laminated into a car for HeYan. After that we were a little tired and totally starving, so we headed back to town to find a small restaurant to have some local dishes. That was one of the better meals I've had, with some awesome spicy baked tofu, sweet and sour fish, smoked fish, soy shrimp and yummy vegetables. No pictures of that meal though.



From there we headed back to the mess of a train station and tried to hire a motorcycle cab to take us around to see some interesting things near the station, but they wanted too much money cause they thought we were idiot tourists, so we gave up and grabbed some ice cream in KFC. Not a great conclusion, but I got to practice my Chinese with HeYan. We grabbed the train back and headed home.

mmmmm... safe...

I saw the following story in the news today. We all remember the cat and dog food scandal that went on in March. Turns out the company was cutting rice protein concentrate with melamine - the stuff they paste onto particle board to make faux wood table. After that we had the toothpaste scandal, where they somehow got diethylene glycol into a number of toothpaste brands. Coincidentally, DEG is sometimes used as a substitute for glycerine in drugs. Of course, typical Chinese style, the government immediately claimed that the levels were far below the safe limit. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? This has also happened with fish, pigs, juice dye and more recently Thomas the Tank Engine's paint.

I've had Chinese people tell me to be careful of the Kedi convenience stores because they lie about the expiration dates on food.

So where does this leave us?

A new list! Things in China that could be tainted. Coming soon. Until then, here's the article from the Globe and Mail which outlines how a government official has finally admitted that unsafe products are a problem and explains how they are "paying great attention to the problem" and allowing the suspects to escape detention. Somehow, despite the variety of products being given to American prisoners and pets alike, Wang Xinpei still seems to believe that the quality of China's products can be said to be "guaranteed". Can be said to be guaranteed? Of course they can be said to be safe - like my landlord says that my washing machine works, that is, unless you want to use it to wash things made of cloth...

China says safety of exports 'guaranteed'

AUDRA ANG

Associated Press

June 28, 2007 at 2:46 AM EDT

BEIJING — A government spokesman guaranteed the safety of Chinese exports on Thursday in a rare direct commentary on rising international fears over Chinese products.

Wang Xinpei, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, said China “has paid great attention” to the issue, especially food products because it concerns people's health.

“It can be said that the quality of China's exports all are guaranteed,” Mr. Wang told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing.

The statement was among Beijing's most public assertions of the safety of its exports since they came under scrutiny earlier this year with the deaths of dog and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine.

Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe colour additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

Chinese-made toothpaste also has been banned by numerous countries in North and South America and Asia for containing diethylene glycol, or DEG, a chemical often found in antifreeze. It is also a low-cost — and sometimes deadly — substitute for glycerin, a sweetener in many drugs.

On Wednesday, three Japanese importers recalled millions of Chinese-made travel toothpaste sets, many sold to inns and hotels, after they were found to contain as much as 6.2 per cent of diethylene glycol.

Mr. Wang said Chinese experts have already “explained the situation.”

He gave no details, although the country's quality watchdog has in past cited tests from 2000 that it said showed toothpaste containing less than 15.6 per cent diethylene glycol was harmless to humans.

The New York Times reported early Thursday that about 900,000 tubes of tainted Chinese toothpaste have been distributed in the United States, showing up in correctional facilities and some hospitals.

Officials in Georgia and North Carolina told the Times there had been no illnesses reported, and that the toothpaste in question was being replaced with brands not manufactured in China.

Earlier this month, a spokesman for North Carolina's Department of Correction said Pacific brand toothpaste was distributed to prisoners who could not afford to buy a name brand at prison stores. The tubes were taken away after trace amounts of DEG was found in them.

Also Thursday, state media said Beijing police raided a village where live pigs were force-fed wastewater to boost their weight before slaughter, underscoring the country's chronic food safety problems.

Plastic pipes had been forced down the pigs' throats and villagers had pumped each 220-pound pig with 44 pounds of wastewater, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

Paperwork showed the pigs were headed for one of Beijing's main slaughterhouses and stamps on their ears indicated that they already had been through quarantine and inspection, the paper said. Suspects escaped during Wednesday's raid and no arrests were made, it said.

