ChinaFUBAR

So last night, I was on Skype with friend, fellow blogger, humorist and co-conspirator in many things shoemaking, China Charlie, and the subject of the melamine  milk scandal here in China came up.  Now China Charlie is currently semi-retired and sunning his buns in the Philippines, so he was asking what the impact here in China was.  Any my reply, recalling the time during my childhood when dinnerware made from melamine was all the range (anyone remember “Melmac” dinnerware)  replied that I was probably going to be passing a cup and saucer set soon.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve eaten several bowls of cereal and milk, Snicker’s bars (also probably made with melamine apparently) and Oreo Cookies (yep, melamine in the cookies and filling). I suspect there could be a sizable buildup of the substance coming on. 

Then we discussed the other nasty stuff we’ve probably put in our bodies.  Water in China?  We’ve both pretty much become accustomed to the local tap water, I don’t even bother to boil it much anymore,  So, how about some heavy metal, mercury, cadmium, lead, etc?  Soup cooked in crockery bowls?  Not sure of the heavy metal content in that.  Tomato sauce in aluminum pans?  Sure,  I’m particularly fond of fish and clams, so lets add a bit more mercury to the mix please. 

Also, in my case I had a run in with cancer a few years ago, so add in a bit of what ever they fed me during chemotherapy, plus a healty dose of radioactive stuff.

We both decided, when ever we went to the “great beyond” that in all reality, we probably couldn’t be brought back to the U.S. for burial, as the mortuary/cemetery would have to file an E.P.A. Environmental Impact Statement, and the cemetery would be at risk of later becoming a superfund site.

And we both wonder why we set off the metal detectors at the airport, even though we’ve removed keys, wallets, belts, cellphones,  etc.  I always try to pick the line with the prettiest female security person, if I’m going to be felt up, it might as well be by a female.  Last time through Shenzhen airport I was patted down by a guy who I think enjoyed his job a bit too thoroughly.  Lets just say  I almost suggested we just go to the local hotel…..

Ok, enough of this writing stuff, time to get back to my coffee (wonder what’s in that?) and off to my job in a shoe factory, 

Ahh, the sweet smell of non organic solvents.

Well, if you’re wondering what’s been going on about the lack of posts. seems life made a turn for the more interesting, and ChinaFubar is now for the most part steadily employed…

This could be interesting on several levels.  First, ChinaFubar’s not working on the customer/trading company side of the business, he’s working for a Chinese-owned factory.  Yes, I’ve gone over to the “dark side” and gone to work for a supplier.  I’m not naming names…This could wind up being “tales from the Dark Side” and filled with stories of what happens on this side of the business.

Second, I’m not in Dongguan anymore.  Well, at least full time anyway. This company has a registered office in Hong Kong (where my business cards show the company is)  an office in Dongguan, 3 factories in Fuzhou and one in Jiangxi province.  I’ll split my time between Dongguan and the 3 Fuzhou factories, but for now I’m in Fuzhou.  That’s another adventure.

For now, it’s been real busy with finding out what’s what, who’s who and where’s the westerner’s bathroom!  And, weekends off??? Forgeddaboudit!!!  No more 5 or 5 and a half day work weeks, now it’s 7 day work weeks.   And a short day is only 8 hours….What China labor law???  And “official” Chinese Holidays?  Uh, I don’t think so….Seems days off are more governed by China Power and Light than calendar days, we get days off when there’s no electricity at the factory. 

So stay tuned sports fans, for the further adventures of China Fubar and the Tale of the Lost Shoe Factory.

Ok, so I’ve had enough of Obama, McCain, Hillary and the rest.   A friend of mine and I were sitting and chatting about Lee Iaccoca’s book “Where Have All the Leader’s Gone?” in which he devotes about 263 pages to complaining about the leadership of the U.S. and the presidential candidates, then goes on to say he didn’t run because the beurocracy would drive him nuts.

Gimme a break, either  you’re a leader and a patriot or you’re not, and to weasel out of it with the excuse “it’s too hard” is wimping out. Loosing a limb or your life in battle is hard, dealing with bureaucracy is easy in comparison

So, I’ve decided to run for president, and apparently the news and support is taking hold.  More on the campaign later.

Thank you and China Fubar has approved this ad!

