04.23.10
Posted in Environment, Health, Media/Internet, Rumors at 15:50 by Nator
A letter passing through offices in China lately warns against the dangers of the smoke from the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland:
转发: 从今天到28号，请大家不要淋雨。
Fwd: Avoid exposure to rain from today until the 28th.
从今天到28号，请大家不要淋雨。750年一次的酸雨，被淋到后患皮肤癌的几率很高。因为欧洲的一个火山的大爆发，向高空喷发了大量硫化物，在大气层7000~10000米的高空形成了浓厚的火山灰层，强酸性。请大家注意，把这个信息转发给你身边的人。
Avoid exposure to rain from today until the 28th of the month. Every 750 years there is a major occurance of acid rain, and the probability of getting skin cancer high if one is exposed to it. The volcanic eruption in Europe has spewed a large amount of sulfides into the atmosphere, and a thick, strongly acidic layer of volcanic ash has collected at an altitude of 7000-10000 meters. Please take care to pass this information to those around you.
The note appears to be based on a similar rumor spread in parts of Africa in February and March. This is from The Punch, Nigerian newspaper, and is dated March 24, 2010:
A United Nations space chief, Mr. Takao Doi, has allayed fears of acid rain accompanying the current harmattan haze accross the country. . .
A text message circulating through mobile networks had warned that there could be acid rain in the country between March 20 and 28.
The text message said, “Be careful from the 20-28th of this month. There is the possibility of an acid rain. The dark circle appeared on 17th of last month and this is an indication of acid rain. Apparently this happens once in 750 years. It rains normally but it may cause skin cancer if you expose yourself to it. This information is from the National Space Agency in the United States.”
The “dark circle” supposedly appeared around the moon, but this part of the rumor was left out of the Chinese version. Other versions used “NASA” instead of “the National Space Agency in the United States.”
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08.03.09
Posted in Health, Rumors at 19:40 by SHTig
Someone please tell me why news of H1N1 swine flu has been leading the Chinese news for months, and continues to do so. My working theory is that the government wants to make sure that each and every 100 laobaixing know that swine flu came from another country, so that when the pandemic breaks out badly in China, the government will not be blamed for any cover ups.
I felt clever for figuring that out in like April. Now I’m just exhausted from the hysteria in China over swine flu in America and telling people that swine flu has not been a serious news story there for months. I’ve have a colleague who was on a flight from the US to Shanghai that was QUARANTINED in Shanghai for one week in June, because – apparently – someone on his plane came down with swine flu like symptoms. I myself just returned to Shanghai from the US yesterday ~ the entry procedures were totally reasonable. But my ayi won’t come this week because her main employer forbids her from doing so — they fear that she could catch swine flu from me and pass it on to them. I can live without my ayi for a week (Nator, hold your snarky comments) but why oh why must Chinese people be led so out of touch of reality by state media.
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05.05.09
Posted in Health, Travel/Tourism at 20:28 by SHTig
From Xinhuanet: China hopes Mexico understands its necessary precautions against influenza A/H1N1 include uncerremoniously booting a bunch of Mexicans out of the country.
From Ma Zhaoxu, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman: “The measures concerned are not targeted at Mexican citizens and there is no discrimination”
From Truth From Facts: Happy Cinco de Mayo! Are the tequilla specials still on tonight?
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01.01.09
Posted in Food, Health, Hong Kong and Macau at 21:19 by ODB
The Shanghaiist reports about a KFC outlet in Hong Kong serving food out of the trash. Apparently the staff, eager to to get home early, would stop kitchen operations, throw away all leftover food, and start cleaning up before the restaurant closes. Unfortunately, if an unlucky customer would enter the establishment at that time then he would be served food right out of the can. For a short video and some pictures check out the above link.
This gives a whole new meaning to the words Junk Food.
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09.29.08
Posted in Food, Health, Industry, Media/Internet, Politics, Technology at 09:16 by Nator
ODB recently asked why the Chinese spacewalk was getting so much coverage. As usual, a quick look at the China Daily homepage provides the answer:
Aside from the Miss Switzerland pageant, it was clearly the top story of the weekend!