The case underscored China's chaotic food safety situation, where manufacturers and distributors often use unapproved additives, falsify expiration dates or find other methods of cutting corners to eke out small profits.

Earlier this week, inspectors announced they had closed 180 food factories nationwide in the first half of this year and seized tons of candy, pickles, crackers and seafood tainted with formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax.

“These are not isolated cases,” Han Yi, an official with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, was quoted as saying in Wednesday's state-run China Daily newspaper.

Mr. Han's admission was significant because the agency has said in the past that safety violations were the work of a few rogue operators — a claim aimed at protecting China's billions of dollars of food exports.

Skiing in Shanghai

As promised, I have some pictures of us skiing in Shanghai. I was a little less prepared this time, what with it being summer and not having any winter clothes. As with last time, it was 35 C outside and 1 or 2 C inside. The gear gets used a lot, so I had holes in my gloves and boots. At the end of the three hours I was ready to go home.



Randall took this picture from the top of the hill. Obviously not the most challenging of hills, but good for beginners, of which there were many. It's a bit of a novelty to go skiing in a place that never sees snow indoors when it's 35 C outside, but nonetheless fun. Despite the fact that the snow is made of ice shavings and they were melting, I did not fall on my ass.





Angie and I.

Conversations with the Chinese... part 2

Buying a T-Shirt

Alex: Hey, Jess, what do you think of this shirt?
Me: It's cool, but it looks a little small. Do they have any other sizes?
Alex: I don't know, but it's cheap.
Me to the salesgirls: (in chinese) Excuse me, what sizes do you have?
Salesgirl 1 (both girls talking at the same time): *points to the sign* (chinese) 19 kuai.
Salesgirl 2: *points to the changeroom* (chinese) In the back.
Alex: *laughs*
Me (very slowly): *sighs* (chinese) No, listen carefully. What - sizes - do - you - have?
Salesgirl 2: (chinese) Aaaaaaaaa. One size.
Salesgirl 1: (chinese) I think you can try.

What good is speaking Chinese if the person who need to communicate with has already decided they're not going to understand you and therefore are not going to bother listening?

Buying Ice Cream
(in Chinese)

Me: What flavour is this?
Old lady: 2 kuai.
Me: No, what flavour is this?
Old lady: 2 kuai.
Me: Yes, I understand, but I can't read Chinese and I want to know what flavour ice cream this is.
Old lady: 2 kuai.
Me: Is this banana? Is it strawberry? Green tea flavour?
Old lady: 2 kuai.
Me: Do you speak Chinese?
Old lady: 2 kuai.
Me: *sighs and tries to decode the packaging*
Old lady (to a younger girl): The foreigners can't understand. Come here.
Young girl: (in english) What you need?
Me: (in english) What flavour is this? Is it strawberry?
Young girl: *points to sign* This! 2 kuai.
Me: Yes, I know. *points to ice cream* What - is - this?
Old lady: Ai you! 2 kuai!

It was banana... and she couldn't understand why I only wanted to buy one...

the heat sets in

The Wuxi summer has set in. Yesterday was around 30 C, 39 C with the humidex. When I thought I was going to die, it poured rain for 15 minutes and that cooled everything down. Today is hotter, around 34 C and 45 C with the humidex, though more sunny. Today the sky is blue for the first time since I've been here. We also have a bit of a breeze. Perfect day for the beach, if I weren't working.

Got my tickets for skiing tomorrow.

scavenging, babies, nods, skiing, gangs, welder

The water in Wuxi is still not safe to drink, but people are using it in the restaurants and some of us are getting sick. This has of course resulted in lunchtime scavenging - this is what I do at 12 pm every day. I wander around looking for things that won't make me sick. I go to the convenience store, buy a package of instant noodles, find some triangular rice wrapped in nori and marked with something that doesn't look like the word for meat, or something that vaguely resembles a salad and has an expiry date in the future. Sometimes I talk to the guys in the watermelon tent, though they have a tendency to shoot the melons up with unclean water to make them taste juicier.