It’s never a good day, when open your e-mail and the first thing that pops up are 3 e-mails with 2 words on the headers, and those 2 words are someone’s name that you know is having the battle of their life.

In today’s case, the 3 e-mails were from a friend and former co-worker of mine, sent to 3 of the various e-mail addresses I use and they all said the same thing on the header “Erik Purdom”.

Erik was a great designer, men-tor, and adventurer  and will be sorely missed by all who knew him.   He had been undergoing a battle with a rare stomach cancer, signet ring cell carcinoma.   A very rare and aggressive form of stomach cancer

What to say about Erik,  I never had the pleasure of working with him, but I did have  the pleasure of spending a little  time with him, although it was more of a social nature rather than work.  My first meeting was in a job interview with the now defunct L.A. Gear athletic footwear company, which lives on under license.  Had been meeting and interviewing with several people through out the day, and finally I get sat down in a conference room to interview with the designers.  3 guys come in, one of which was Eric, who was the Director of Design at the time.  And I’m thinking “oh great, a panel interview, this will be fun - NOT” 

And I sat, and looked at them, and they sat, and looked at me, and after about 20 seconds, I asked “Well, what do you want to know?”  And Erik say “uh, no, what do YOU want to know?”  And so the chat and chin wag was on the go.   I didn’t take the job at the time, but did wind up going there a couple of years later,  Eric had left to start his own business, but a lot of the designers at Gear still kept in contact, with him, and he would stop by from time to time to pick up a couple of the design/development group to fly out to Catalina for lunch.  The old hundred-dollar-hamburger.

And so the adventure for Erik continues, as his blog says, “probably putting together his next Big Thing”

“So long Erik, we hardly knew ye”

Got a great birthday party Friday,  they had a whopping big party in Beijing!  Actually, just coincidence my birthday is on the auspicious date of 08-08, and this year it happened to land on the opening day of the Olympics.

My wife, bless her heart, kept saying “but you’re not excited about your birthday!”  Dear, at 53 you don’t get all that excited about birthdays anymore.  Ok, maybe at 55 you get a little excited, you can do the senior’s meal at Denny’s, and you start qualifying for more senior discounts, (a buck is a buck), but after 50, you really don’t make a big deal of birthdays.  50 is the big landmark, you get  your AARP card.  For you non-American’s reading this, that’s a sort of senior citizen’s organization, American Association of Retired Persons.  And just to tick my wife off, I applied for joint membership, so at the tender age of (not all that old) she gets an AARP card too!. Fix her wagon.

But, I did sort of celebrate, treated myself to coffee and blueberry muffin at Starbucks, didn’t do squat much around the house. And, best present of all, lunchtime job interview.  Looks positive, should have details finalized this week.  Job is in Fuzhou though, and I can’t find much info about Fuzhou on the net, other then the usual touristy stuff.

Anyway, dinner at the local English Pub, “One for the Road” and watched the opening ceremony on their big screen TV,  Lots of locals there even though the pub is decidedly very British.  The local Chinese very attentive, sitting in the front, the expats, usual rowdy, noisy selves, toward the back. Bit of a contrast, but that’s to be expected.

And, did we all worry at all about the CGI Footsteps?  Did we even notice Lin Miaokethe was lip-syncing ?  Did we even see the “blue screen of death” during the torch lighting?

Not really!  The great part was the two groups in the same place enjoying the celebration. I think that’s what the Olympic Organizing Committee had in mind of the spirit of “One World”

Well, it finally happened! I can kiss this place goodbye, I won the lottery!  At least I’m getting numerous e-mails telling me so. Too bad, I have to share with 5 other lucky winners, or I’d have the whole $500,000 to myself.  Who knew the Beijing World Cyber Olympics Games 2008 Lotto Promotion would pick my numbers and pick me to be one of the 5 lucky winners.  Great!  Now I can invest in some beachfront Property in Arizona!

Ah yes, back home where I understand the big news is the UFO landing in nearby Needles, CA.  Seems like a good story, “Men in Black” strange looking trucks and misplaced helicopters.  Combined with a person I know who claimed to pick up a couple of “sorta funny looking and hot and sweaty  and stinky,  and couldn’t understand anything they were saying” hitchhikers.  Got scared of them and dropped them off in town.  Pretty sure they weren’t aliens of the south of the border illegal variety, those are common enough to identify fairly easily.

