ChinaFubar

There used to be an old China Expat Urban Legend about the expat wife shopping in the fresh markets in Guangzhou.  She comes across a vendor selling live cats destined to be someone’s dinner later in the day.  This particular vendor’s practice was to pick out the cat, break it’s neck and plunge into boiling water to remove the hair.

Expat wife is horrified at the process, and takes it upon herself to at least save a couple of the cute little kittens from their inevitable culinary destiny.  She offers to purchase 2 of the more “cute’” kittens, but requested the stall owner to not boil them.

Stall owner complies and pulls the cats out of the cage, wrings their little necks and holds the now dead cats out to the expat wife.  Rumor has it she fainted.

Courtesy of Danwei, we received news that cats have now again become a popular dining staple,  Seems that stray cats from Nanjing province are rounded up by “cat fishermen” and shipped to a market in Dongguan, where they are sold to smaller vendors, and eventually wind up in Cantonese restaurants in the area:

Of course the Netizens in China are responding, with no small amount of anger, as China.org reports. In part:

Many people have condemned the eating of cats, claiming they are human beings’ friends.

According to an online survey conducted by the website of Southern Metropolis Daily yesterday, 661 out of the 886 netizens who voted considered dining on cats “ruthless”, while 207 said it was okay.

Almost 400 said they have never eaten cats, while 170 said they have or want to try.

The article goes on to mention:

An official with the animal hygiene supervision institute under the provincial health department, who preferred not to be named, told China Daily yesterday that his institution supervises chickens, geese, ducks, horses, cattle, sheep, donkeys, mules, pigs and dogs, but not cats.

“Unless they (the cats) are suspected to have caused an epidemic, I don’t think we are in a good position to interrupt the business,” he said.

Donkeys?  Mules?  What exactly does donkey or mule taste like?  I’ve eaten ostrich, reindeer (sorry Santa) but not donkeys, horses or mules.

Now before you send me a bunch of nasty comments, China Fubar is pretty neither a cat hater nor particularly condones the eating of said creatures.  Actually, I’ve heard cat tastes similar to rabbit, and although I’ve had rabbit, I’m not particularly fond of the taste, even when prepared using my mother’s tried and true recipe of marinating it in wine overnight.

I’m basing the rabbit comparison based on an experience from one of my first after school jobs in high school, busing tables at a neighborhood Italian restaurant.  The owner called cats “roof rabbits” and mentioned one night that they were pretty tasty.  Later that night he drove me home, and during the drive observed that “there were sure a lot of cats in my neighborhood” as the old lady down the street tended to feed all the neighborhood strays.

A couple of days later, I noticed no cats, and a new daily special on the restaurant menu.

Also, judging from the cat population at our apartment complex, I have a feeling there’s not much meat on the animals being sold.  To tell the truth,  neighborhood cats vs neighborhood rats would be a fair fight, even money.

As it is, ChinaFubar wonders, with the lack of hygiene supervision of cats as food, will we be subject to the same sort of disease outbreak similar to SARS, which, if you remember, was caused by infected Civet Cats out of Guangzhou.

China Fubar can’t also help but recall the parody of Harry Chapin’s tune, “Cat’s in the Cradle”

I’m watching out for any  new daily specials in the local restaurants.

During this morning’s perusal of the news,  a multimedia article from New York Times,  “Fashion on the Street – Some Imagination”.  It’s a multimedia slide show, so may take some time to load all the photos, you may see blank screen while the narrator/author Bill Cunningham describes what he sees.

While everyone’s expecting a down year in the footwear industry, it’s interesting to note that some companies are experiencing record sales or up years. Again, the key is to produce something that people want.  Fashion shoes are by and large an emotional purchase, and how those shoes are designed and marketed plays a big part in a brands success. Read the rest of this entry »

Well just in case you were wondering where I was at for the last month and a half since the last post, lets just say I was at the Dark Side of Shoemaking.

Lets just way working for a Chinese owned shoe factory was (and I say WAS) interesting.  Being the only Laowai was even more interesting, racism is alive and well in China.  Not out in the open, but there nonetheless.

I’m not going to go into the gory details as to what happened, but I will give some observations on the footwear industry from the factory side as it has seemed to change quite a bit.

Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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 bureaucracy would drive him nuts. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »