Slices Of Life

[Raoul Duke]

What's really scary is that I've been in China long enough that neither of these seem particularly abnormal to me.

Dog-cooking, tree-taking school-burner may lose job
Fri Jul 21, 8:37 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said Friday.

Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burned down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.

"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.

"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added.

But the plan went awry when the dog being cooked burst into flames and set fire to the school's main office and then the classrooms.

The local education bureau fined the headmaster 10,000 yuan ($1,252) and suggested he be fired, the newspaper said.



Vegetables to get Olympic identity codes
Wed Jul 19, 8:08 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - As if China didn't have its hands full keeping tabs on its 1.3 billion people, the country will now begin tracking its vegetables.

In an attempt to ensure food safety during the 2008 Olympics, Beijing is to give every cabbage, carrot and pea pod its own identity number and file, the Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

If there is a "safety incident" the vegetable's file can be immediately checked and its origins traced, the newspaper said, in a report accompanied by graphics showing personnel at computers tracking each vegetable's path from farm to plate.

"Safety incidents" was a likely reference to pesticide or pollutants in the soil. The environment group Greenpeace has found banned pesticides and excessive levels of other chemicals in vegetables supplied from China.

"After going through inspections at the distribution center, standard and qualified vegetables can enter Olympic kitchens," the Beijing News report said.

The city will need more than 5,000 tonnes of vegetables during the Olympics, mostly from Beijing and the northern Chinese provinces of Hebei and Shandong.

The report made no mention of fruit.

[woza17]

I like that they suggest he be fired.
Roaul are you are up early or home late?

[teleplayer]

Interesting you should bring this up, Laoban.
Following Ajarn's product thread and you present this....
Have you used "Chinese Magic Chalk?" It's also known as "Miraculous Insecticide Chalk." Looks like chalk you would write with but it's a pesticide that you would run around door thresholds, window seals, holes where plumbing comes into house and it stops entry of and/or kills ants, cockroaches, etc.
It's made in Fujian. Here's the company URL
www.made-in-china.com/showroom/lingjie55 There are probably other sources.

A student here who had used it while serving in Cameroon with Peace Corps asked if I had heard of it and where to get it. She said it works great, put it around a pipe or on an ant trail and you don't see them again until the stuff wears off. Two Taiwanese friends had brought some for her from Taiwan and she wanted a new source. In the course of this I asked a student from PRC about it and she said her mom used it when she was a kid but.

Turns out, while it can be found in USANIA via internet, small ethnic groceries, and flea markets, there's a reason you can't legally find oOTC in the US and if anyone there is using it, you may want to look at these links- especially if you have little ones running around the house. This stuff amounts to BioChemicalWarfare type stuff.

www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1999/2-5-1999/badchalk.html Unregistered product, rotating formulas, heavy metals.....

www.fortworthgov.org/DEM/ecc_badchalk.htm

There is a Chinese company that makes a chalk that is approved , child proof caps, won't kill your great, great grandchildren before their conceived due to genetic mutation so if you need a product like this....

www.pesticidesafety.uiuc.edu/newsletter/html/200203c.html
A form of insecticide chalk called Ze Lin Chen Chalk has recently been certified by USEPA, making it legal for sale in the United States. It contains 1.00% tralomethrin and is packaged in a dispenser tube that greatly reduces applicator contact with the insecticide. The dispenser also has a child-resistant cap. There are also cautions against applying the insecticide where children and pets can come into contact with it. It is labeled for the control of ants, cockroaches, and crickets, and is applied by drawing a continuous band as a barrier around shelving, cabinets, and other objects to be protected. It is made in China and distributed by a Los Angeles company.

The product
www.zelinchenchalk.com/default.asp

[woza17]

I may have mentioned this before on the forum but years ago I bought this snail electric fence to protect my lettuces. I was more taken my the novelty that the practicalityof the thing. It was basically a roll of foil with a couple of wires running through the foil attached to a battery.

[Newbs]

I think putting a barcode, or whatever, on every vegetable grown in China is a great idea. That way, when some insecticide laden vegetable poisons a great Olympic hopeful, the authorities will be able to quickly track the source, and therefore obtain their bribe from identified source, very quickly and efficiently. Will save a lot of time.