Today the watermelon guy was holding a bare-assed baby, classic Chinese-style. Cutting a slit in your baby's pants is a lot cheaper than diapers. Unfortunately, as the large bruise covering his entire bottom testifies, diapers do have other purposes. As a side note, this year in the complicated Chinese calendar/zodiac is especially lucky for having children. That means that more babies will be born this year than any other year. This will create an entirely cultural baby boom and this cohort will doubly suffer the consequences of overpopulation. Best gift you can give a child...

I saw another foreigner today on my way to work. I gave him the nod. That nod you give other people with shared experiences. Oddly enough, he looked confused. There was no return nod. So either he thought I was hitting on him, or he's new.

Might go to Shanghai on Monday to go skiing in the indoor hill with Angie. Pictures of that to come, I imagine. Still don't have pictures of Suzhou. Will really try to do that tonight. Maybe.

Finally, here's a story from The Australian about a major gang operation in Tangshan being shut down by the police. Took them long enough. There are probably three more waiting to take its place. This is China, after all.

Chinese nab gang of armed thugs
Rowan Callick, China correspondent
June 22, 2007

THE Chinese media have reported the biggest armed gang bust since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.

Yang Shukuan, 39, was a proud member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of Tangshan city and chairman of the Huayun business group. At the same time, he led a gang of 40 thugs who drove four armoured cars around the streets, and wielded 38 guns, often in public.

Niu Xiangyang, a spokesman for the Communist Party's law commission in Hebei province, where Tangshan is located, just east of Beijing, said: "Police call this case the biggest crime involving firearms since the founding of the state."

Described in some reports as a "drug addict" and womaniser who forced a crony's wife to become his mistress, Yang now faces charges of extortion and illegal possession of firearms.

After he was taken into custody, officials in Tangshan, a city of seven million, struggled to explain how he was able to act so brazenly - "patrolling" the streets with his fleet of camouflage-painted vehicles and three other cars with military licence plates. He once beat two police officers so savagely they needed hospital treatment.

The city authorities have now claimed that he was able to develop his empire and operate so openly because he had bribed a single police officer - a deputy chief of the Tangshan Public Security Bureau - with money and a car.

The story has riveted the nation, in part because it reveals how small the gap can be in modern China between gangland crime, civic corruption and the routine worlds of officialdom andbusiness.

Yang built a mining empire around Tangshan - devastated by an earthquake 31 years ago - by threatening owners with guns, forcing them to sell for a pittance.

In one instance, an owner held out for a higher price, but eventually signed his iron ore mine over after Yang and his cronies forced their way into hishouse and fired shots into the ceiling.

The Guangzhou Daily reported that Yang also "borrowed" $80million from Tangshan businesses in deals cemented by armed threats.

Yang was eventually exposed by a hitman whom he had hired to kill a real estate developer who had been attempting to claw back from Yang $11 million he had invested with Huayun.

But an unofficial source said the gang was finally closed down when members beat a relative of a senior cadre in the central Government in Beijing.



This is a picture from the Globe and Mail of the wonderful safety precautions taken by a welder in China. Apparently he is unaware that paper is flammable.

Things I do in China to stay sane...

1. blog
2. make lists
3. blog about lists
4. watch entire seasons of tv shows at work
5. read every newspaper I can
6. buy liquid yogurt every day
7. call Chinese girls fat/African/Japanese and revel in their amusing responses
8. have discussions about what is living in a Chinese person's weird and/or large hair
9. decide which animal/creature/celebrity a Chinese person most closely resembles
10. incorporate the word "China" or the word "hen" (chinese word for "very") into every English word as in "hen-spensive" or "China-sperience" or "China-dventure" or "China-cabulary" or "hen-tastic"
11. go to the salon for unnecessary beauty treatments, because well, I can afford it
12. rename students
13. go to the bar every day, often just to say hi

Questions

In China, many people are very curious about foreigners, largely because they don't know anything about them and have never met any of this fluffy white breed. When you learn some Chinese, you find yourself able to converse with them. However, they all want to have the same conversation, which is creates an interesting phenomenon - the more Chinese you speak, the more you pretend that you can't speak any at all. Here are the ten questions every Chinese person asks (in Chinese):

1. What country are you from?
2. What's your job?
3. Where do you live?
4. How long have you been here?
5. When are you going back?
6. Can you speak Chinese (after a 2 minute conversation in Chinese)
7. You're very beautiful/white/tall/fat, aren't you?
8. Do you know ?
9. How old are you?
10. Can I have your mobile number?
    

Conversations with the Chinese... part 1

This is the first part of a series where I will detail conversations I have with Chinese people while going about my daily business. My mandarin is not the best, I will admit, however the few things I can say, I'm pretty good at and most Chinese understand me, if they are listening...

At Starbucks...

Scene: Alex and I are sitting at a table out front enjoying our drinks and chatting. A Chinese man grabs a seat at our table to stare at us and carefully study my Starbucks receipt.

Him: Helllllloooooooooooo? Heeeeeeello?
Me: *ignores him*
Him: aaaaahhhh.... ta ting bu dong (she doesn't understand)
Me: *enjoys caffeinated beverage*
Another Chinese man comes over to watch.
Him: Ni zhu zai nali a? (where do you live?) Ni shi na guo ren? (what country are you from?)
Alex: ting bu dong (I don't understand)
Him (to the second man): ooooooo ta ting de dong! (she understands!)
Alex: *laughs*
Me: *further enjoys caffeinated beverage while pretending not to understand so as to avoid having the same conversation I have with every Chinese person*

Things there are a million of in China (other than humans, animals, diseases, etc.)

1. Persistent beggars.
2. Sweaty middle-aged men with their shirts rolled up to their armpits.
3. Sweaty middle-aged men who severely over-estimate their dancing skills.
4. Moments in a week I wonder what is living in a Chinese person's weird hairdo.
5. Days the tea eggs have been sitting in the Kedi (convenience store).
6. Taxis who believe that if they follow you long enough, eventually you'll want a ride.
7. Hunched-over little old ladies with squinty eyes and no teeth.
8. Wedding photo shops.
9. People who follow you around taking your garbage.
10. Layers of packaging.
11. People who hand you advertising for things you cannot identify and would never need or want to buy, e.g. skin whitening cream.
12. Resumes that have one's beer drinking abilities listed under the "skills" section.
13. People who feel that 6 am is an appropriate time to test their brakes.
14. Broken things.
15. People involved in the business of buying and selling broken things.
16. Useless and/or ignored traffic/street signs.
17. Christmas decorations - at any time of the year.
18. Gaudy light displays.
19. Bad pop songs.
20. Remarkably dangerous construction sites with absolutely no safety precautions of any kind.
21. Socially acceptable homosexual advances between friends. Yay China!
22. Street cleaners blaring kids' music to warn you that you are about to get wet - especially at 3 am.
23. People who order steamed milk at Starbucks so they can be seen drinking expensive foreign "coffee".
24. Stealth-attack photographers, i.e. Chinese people with cellphone cameras trying to look inconspicuous.
25. Babies with mohawks and cellulose.
26. Large sewage-filled holes.
27. People who don't believe my sister and I are related, but do believe we are the same person.

blog, water, Suzhou, lists

So, recently, I've been able to access a bunch of blocked sites through a convenient proxy add-on to Firefox. This has meant a variety of time spent on Wikipedia learning about random stuff, but mostly looking at articles about China. I highly recommend the article on Chinese prostitution. Very informative. At any rate, I can no longer access my own or anyone else's blogspot blog through proxies. Damn Chinese government foiling me again. I must be really dangerous to Chinese national security with my democratic clean-water loving views.

Moving on. The water is still not safe for consumption, even though most Chinese are back to using it per normal. This includes most restaurants, which I found out the hard way. Back to using bottled water and instant noodles for lunch. Ick. Kraft dinner is looking good these days.

