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23

Mar 2004

Evil Has a New Home

Take a look at this building:

Evil's new home

I know what you’re thinking: this building radiates pure evil! What on God’s green earth could this architectural abomination be?!

Well, I’ll tell you. It’s Shanghai’s municipal PSB headquarters.

Now I’m not saying that China’s Public Security Bureau is “bad.” All I’m saying is that I think dark forces were involved in the creation of this particular structure.

But don’t just take my word for it. Amy agrees with me. But you must stand before it in the flesh for the full effect.

This building casts its shadow of fear on South Wuning Road (武宁南路).


22

Mar 2004

Foreigners' Names in Chinese and Japanese

I recently stumbled upon a fascinating article entitled Japan and China: National Character Writ Large (via Language Log) regarding the way the Chinese and Japanese languages render foreigners’ names in their own scripts. These are all things that I’ve thought about at one time or another, but it was nice to see it all brought together so succinctly.

It’s true: when I was in Japan, I had no choice about my “Japanese name.” My name was simply my English name pronounced according to Japanese phonetic limitations. There was no discussion. In China, however, choosing a Chinese name is a big deal, and it’s sort of a necessary measure for anyone staying in China very long and dealing with Chinese people frequently.

Here’s an interesting quote from the article:

“China is a big continent and has an inclination to think that it is No. 1 and that others are uncivilized,” said Minoru Shibata, a researcher at NHK, Japan’s public broadcast network. “Therefore, they feel that giving Chinese names to foreigners is doing them a favor.”

Give the article a read.


20

Mar 2004

Happy Birthday, Grace!

little John holding baby Grace

(Taiwan Schmaiwan! It’s no secret that I’m not into politics, but in addition to 95% of the China bloggers covering the election, the mainstream media is too.)


18

Mar 2004

Shanghainese: a Flash soundboard

Not long ago, when trying out some soundboards (normally used for prank calls), an idea came to me. Why not make a soundboard for an educational purpose? OK, so it’s not nearly as funny, but the idea had potential. It wouldn’t leave me alone.

A few weeks ago I made a whole bunch of sound recordings. Then I learned the basics of Cool Edit Pro and edited the crap out of them. In the two weeks to follow I struggled through the process of teaching myself the Flash MX necessary to do what I wanted to do. Timelines, scenes, keyframes, buttons, mask layers, preloaders, ActionScript… I eventually got through it all. To make this “soundboard.”

What this Flash soundboard does is provide audio samplings of a collection of basic Chinese words/phrases in pairs: one in Mandarin (普通话), and one in Shanghainese (上海话). It’s really very simple. Place your cursor over the sentence you want to hear and click. You can even switch between pinyin and Chinese characters, and view my notes on the soundboard.

I expect there to be a few issues with the soundboard, particularly with the Chinese character representations of Shanghainese. The problem is that there’s no real standard, and even native Shanghai speakers do not necessarily know the original (often archaic) characters which correspond to the words they speak (if they even exist). I haven’t gotten around to picking up a better book on Shanghainese, and the stupid bookstore I need to get to closes at 6pm on weekdays.

In essence, it’s a very scholarly notion reduced to a hobby side project in soundboard form. So if you’ve got the Chinese background, just enjoy it. Even if you don’t understand Chinese, you may still enjoy hearing the difference between Mandarin and Shanghainese.

Crank up the volume.

Check out the Shanghainese soundboard.


16

Mar 2004

Heard at Work

Last Friday I enjoyed a number of interesting little incidents at the office.

One of the directors of the company has been visiting from Taiwan, and I overheard him chatting with someone else in our office. The director seems to take it upon himself to enlighten the mainlanders (according to the Taiwan view). I don’t want to go into specific political topics that came up, but one thing he did say was that currently airplane tickets from mainland China to Taiwan are especially cheap. Why? Because a lot of Taiwanese work in mainland China, and the Taiwanese government is trying to encourage those people to come home and vote in the March 20th election. Interesting….

I spent a good deal of my morning trying to explain to another employee here that some things just can’t be translated. You see, she had some songs that she wanted me to help her translate into Chinese. Among the lines that were giving her trouble were “itsy bitsy teeny weenie” (yellow polka dot bikini), “nick nack paddy whack” (give the dog a bone), and “Auld Lang Syne.” I’m not saying these are completely untranslatable, but they certainly require a creative translation to create the same effect in Chinese that they do in English.