[Mr Nobody]

[Escaped Lunatic]

Speaking of "slices" of life:

Wife charged with fatal stabbing
Xu Fang
2006-06-20
A WOMAN described by police as "high-maintenance" was arrested yesterday for allegedly killing her husband with a sword after he refused to cook for her.

Tang Xiaowan, 25, is charged with the manslaughter of her husband Li Weidong by prosecutors.

"It is really rare that a family tragedy is caused by a high-maintenance wife," said Lu Qinjian, a prosecutor with the Minhang District Prosecutors' Office.

Police said Tang, who had practiced swordsmanship since she was young and been married to Li for three years, often forced her husband at swordpoint to carry out her demands.

But on March 3, police said Li refused a demand from Tang to cook dinner because he was late for work.

Police said Tang picked up her sword and said to Li: "I'm hungry and how can you have the heart to leave?"

Police said Li again refused, and Tang placed the sword against her husband's chest.

Police said Tang then slipped and accidentally stabbed Li, puncturing his liver.

Li was rushed to hospital but died from loss of blood.

Police said that Li, who was described as honest and simple, had become accustomed to Tang's outbursts and would do anything as he was told, especially when his wife waved her sword in front of him.

* * * *

Somehow, I never quite pictured Chinese women as being this far up the extreme end of the "high maintenance" scale.




"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive."
- Robert A. Heinlein

[Raoul Duke]

loony said:

Somehow, I never quite pictured Chinese women as being this far up the extreme end of the "high maintenance" scale.

Yeah, well, come marry one and find out for yourself.
"Rare that a family tragedy is caused by a high-maintenance wife," my ass. There are an awful lot of deeply psychotic women here...

[Dr. Gonzo]

Trouble is you don't find out until after you marry them. Mine's still marginally sane.
Remember Roger's tales about his wife? He actually reported her for assault at one stage.
And Senor Boogie Woogie's was another. Lay in bed all day, then went out playing ma-jong all night.

I like the spontaneously combusting dog. Now that's what I call revenge.

[Escaped Lunatic]

Why am I not surprised to find out that this incident happened in Shanghai? I mentioned it (without specifying location) to a friend from Hong Kong, and she started talking about the crazy women in Shanghai.

Raoul, what have you been giving the local women to drink???




"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
- Albert Einstein

[Raoul Duke]

Tequila, of course, but this one isn't my fault.

Shanghai women are notorious for being heartless, deranged mercenaries. Even Chinese men (from outside Shanghai, and some from within) are extremely leery of them. My ex was from near Shanghai, and had lived there for 10 years when we married.

The shoe fits.

An old saying says that "Chinese women make the world's best girlfriends...and the world's worst wives." I know a few men who've gotten lucky, but there seems to be a lot of wisdom in this.

[woza17]

An American friend of mine has a real witch of a wife. He is a little crazy himself but she has really pushed him over the edge. I had to let that friendship go once he started recording my phonecalls and playing them back to me. Paranoia has really set in. Cops coming to their apartment over domestics and so on.
My darling Eri has actually impoved with marriage and the baby. My son too.
Remember i was telling you about an FT who was engaged to a Chinese local girl and the family wanted 100,000 rmb dowry, he bargained them down from 500,000. Well he went back to Canada and is supposedly coming back to her. I really hope he doesn't, for both thier sakes. They had a big fight and his girlfriend locked him out of his apartment and he rang the boss and wanted him to intervene WTF and was upset when the boss said it is not my business. It is really sad and scary

[Raoul Duke]

Uh, isn't the family of the bride supposed to pay the dowry to the groom?

I'm with ya. I hope he never contacts her again. Demanding a hundred K up front is not a good start to the marriage.

[Newbs]

admin said:

Demanding a hundred K up front is not a good start to the marriage.

Oh, I dunno Raoul. It's how I'm planning to start my next marriage.

[Lotus Eater]

Hey guys - I don't know too much about how Chinese guys react after they are married (my relationships with them aren't that deep) - but I can sure tell you that there are plenty of western guys out there who are close enough to insane and hide it pretty well until after the knot is tied.

This is NOT a one-way street.

[Raoul Duke]

Agreed, but I would submit that one lane is much, much larger and faster than the other one...

