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baroness radon: "
I remember a Starbucks cup from several years..."
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China’s ‘century of humiliation’ and the Olympics (
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The most irmpotant reason why China may not invest in the..."
Foreign baby in China essentials: IMPORTED BABY FORMULA (
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damien: "
I am going to have a baby in china , are there USA..."
Steve Jobs, Apple, China and Us [updated] (
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Dr Ross Grainger: "
The American CEOs I mentioned are less..."
Max: "
I understand that, but look what Erica wrote: “paying too..."
Affordable gadgets vs. Chinese workers’ rights (
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Joel 大江: "
Do you know what got him interested in Chinese..."
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Mike Daisey, who is featured in the CBS News article..."
Happy Lantern Festival 2011 from Tianjin, China! (
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Chinese take-out
Good good study, day day up!
Pronounced: guó bǎo
Literally: National Security/National Treasure
Means: The two terms are homophones, and "national treasure" often means "panda". A writer at Seeing Red in China explains the rest: "how panda becomes the symbol for Chinese security thugs: Chinese national security (more like secret police) is called 国保 (guó bǎo) for short, and it’s pronounced exactly the same as 国宝, national treasure. Netizens sometimes refer 国保 as 国宝, jokingly, hence Panda, China’s national treasure. Kungfu Panda movies provided the basis for Panda to be a martial character."
With the recent confrontation between Batman actor Christian Bale and some infamous Chinese security thugs, online Chinese are been passing around "Pandaman vs. Batman" jokes, and photoshopping "Pandaman" into all kinds of scenarios, including movie posters and images from other security embarrassments and scandals. See here, here and here for more.
- 2011/12/19
InterWǎng Debris
Recent China internet debris.
Affordable gadgets vs. Chinese workers' rights
Three recent news articles (and one response) return the spotlight to the mammoth electronics factories in China that make most of our favourite electronics, pointing out what everybody knows and no one wants to think about:
Happy Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech (ZDNet)
"Human and worker rights reforms in China would have serious negative consequences for the efficiency and cost of the gadget supply chain.
[...]
"Foxconn’s client list reads like a celebrity tech roster that includes Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, IBM, Cisco/Linksys, Netgear, Microsoft, Sharp, Sony, Motorola, Asus, Acer and Vizio... tablet runners and e-reader champions Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Yes, your Kindles and Nooks are also made by the very same companies with the same awful working conditions that make products for Apple."
The dark side of shiny Apple products (CBS News)
"...our most popular electronic devices are largely made by hand ... MANY hands, as it turns out ... hands that often are very over-worked, or so industry's critics contend."
[...]
""I met workers who were 12. Do you really think Apple doesn't know?"
"But what was news were the suicides..."
In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad (NYT)
and
BSR: New York Times’ Apple-Foxconn article contains untruths, inaccuracies, and misleading info (Mac Daily News)
- 2012/02/06
Those aren't Chinese New Year's fireworks; they're "recreational munitions"
From Nankai Rob's Chinese New Year 2012 post "Spring Festival Time. . .Lock and Load":
"...parties are held on a scale so massive that Caligula would have nodded in approval, and enough recreational munitions are set off to make the Battle of Waterloo feel like a suburban bar mitzvah. You’ll notice my careful word choice here: “recreational munitions” rather than “fireworks.” “Fireworks” as a term carries with it more celebratory, even innocent connotations, but you can’t define Chinese celebratory fireworks by the intent behind them. Certainly they’re set off with great excitement and joy, but you can, after all, also lob a grenade into a dumpster with great excitement and joy, and most of what is being set off these days qualifies for inclusion in the dumpster-grenade category. So: recreational munitions."
For more about the genuinely stunning Chinese New Year fireworks phenomenon with photos and video, see:
Happy Chinese New Year!
- 2012/01/22
Tension rising with Mainland students in American universities
Interesting observations at China Law Blog about how Mainland Chinese students studying in the USA -- in contrast to Chinese from other countries -- are apparently generating a lot of anger among the American students: Chinese Students In America. It's Bad Out There.
It seems that Mainland Chinese attitudes toward education don't play well among their American classmates. For example:
"They cheat all the time. It is pretty unbelievable how often I have seen them cheating. I am always complaining to my professors about this, but they usually just act like they are too important to deign to deal with something like this. Just come watch a test being adminstered and it will be obvious. They are allowed to get away with it because they pay the foreign tuition rate."
"One student told me of how all the students not from China agreed not to speak one day to see what would happen. There was no class discussion and the teacher asked them not to do it again."