Went to Suzhou on Monday. Met a nice girl on the train who Randall and I ended up spending the day with. We had no idea where to go and she invited us to come to a place called Lou Yuan with her. I couldn't find it in the guidebook so I had no idea what it was and we took a chance and went for it. It took about 30 minutes to get there by bus and the town was crowded for a Monday. Turned out Lou Yuan was an amusement park like Wonderland except smaller and much less crowded and no lines. Some of the rides had extra fees, but what the hell, we had fun. I'll post some pictures tomorrow once Randall, the photographer, gives them to me.

On Tuesday, Alex and I got up and went for lunch where she got a free mango shake in a soup bowl and then we went to Starbucks to make observational lists about China. Since making these lists was so enjoyable, I intend to make it a new topic, like job of the week, which I've basically exhausted. I also intend to make a new topic called conversations with the Chinese detailing conversations I've had recently.

Things you can do in China that you can't do in Canada

1. Keep asking McDonalds' employees for more sauce.
2. Take a shortcut to your apartment building through a high security area.
3. Wear a tiara to work.
4. Play with your food in restaurants, especially expensive ones.
5. Eat ice cream for every meal.
6. Steal floral displays.
7. Fire people you don't employ.
8. Take things from children.
9. Go to work drunk/hungover/still drinking.
10. Watch a entire TV series season or movie trilogy at work - in one day.
11. Get cranky when your boss wakes you up at work and then have him apologize.
12. Blatantly ignore all security guards especially when they tell you that you are not allowed to do something or go somewhere, as in #2.
13. Pretend not to speak English or Chinese to avoid having conversations.
14. Tease beggars.
15. Bribe construction workers to wait until after ou wake up to start drilling through the wall of the apartment below yours.
16. Use the national currency as toilet paper... because it's cheaper than toilet paper.
17. Demand a bar be closed early so that you can take the staff out for barbeque.
18. Demand the bar stay open because you are no finished drinking yet.
19. Call the booking girl an African because she gave you another lesson to teach.
20. Groom yourself in McDonald's or KFC.
21. Have lengthy meaningful discussions about your bowel movements as part of any decision making process.
22. Give out medical advice to grocery shoppers.
23. Have arguments about whether your food has positive or negative qi.
24. Dance on the bar, or the DJ booth, or the stage, or the speakers, or the tables, or really anywhere you want.
25. Make your boss dance with you on any or all of the above.
    

the story gets longer

I keep coming across bits and pieces of information about the water problem. Every piece seems to make the puzzle that much bigger and more complex. I was doing some research this morning using english google, forums, youtube and the University of Guelph journal databases, which are beyond the Chinese government's control. Everything I read requires me to do more research and I'm finding myself a bit overwhelmed with all the information. I'll probably have a paper written by the end of the summer. I guess that's my summer project. Maybe I can get some credit for it, though I can't imagine it being all that useful for a BA student. At any rate, I have a stack of journal articles documenting research that has been conducted on Taihu. Some as recent as a few months ago and much of it done this past December. I've only bothered with articles published in foreign journals as I don't trust anything the Chinese government has control over.

Over the next few days I'm going to read them in detail and then summarize the main points. Basically the journals I've found deal mostly with the pollution in the water and the algal blooms cause by the pollution. From the abstract, it's quite clear that the food from the lake - fish, shrimp, snails, etc - are quite contaminated with hepatotoxins - the ones that can cause liver damage in humans. It would also seem that these toxins are transmitted to the next generation. This means that even if the water were clean tomorrow, the lakefood would not be safe for consumption for some time to come. More on that soon.

It's also come to my attention that there was a similar problem in Xiamen, resulting from a government economic plan. Public demonstrations followed and the government decided to temporarily suspend the program. I will have to look at this more, but needless to say, this problem is not limited to Wuxi.

I also came across some stuff about the use of pesticides and the fact that a large percentage of industrial and residential sewage is dumped into the lake untreated. However, according to the government, Wuxi has exceeded the goal set out in the most recent five year plan for sewage treatment. More on that to come.

I have been told of a man named Wu LiHong, an environmentalist who spoke about the severity of Tai lake's water and was arrested in April for saying that the water quality in Taihu was worse due to pollution. He currently stands trial in Yixing for blackmail and extortion. However, his trial has apparently been suspended under allegations of torture during his interrogation. The following is what I have been able to find online. There's probably a lot more to the story that has not been reported.