[woza17]

Agreed Lotus. My boss told me that the Canadian friend rang him form Guangzhou yesterday, we thought he went to Canada wanting his job back. Now he is great in the classroom and I really like the guy BUT he is unstable and und unreliable.

I want him back but I think we should put in some provisos, like he pays a bond upfront, we have been fined by one company because he left suddenly.
What do you think?

[Raoul Duke]

I think 100,000 RMB would do it nicely.

[woza17]

I was thinking about 5000 RMB. I have a Aussie guy coming here on Monday he has been teaching in Japan. We have been e-mailing each other and he is going to check things out. It is quite difficult to find good teachers but they are here, it is just finding them. We had a Swiss guy who turned out to be a dropkick, I wanted to help him and inveited him to sit in on some classes but he didn't so from the start I am thinking, this guy does not want to learn so how can he teach. It is hard to teach people to have a personality.
I have a SA friend who is just great in class he can win contracts over the boring native teachers. He is so hyper he makes me laugh and engages the students but he is the biggest gossip ever, which can be entertaining if your are not on the end of it. So I have to tread carefully. Last night he came over for a few drinks and I kept alert cuase he gives me information but iI am very selective about what I tell him.
He also works for this prick that I can't stand so I think if I give him a contract maybe when he finishes it he will give it to this other bastard that has a language school

[con's fly is open]

Look at our Woza, all growed up and talking Mangemint 'n Bidness! Sucks that I can't make it down there, kiddo- I have a million questions for my next tour of duty.

Bidness-wise, that is.

[woza17]

Con if you ever came down this way I would hire you in a second.
I plan to live in China the rest of my life so I have to move to the second stage. When I first came here I couldn't give a m'kay about the money but when i decided to stay here, then it became important.
Also the market is getting more sophisticated down here, the white face won't pull it, the students want substance. They deserve that, they pay a lot of money for their classes and I want to give them their money's worth.

[Lotus Eater]

I have been offered a job teaching in the monastery school in Langmusi, and also as a cook in a Langmusi restaurant. Langmusi is my all time favourite place in China. The money is virtually non-existent. (Raoul thinks what I am being paid already is a bad joke, this is 1/4 of that!!) But .........

Pros:

• I would learn a lot more about Tibetan culture
  
• I would get to go riding every weekend in fabulous country
  
• I have really good Chinese and Tibetan friends there
  
• It's absolutely beautiful country - small population, no pollution
  

Cons:

• No money
  
• No money
  
• No money
  

[Raoul Duke]

Wow Lotus,

This sounds like the experience of a lifetime...not at all like trying to put lace on the bowling balls in some stupid Chinese university. I can't vouch that it would always necessarily be a positive experience, fond as I am of luxurious little creature comforts such as beds, real toilets (a hole in the floor is not a real toilet, no matter what you may line it wih or connect it to...), running water, and electricity. Oh, and air conditioning. Definitely air conditioning.

If you can hack the conditions and live on the lack of salary then ya gotta go for it. You'll be kicking yourself for years to come if you don't.

[Raoul Duke]

Speaking of kicking oneself for years to come, I myself stand tonight on the edge of (yet another) precipice.

After years of dreaming, I have started my own freelance company. Well, two actually...Six Star English for hotels and New Tomorrow Training Partners for other corporate training.

For some time now I've been designing a hotel English course and am currently writing 4 different textbooks: Essential Hotel English, F&B Service English, F&B Food English, and Front Office English (front desk, operators, bell, concierge, etc.). F&B Bar English, Housekeeping English, and Recreation Services English are coming soon.

I teach my very first class tomorrow afternoon. Downstairs I have 2 big boxes full of nice shiny new 2-ring binders, each of which contains the first unit of Front Office English that I wrote with my very own hands. It's quite a beautiful sight.

Am I forging myself a bright future here, or am I taking a 350-foot screaming homo cliff dive into the Lagoon of Stupid Judgment? Only time will tell. One thing I am sure of, though...this is the hardest money I ever earned in my life.

[icebear]

Best of luck with the lessons Raoul, they won't know what hit 'em! The Cuervo shaped lump should leave them enough forensic evidence to figure it out, however.