Speaking of communicating linguistic principles, at noon my co-worker and I got in a debate with four girls in the office about grammar. We could hardly believe they weren’t joking at first. You see, these four girls’ contention was that the Chinese language has no grammar. Unbelievable. Their claim was that there’s no “grammar,” it’s just that Chinese people have gotten used to putting words together a certain way. (And what exactly do you think grammar is…??)

Since there were four of them that agreed to disagree with the two of us silly foreigners, they considered themselves victorious. But then at lunchtime three of them went off somwhere, and one of them ate lunch with my co-worker and me. Once we had her alone, we pounced on her (verbally) and tore her argument to shreds. That was fun. I don’t think it did any good, though.

Why would Chinese people think their language has no grammar? Is it because in elementary school they spend all the time in “Chinese class” just learning Chinese characters, and there’s no real need to cover grammar in-depth? I’m not very familiar with the curriculum of the Chinese school system at the primary level.


13

Mar 2004

ShanghaiNing

I recently discovered a very interesting site: ShanghaiNing.com. It’s designed specifically for the native Shanghainese. The tagline at the top says 侬白相啥? That’s how you would write 你玩什么? (roughly, “what do you do for fun?”) in Chinese characters to represent the particular words the Shanghainese use.

Translated excerpt from the about page:

> We represent the new Shanghai culture…..
We invite you to our website…
to discuss our concerns in our own language,
to sing our songs to our own music,
to dance to our own rhythm.

This kind of site highlights the strong grip on their identity the Shanghainese have.

Of interest is the Shanghainese rap section. Yes, that’s right… rap in the Shanghainese dialect. It pretty much sucks, but it’s cool that they’re even doing it. Give it a listen; there are currently 13 downloadable songs.

It’s always pissed me off that the only punk scene in China is in Beijing. Maybe Shanghai will develop along the rap/hip hop track?? Well, one can dream…


13

Mar 2004

UNC Buddhist Art

The reproduction of a beautiful sand mandala in the Tibetan/Nepalese Buddhist tradition by two Buddhist monks is photographed in stages at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Ackland Art Museum. Definitely worth a look. (Thanks to Cindy for the e-mail!)


10

Mar 2004

Shanghai vs. Beijing

Shanghai and Beijing are the two most talked about cities in mainland China, and for good reason. Shanghai is the most populous city in China, a very modern economic powerhouse. Beijing is the capital, the political and cultural center of the nation. Beijing is the emperor’s seat in the north, Shanghai the giant of the south. Comparisons are inevitable.

Obviously, I now inhabit Shanghai, and I want it to fare well in an honest comparison of the two. I’ve been to Beijing twice, but not recently, and never for an extended visit. Today I discussed the matter with an American co-worker of mine. He seemed an ideal, objective observer because he lived in Beijing for a year, and now, after staying in Shanghai for a little over a year, is leaving China. He speaks good Chinese, and he’s a shrewd observer of his surroundings. Here’s the breakdown of his opinions:

Climate. Beijing is colder, but you don’t feel it too much because everyone bundles up like mad, and central heating is quite widespread. In Shanghai the buildings are built with the hot summers in mind, and there’s precious little insulation. That, combined with the people’s strong desire for “fresh air” in the middle of the winter makes Shanghai “the coldest place I’ve ever lived.”

People. Both Beijingers and the Shanghainese feel a sort of superiority toward outsiders. Nevertheless, Beijingers are widely regarded as very friendly, and any sense of superiority is exhibited only subtly. The Shanghainese are not widely regarded as friendly or as subtle in their snobbery.

Culture. Do I even have to say it? It’s all in Beijing.

Language. Beijingers speak Chinese with as much “rrrr” as possible, as if they only “speak with the throat.” Despite the superfluous R’s, Beijingers’ Chinese is quite close to the national standard. The Shanghainese, on the other hand, speak a dialect that could easily be classified as a separate (but related) language. This affects their Mandarin, making it less standard. The Shanghainese, like most places in the south, have much less “rrrr” in their speech, relying instead on other standard variants (e.g. nali instead of nar, meaning “where”).

Western Conveniences. Shanghai’s got Beijing beat hands down. Sure, Beijing has most of the products Shanghai does, but in Shanghai they’re much more readily available. Some things that you can buy in Shanghai’s convenience stores you might have to go to a specialty store for in Beijing. In addition, Shanghai has a lot more late-night and 24-hour stores.