- 2012/01/11
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Joel, Is this an epidose of Fear Factor? You’ve seriously got guts. And I can’t believe I’m the first one to comment. So I assume that was a bid cockroach, the biggest one I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe how much you had to chew to get that down, no wonder there are so mant skinny people there. Pray you are enjoying the adventure.
Joel,
All I ask is when you find the food that I have challenged you to eat for over a year now, you will make an equally enjoyable video.
To have seen some of the stuff you have eaten in the past and to see the expression on your face demonstrated how vile that bug must have been. Good show ole chap! Good show indeed.
I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.. That was awesome.
My Dear Son Joel, the once-upon-a-time adorable, wavy haired toddler who held my hand walking down the street, learning NOT to touch disgusting things that crawl on the road, in and out of sewers and up drain pipes–never mind eat them! Your darling wife spends all day in gourmet cooking classes and you are eating “dishgushting” 5 inch long get-out-the-RAID-can monsters! What will you possibly do for an encore? I( guess the beetle plague was not enough for you:) Well…now that you’ve succeeded in the “epic battle of the mind and stomach”, and have proved to the whole world on-line that your 2 masters degrees have developed your “mind” to the point that it can battle and overrule the barf reflex, maybe you can hang up your diplomas now, relax and enjoying Jessica’s new skills in gourmet Thai cooking:)
JR!!!! It’s a good thing you’re becoming a paramedic! Your brother may need you!
The one word comment I find myself leaving on your blog….almost always…. DISGUSTING. :)
unfortunately, your brother feels super proud of you and jealous… why would you be jealous of someone eating a ROACH?! (especially when they had to pay for it!) who knows..
you know your 2 subtitles….”Things We’ve Eaten” and “Running wild in the Streets” ? I think you should remove the dividing line/slash and combine them to one title–”Things we’ve eaten running wild in the streets” OR “Things running wild in the streets we’ve eaten” :)
It was among the sickest things I’ve ever experienced. And I wasn’t even eating. But hearing the crunch of the exo-skeleton in my husband’s mouth was enough to make me almost toss my cookies.
She gave me two, and I wanted to mail the other one home with some stuff we picked up for the girls, but Jessica says I shouldn’t. It’s still sitting there in the hotel room in its bag with the stick. Any takers? I think they fry them in butter and sugar… it was kind of sweet and greasy.
Honestly, I was surprised at how easy that wasn’t. There was a bit of a gag reflex on that first swallow. Knowing some of what else is out there from reading and seeing pictures, esp. in some parts of China (chicken fetuses, big fat juicy grubs on a stick, etc.), I’m not yet convinced that I have the necessary mental stamina to eat just any food and not throw it up. I really didn’t think the bug would faze me, but if it had been juicy and crunchy… I don’t know that I could have kept it down. I guess we’ll see next time.
AHHHHH, Joel you are soooooo brave!!!
That is so cool to see y’all in places that I’ve been…just too bad we all couldn’t be there together. Who knows, might just end up as neighbors depending on how all this peace corps business works out. :)
I’m not sure how much more time y’all have in Chiang Mai, but there is an AWESOME spa/massage place y’all should try and visit if you have a chance. I’ll see if I can track down Ryan Binkley and find the name of it. I think it’s right across from the Starbucks by the night market (I know you can see part of the night market from the place). But it is heavenly. I’m sure you saw all the massage kiosks at the Sunday market as well. :)
p.s. did you like my gratuitous use of the word “y’all”?
hahahaha thats amazing
Wow! Four whole minutes of Joel chewing a gynormous cockroach! Jessica, you’re a keeper.
Hey, it was chewy!
That was sooooooooooooo great! Thanks for sharing! (the video, not the bug.)
Joel, I just about barfed.You’re one brave dude.
Hi Bev! Thanks for dropping in. I’m not sure I’d call it bravery… ;)
And we have to prepare to face the stuff they have in China that makes cockroaches look like candy. I’ve seen pictures of food I’m really not sure I could handle. Time will tell…
[...] The carapace is tough but flexible. Biting down causes hot mush to burst out into your mouth. Two more chews and two squirts later it’s finally empty. You manage to down the bug guts in two or three swallows, but the outer shell is the challenging part. It takes a lot of chewing, and the thought of sliding it to the back of your mouth in order to swallow makes you wonder if you’ll gag. Your choice: try to swallow all of it quickly in one go and risk gagging, or chew and chew and chew, swallowing little shredded pieces of it at a time, prolonging the experience. You take the second option, feeling each piece of the exoskeleton slime across the back of your tongue and down your throat. Thankfully it doesn’t have much taste. And without legs and wings, it’s easier to eat than that giant cockroach in Thailand. [...]