Gee, makes life in Dongguan seem down right boring… the big news here is… is….is…. well, we’ll get back to you on that one.

And since this is “silly assed Sunday” I guess I’ll post this video link, scammed from Imagethief.

And this my friends, is what happens when a blogger posts on a Sunday morning after too many cups of coffee.

Ok, time for a break from all this Olympic Visa nonsense.  We’re about to be inundated, worldwide, by The Olympics, and all the back stories, side stories, front stories and who knows what stories that will come of it.  But really, check the blogroll for some very good sources of information

My only comment about the whole thing today?  The Visa Olympics.  No, not sponsored by VISA  but an Olympic event where everyone tries to get a visa to come to China, vs Chinese trying to get a visa to go to anyplace else.  Can be graded on “degree of difficulty”  I say this because I just had to make a trip to Hong Kong to get 6 months of bank statements and a “statement of bank balance” so my wife can get a visitor’s visa to U.K.   I, being an American, can just show up, go through immigration and done deal. Her, on the other hand, being Chinese (even though she’s a US permanent resident) has to jump through hoops and file copious amounts of paperwork.  I think we had it way to easy with the China Visa situation for a long time.

But I digress, had a little rant there. Sorry.

The real story today is the “Legend of the Ghost of NB”.   This actually happened, I used to work for the company involved, and while I never met NB, I know some of the other players, at least the ones still alive, and have heard this all first hand from the folks involved.  I’m not naming names, some are still alive, and I think NB’s wife is still around, and may not even know the whole story as of yet. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so a couple days after the story on SCMP “broke” the story about how the police in Beijing are asking bar owners in the Sanlitun bar district to ban blacks, there have been several follow up reports, some from the SCMP and some other investigative reporters.

SCMP still sticks to their story, with a follow up written by Tom Miller in Beijing, who writes

Police in Beijing’s popular Sanlitun bar district deny they are conducting a racist campaign ahead of the Olympics, as another bar owner revealed he had been ordered not to let in blacks.

“They made us sign and chop a document saying we would not allow black people in [during the Olympics],” the owner said. “But no one is willing to say so because we’ll all get deported … and have our business shut.”

Asked yesterday whether they had told landlords not to let blacks in bars, an officer at the Sanlitun police station had a one-word answer: “No.”

The story goes on mention one bar owner who said blacks can still come into his establishment, but they have been asked to watch for people acting suspiciously.

Meanwhile Beijing Boyce made some calls and visited some bars in the district and found

- An owner said police met with Sanlitun bar reps and told them to monitor black patrons. He said the police told the reps that drug dealers are predominantly black in the area. He said the police did not ask bar owners to ban blacks.

- Several Sanlitun area bar owners said they had not been told by police to ban blacks or Mongolians.

- I also spoke to several people in the restaurant business and they told me they have not heard of police telling city eateries to ban people.

- Most interesting, two people working at one bar had different perspectives on the terminology used by the police. One said the police used “black” in reference to skin color; while the other said it was used in terms of bad elements (the Chinese character for “black” is part of a phrase used to describe criminals)

Beijing Boyce will be providing follow ups as they become available.

So, the question remains, is this just bad reporting on the part of the SCMP, a lot of misunderstanding of terminology, or another heavy handed tactic being used by Beijing police to “provide for the public safety” during the “No Fun” Olympics?

Ok, now from the “Lets set the Civil Rights movement back about Oh, Say 50 years” department comes this little tidbit from the

South China Morning Post: (you may have to have a subscription to read this, as the SCMP is one of the few news sites you have to pay to read.

Authorities order bars not to serve black people

Beijing authorities are secretly planning to ban black people and others it considers social undesirables from entering the city’s bars during the Olympic Games, a move that would contradict the official slogan, “One World, One Dream”.

Bar owners near the Workers’ Stadium in central Beijing say they have been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges agreeing not to let black people enter their premises.

“Uniformed Public Security Bureau officers came into the bar recently and told me not to serve black people or Mongolians,” said the co-owner of a western-style bar, who asked not to be named.

The local authorities have been cracking down on blacks and Mongolians in an attempt to stamp out drug dealing and prostitution ahead of the Games, the proprietors said.