Pacific Environment

South China Morning Post
August 23rd, 2006

May 29, 2006
By Minnie Chan

Eco-warrior Wu Lihong has made it his life’s mission to clean up Tai Lake.

The native of Zhoutie township in Yixing, Jiangsu, has spent the past 16 years encouraging polluting factories and bureaucrats to clean up the shores and water of the once-beautiful lake-China’s third largest body of fresh water.

The lake-on the border between Jaingsu and Zhejiang provinces-has gone from being a water jewel and life source for millions of people to a cesspit of pollution-the result of economic growth and effluent from more than 2000 chemical factories.

“Everybody knows ‘the beauty of Tai Lake comes from its clear water,’ as it was described in a famous folk song from the Yangtze River delta,” said Mr. Wu, 38. “But the beautiful scenery has gone now. Everything has become a dream.”

Mr. Wu remembers swimming and catching water fowl in the lake when he was a boy. But in Caoqiao River-one of the waterways that flows into Tai Lake-levels of heavy metals are now eight times the official limit.

“It is shameful that we can’t drink water from the lake,” Mr. Wu said. “The chemical factories and local government officials should be blamed. I want them to admit their responsibility so we will have clean drinking water again.”

“Government officials are reaping the benfits of Tia Lake left to us by our ancestors. But these benefits also belong to our future generations. I want to stop pollution an dmake them give us back clean water.”

He says he feels worn out: “I am exhausted both physically and mentally from fighting such a big group for so long. The businesses on the frontline of the battle back the backing of local government officials.”

Over the years, Mr. Wu has spent more than 400,000 yuan ($50,000) of his own savings to finance his one-man crusade against pollution of the lake and he lost his job after his boss said he was warned by local officials to fire him.

He feels frustrated over his lack of progress, but says he might join forces with other activists by setting up a foundation to save Tai lake and its rivers.

Last November, Mr. Wu was chosen as one of China’s top 10 environmentalists by a panel of judges from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and National People’s Congress and was honored at a ceremony held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. However, the recognition did not make Mr. Wu’s work easier and instead local officials say behind his back that the award has made him even crazier.

Shen Jianjiang, director of the Yixing Environmental Protection Bureau said he knew nothing about the award.

“I don’t know anything about Mr. Wu’s award because he has never talked about it. He is only interested in filing reports to officials above us. If you want me to commend him…sorry, I can only say I will not do that,” Mr. Shen said.

Bypassing the local bureaucracy and filing reports to higher-level government officials has been the key to Mr. Wu’s limited success. Since the mid-1990s, more than 200 polluting factories have been closed, thanks in part to Mr. Wu’s efforts.

The former sound-proofing equipment salesman said his crusade has cost his family dearly. His wife lost her job and his daughter has received anonymous threatening phone calls.

“My wife lost her laboratory technician’s job when the chemical factory she worked in closed down in 1998 because of my report,” said Mr. Wu, who was beaten three times by thugs in 2003 and had two ribs broken.

His daughter even questioned his crusade. “She always used to ask me whether I was a bad guy because she had seen me being taken away by the police several times. In school she was taught that only bad guys got detained. She was confused because her neighbors told her that her father was a good person”

But with more than 100 chemical factories still localed in Zhoutie township-many of them still pumping ink-like discharges into Tai Lake everyday- Mr. Wu said he could not give up.

Showing a bottle of dirty water taken from a chemical factory’s discharge channel, he said he had no idea when Tai Lake could regain its former beauty. “I don’t know whether it will work, but I cannot think of surrendering easily,” he said.

People's Daily
June 7, 2007

Yixing city prosecutors in east China's Jiangsu Province have charged Wu Lihong, who was once nominated as one of China's top ten environmentalists, with blackmail, sources with the local people's procuratorate said Wednesday.

Arrested in April, Wu was alleged to have extorted 55,000 yuan (about 6,875 U.S. dollars) from enterprises by threatening to expose how they were polluting the environment, according to the prosecutors.