I was curious about the ”763 batches of Chinese milk found chemical free” link, however, so I searched the site for the keyword “milk”. Turns out there has been a lot of news about milk in the past couple of weeks. It’s all terribly complicated, and I’m still sorting out the facts. But these articles, all taken from China Daily and Xinhua, have been particularly helpful:
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01.10.08
Posted in Health at 11:11 by ODB
According to Guangzhou Daily, the world’s largest tumor, weighting 45kg, was removed from a patient in Guangzhou. The tumor, in addition to being the largest ever recorded, was actually heavier than the patient itself…
Ananova offers some more information on this story.
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Posted in Health at 09:30 by ODB
A recent article on Shanghai Daily, titled City Surgeons Come in Handy, reports on a Jiangsu native with the largest hand in the world (with a 26cm left thumb…).
To view the original article, which contains a very shocking picture, and not recommended for the faint hearted (seriously, you don’t want to see this), click here.
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12.19.07
Posted in Health, The Second Tier, Wuhan at 19:41 by Nator
Wuhan has once again found its way into the China Daily’s “Odd News” section:
A school in Wuhan, Hubei Province, has sparked controversy after it requested more than 30 students to undergo cosmetic surgery before graduation.
The surgery was for double-fold eyelids, breast enlargement and the removal of moles.
It was to make the students, most of them girls, more attractive and therefore stand a better chance of gaining employment.
Many of the students want to be airline cabin attendants after graduation.
Residents complained the school was focusing too much on the appearance of students instead of improving the quality of its teachers. But the school said it was important to improve the appearance of students when considering the tough employment market.
This school was only playing the game like everyone else. I’d bet many of the students would have had the surgery done anyway, for the same reasons.
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12.16.07
Posted in Health, Rumors, The Second Tier at 18:56 by Nator
Today my girlfriend received an SMS from a friend, a grad student at one of China’s top universities here in Beijing:
最近少出去少在外面吃东西！一伙新疆感染爱滋病毒的人在全国部分城市通过竹签挑破自己皮肤沾血来传染给他人。把血滴到食物里！事情被证实是真的。已有部分大学生感染，不管怎样小心吧！尽量不要外出！最好用自己的碗筷，预防为好！
Roughly translated:
Avoid going out and eating outside in the next few days! A man with AIDS from Xinjiang has been going around to cities all over the country and spreading the disease by pricking himself with a bamboo stick and then dripping blood into other people’s food! This is not a hoax. Some university students have already been infected, so please be careful! Don’t go out unless you have to, and if you eat out, bring your own eating utensils!
Apparently Xinjiangers, already widely maligned as the “Thieves of China“, aren’t satisfied with just pickpocketing anymore. Now at least one is traveling across the country and dropping his AIDS into the food of unsuspecting students–mostly Han students, no doubt.
I didn’t know that one could get AIDS from eating a drop or two of AIDS-infected blood–unless it’s super AIDS, in which case all bets are off. At least we now know that bringing your own sanitized bowl and chopsticks will kill the super AIDS, though.
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12.07.07
Posted in Environment, Health, Industry, Media/Internet at 03:00 by Mul
The reputation of Chinese food and product safety has experienced a slight setback the past several months. There have been well-publicized cases of exports involving tainted seafood, lead paint- and GHB-coated toys and even the mysterious death of a Korean diplomat in Beijing linked to unsafe food. At first, the Chinese government definatly insisted that food and product safety issues are isolated, exaggerated by the paranoid and biased international media or even trumped up due to trade protectionism.
Well, it turns out there may have been something to the international outcry over product safety. The New York Times (via Xinhua) reports today that the government announced it demolished 2,800 rural food facilities, closed down 47,000 illegal food factories and shut down over 300 drug and medical equipment factories. Not so isolated, by my measure.
According to the Times article, new legislation is in the works that will inflict the death penalty on those responsible for products that harm or kill large numbers of people. Presumably, this means the executives of companies that knowingly sell shoddy products. They did not need to wait for the new legislation to punish Cao Wenzhuang, the former head of the pharmaceutical registration department of the State Food and Drug Administration. He was sentenced to death in July for accepting bribes from drug companies for fast-tracking approval of their drugs.
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