A few months ago, police launched a violent sting on black men drinking in the Sanlitun bar district, and a notorious nightclub largely populated by Mongolian prostitutes was also shut down.

Security officials are targeting Sanlitun, which Olympic organisers expect to be a key destination for foreign tourists looking for a party during the Games.

The pledges that Sanlitun bar owners had been instructed to sign agreed to stop a variety of activities in their establishments, including dancing and serving customers with black skin, they said.

They have been allowed to keep copies of all the pledges except those relating to blacks, implying that the authorities are wary of charges of racism.

“I am appalled,” said a black British national who works in Beijing.  “I understand that the government  is trying to stop certain illegal activities, but I don’t think blanket discrimination is going about it the right way.

“Chinese people are prejudiced, but I would have hoped that the government would set a better example as it debuts on the world stage.”

Calls to Dongcheng district and Chaoyang district public security bureaus, which oversee the bar districts, went unanswered.

The authorities’ attempt to keep unwanted behaviour from damaging the squeaky-clean image of the Games is the latest example of heavy-handedness that critics say is killing the party spirit of the Olympics.

During the Athens Olympics four years ago, bars and nightclubs were allowed to stay open all night. But venues in Beijing that are not being shut down during the Games will have to close at 2am and maintain tight security.

“The officials told me to inform my customers that they must at all times carry their passports or ID cards,” said one bar owner.

“Security is important, but Beijing is becoming a fortress, and that’s not attractive.”

Rumours that all bars within 2km of an Olympic venue will need to close remain unconfirmed, with many managers complaining that they still have not been told whether they will be allowed to open or not. Several bars have been raided in the past few weeks as local police step up a campaign of low-level intimidation, according to several witness accounts.

Bar and restaurant managers in Sanlitun have been instructed to remove tables from footpaths in a crude attempt to prevent fighting in the streets.

“The local police told us to get rid of the tables because they’re scared that if too many foreigners congregate outside there could be trouble,” said Song Xun , who runs a burrito joint in the area.

Local musicians say that a clampdown on live music risks stifling  Beijing’s thriving cultural scene and giving Olympic tourists the false impression that the city is artistically anaemic.

Several popular live music venues have been shut or instructed to stop all outdoor shows, and club owners complain they have got used to strange new guests nursing a beer for hours and suspiciously observing everything around them.

“The whole music scene is angry and bewildered. It is impossible to understand how keeping tourists from seeing an open, culturally vibrant and diverse Beijing is possibly a good thing for anyone,” said one well-known figure in the local music industry.

David Mitchell, a Beijing-based jazz musician, said it had become increasingly difficult for his band to find anywhere to play.

“It appears the local government is trying to control every aspect of the experience that foreigners get when they come here,” he said.

“Everything is aimed at creating stability, but they don’t understand that is precisely the unfounded prejudice that foreigners have of Chinese society - that it is a highly controlled and not a very cultural place. It seems completely self-defeating.

We’ve been wondering about the Central Government’s motives behind all the visa restrictions, new rules and sudden changes, and I guess this brings it all to light.

On another note, James Fallow’s gives us his “Final Words on Olympic Tourism”   and mentions that while the BOGOC’s initial estimated a total of 500,000 foreign visitors to the Olympics, the working plans now call for 140,000 foreign visitors.  Apparently the foreign visitors have concluded that the Beijing games won’t be much fun, and are waiting the four years until the London Games, when, according to Paul French in Shanghai, author of the entertaining recent biography of the old China hand Carl Crow “we’ll all be in London where lots will go wrong but it will probably be quite a fun party with few restrictions and the police won’t care that much if people unfurl banners in Trafalgar Square.”

And so it goes in the Middle Kinkdom

Ok, I can’t help it, I gotta do it. Sometimes headlines just beg to be made fun of.

On today’s Yahoo Site:

Obama says New Yorker insulted Muslim Americans

If I was a Muslim American I would be insulted that Obama was portrayed as one of them also. 

In case you haven’t seen the cover:

A take on the anti-Obama e-mails that keep springing up claiming he’s a Muslim intent on converting the nation to Islam.  I remember when JFK was running for president, the rumor was he was going to build a direct tunnel to the Vatican. 

Ain’t Democracy fun?