The Yixing people's court has yet to set a date for the trial.

Prosecutors said Wu's diary detailed a list of blackmail targets and showed amounts of money he had planed to extort from each factory or enterprise involved in pollution.

Wu led a campaign to clean up the Taihu Lake, which is now so polluted that water supplies had to be cut to two million people in Wuxi city in late May.

Wu was hailed as an eco-warrior for spending years and all his money to expose and report on contaminating factories. The provincial environmental administration of Jiangsu recommended Wu for national honors for his advocacy work in 2005.

"If I become one of the 'Top Ten Environmentalists', it proves that my long-time environmental efforts have been worthwhile," said Wu at the time of his nomination.

Zhang Lijun, vice head of the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA), said on Tuesday that Wu was reported to be involved in illegal activities but added that "environmental protection departments always regard environment advocates as allies."

Shanghai Daily
June 7, 2007

Environmental activist charged with blackmail

YIXING City prosecutors in Jiangsu Province have charged Wu Lihong, who was once nominated as one of the nation's top 10 environmentalists, with blackmail, sources with the local people's procuratorate said yesterday.

Arrested in April, Wu allegedly extorted 55,000 yuan (US$7,205) from enterprises by threatening to expose how they were polluting the environment, according to the prosecutors.

The Yixing people's court has yet to set a trial date.

Prosecutors said Wu's diary detailed a list of blackmail targets and showed amounts of money he had planed to extort from each factory or enterprise involved in pollution.

Wu led a campaign to clean up Taihu Lake, which is now so polluted that water supplies had to be cut to two million people in Wuxi City in late May.

Wu was hailed as an eco-warrior for spending years and his own money to expose and report on contaminating factories. The provincial environmental administration of Jiangsu recommended Wu for national honors for his advocacy work in 2005.

The Shanghai Daily reported on June 8 that a man from Wuxi will spend 10 days in prison for texting his entire contact list with information about the water problem when it first came available and warning them not to drink the water. He apparently texted some 130 or so people, which the government wasn't terribly pleased about. Ironically, the "rumour" he's talking about is true. Though I can't verify the number as I don't know the "safe" limit, I do know that the toxins produced by the algae are 200 times more toxic than cyanide.

Here's the story:

Person detained on Taihu rumors

WUXI police detained a person on Wednesday for spreading rumors that Taihu Lake contains excessive levels of carcinogens.

The sender, identified only as Ding, began sending short messages to more than 130 Wuxi residents on May 31. The messages claimed the carcinogens in Taihu Lake exceeded the standard by 200 times. The messages caused panic among residents. Ding faces a 10-day detention for disturbing public order. Taihu Lake was polluted by blue-green algae last week, threatening the drinking water of two million people.

I will add more to this after I get a chance to do some more research on Mr. Wu, the uprising of sorts in Xiamen and the journal articles about the water pollution in Tai Lake.

Chinese Job of the Week - TaiChouHu style

For a few days there, the Chinese government liked me. Alas, I am blocked again...

Okay, so more gossip:

1. the government has said in various press releases that the water has been fine since June 2 and the standards of safety have been achieved or surpassed in all four of the water treatment plants.

2. an official demonstrated the water safety by drinking a cup of water in front of a large group of people, potentially on tv... he was later rushed to hospital with a severe skin rash and likely other problems.

3. the people in charge of this whole thing have been let go and will be replaced with a new bunch of people who will take bribes from coporations to illegally dump toxic waste in the water.

4. the China Daily newspaper has reported that the government is no longer going to issue new permits for plants or factories to be built or operate near Taihu.

Some of the above may be true.

For a more interactive look at the water problem, I would like to draw your attention to the following youtube video posted by one of Wuxi's laowai.



Some things I would like to point out:

1. It's all very very green.

2. The floating orange barriers do nothing to prevent the spread of algae since it lives all through the water, espcially on the bottom of the lake. In fact, the best way to deal with the algae is to replace the soil on the lake bottom.

3. Skimming the water to remove the floating algae is also a huge waste of time and as a result wins the first Chinese Job of the Week award since I've been back this summer. Congrats guys.

4. I have no idea what the guy is doing at the end, but I thank him for his video.

running short... of patience

Yesterday, the water started to smell better, well chlorine being better. So, I spent the day running the tap to clear out the old water and refresh the hot water tank.
And, I finally had a nice long shower... Everything was lovely....

Then I talked to Alex and the other foreign teachers. They'd been talking to one of the students who happens to work for the company that does the water testing for TaiChouHu. She said, quite frankly, which is unusual, that the water is so bad, it cannot get better for a long time, that the stuff they are dumping into the water is far more toxic than the water was to begin with and that she is moving herself and her daughter out of Wuxi because she's afraid to touch the stuff at all. Then she said she wasn't allowed to say any more and warned us not to touch the water for any reason.

So, I'm back to sponge baths.

Except, the government is telling people that the water is fine and many people are starting to believe that the better smelling water is safe. Right now, most restaurants are using bottled water to cook and clean with. But with most people believing it's safe now, when the government says that the water is safe again, everyone is going to go back to using it for everything, including consumption. Since we rely on restaurants for food, as we don't have much of a kitchen, this is a significant problem.

Thus, we have two choices: eat only that which can be microwaved, or leave town.

*I sincerely urge anyone in Wuxi who has children or is pregnant or breastfeeding to leave now, as quickly as possible, and not come back.*

Environmental hippyness aside, you really don't appreciate how precious water is until you lose it. You'd be amazed how many different ways your life is affected when you don't have any.

mei you shui

So, to make the water situation worse, yesterday they cut off the water to our building completely, or the water pressure was so low from the flushing that we couldn't get anything. Despite the fact that we don't use it for washing or drinking or cleaning, we do use it for the toilet. This situation was beginning to worry me. We made some rules about what was and was not acceptable usage of the toilet under these conditions and hoped that eventually it would flush itself.

Our next door neighbours, who just moved in next door, gave us a water cooler jug of water. Those things have jumped in price from 7 RMB last week to more than 100 RMB this week. So, it was more than a kind gesture. We told their son he was welcome any time to come over and practise his english. They invited us for dinner.

After my sponge bath in bottled water for the third day in a row - I washed my hair in a bucket two nights ago - we went out to the bar. I was feeling sick from some rice that was probably cooked in taihu water, so we didn't party too hard.

Fortunately, this morning we have the bare minimum of pressure. By bare minimum I mean I can flush the toilet once an hour. We're filling up all our buckets just in case though. I really can't imagine what's going to go wrong next. If we start losing power, I'm going to die of boredom though.

On a positive note, let me tell you about my egg sandwich. I've been living off instant noodles and bottled water, because it's the only thing you can guarantee to be safe, as most restaurants and staying open and using the bad water. Thank you newspaper for telling everyone it's safe. Anyway, I decided to get up early and get the only sandwich I can eat at MacDonald's (vegetarian) - the egg sandwich. I was successfully able to communicate that I didn't want ketchup or mayo but that I did like cheese. They made it for me right away, and because I was in a rush they didn't overcook it. What I ended up with was perfectly cooked extra-cheesy breakfast sandwich with no gross fatty sauces. They also gave me a cup of coffee, because, obviously, a coffee and sandwich is cheaper than just buying the sandwich on its own. I know that they've been using the water, but I also know that some areas of town have clean water again or were unaffected from the start. My dilemma is: should I drink the coffee? I have a limited amount of time to make my decision before it gets cold....

oops...

Apparently, I pissed off the Chinese government, because they've blocked my blog. This means that I can still post to my blog but I can't actually see it... Anyone reading from Canada should be able to access it with no problems. I just thought I'd point it out.

Actually, it's very common for blogspot to get blocked, despite being a google partner, and in consideration of the agreements google has with China. In any event, I suspect that it'll be back up and running again in a few days or weeks. It's just a matter of time.

I can still post, so nothing to worry about.

On the water situation, it's still horrible, but I did wash my hair in a bucket last night and had a lovely sponge bath this morning in bottled water.