Entertainment. Beijing’s Sanlitun is a bit better than Shanghai’s bar streets. Beijing also has a lot more cheap entertainment options. Going out on the town in Shanghai often will deplete your funds fast.

OK, I think you see the trend. Shanghai is taking a wicked beating in the comparison. I’ve heard other people say it too: “Beijing feels so home-y and special. Shanghai is a soulless concrete capitalist jungle.”

I consider myself a reasonable person. Why, then, when faced with such evidence, do I still feel that I will never even consider moving to Beijing? I want to know this for myself. I think the reasons are:

1. I’m from Florida. That’s the American south (with northern flavor). I like it. I don’t like New York or Boston accents.

When I studied in Japan, my school’s program just happened to be in Osaka — Japan’s southern giant. I like the southern Japanese dialect, and feel Tokyo’s to be boring.

When I came to China, I chose Hangzhou — partly with climate in mind, but largely because I had a Chinese friend from there. Hangzhou was my home for 3 1/2 years. It’s where I learned Mandarin Chinese.

2. I hate the “rrrr” of northern Mandarin. I can’t help it. It sounds really dumb to me. Sometimes I find it amusing (I like hearing actor Ge You talk), but I can’t really take it seriously.

I also feel that it sort of impoverishes the language. The “-r” suffix can go on the end of words ending in a vowel, -n, or -ng. When the “-r” suffix starts going everywhere, you don’t hear the original syllable ending, and it reduces linguistic diversity.

(That’s probably just a dumb rationalization for in irrational dislike of a particular accent, though.)

3. “Beijing” seems so cliche to me. “Oh, you want to learn Chinese? Then go to Beijing! The Mandarin is so standard there. Dashan studied there!”

No thanks. I think I’ll tough it out amongst the hoardes of asshole expats.

4. I like the linguistic diversity of the south. I like that the Shanghainese speak a whole separate language from their northern overlords. It’s badass. It might seem exclusionary or snobbish to you, but then you’re also probably too lazy to learn it.

Somehow, I don’t really think any of this is totally it, though. Everyone says that Beijing is better, but I’m not gonna buy it. I guess deep down, I’m just stubborn. I’m in Shanghai now.

Related Links:
Bokane.org, journal of an American Peking University student.
Kaiser Kuo, a writer in Beijing.
Ape Rifle’s Chinese city comparisons.


08

Mar 2004

Advice for China Hopefuls

By “China Hopeful” I mean someone who is considering coming to China to study or teach (or whatever).

The advice I have to give isn’t as cliche as “bring deodorant” — I hope you all know that you should bring a year’s supply of deodorant if you’re planning to come live in China. It’s also not the “bring clothes if you’re tall or big” thing, because you’ll have a hard time finding clothes in your size here. It’s not even “study Chinese,” because nothing impresses upon you the importance of the issue as actually being here, immersed in the language. It’s something even harder to remedy once you’re here.

So this is my advice to you China hopefuls:

Before you come here, go to a good barber shop or salon in your home country. Go to some place that you know will do a good job. Some place that’s brightly lit. Get your haircut. Now here’s the key. After your haircut, take pictures of your freshly cut hair. From the front, from the side, from the back, the 3/4 angle, etc. Then, before you leave, get those pictures printed. Put them together on a special laminated “haircut card.” Trust me, you will use it.

I’ve been in China for close to four years, and my Chinese is pretty respectable. But how can I be expected to explain accurately in Chinese the kind of hairstyle I want when it’s not even the easiest thing in the world for me to do in English? It’s not just a translation issue. In any case, pictures help a lot.

To this day, I’ve never taken the advice above. That exlains why I keep getting bad haircuts. At least they’re cheap here.


05

Mar 2004

Busful of Lonely

I finally got my passport back yesterday, so I was able to go open my new Shanghai bank account today. My first payday at my new job comes next week, so I had to be sure to get this done. I’ve been in Shanghai for over two full months without any paychecks yet. I neeeeed that first paycheck as soon as possible!

Anyway, there’s a girl in our company that makes daily runs to the bank the company uses, so I went with her. We took the bus there and back.

It wasn’t yet afternoon rush hour as we made our way back, but the bus was quite full. It was one of those long, electric buses, that works like a glorified, overloaded bumper car (usually with a little less bumping).

It wasn’t until we stopped at a light that I noticed it. There were two older men in the back of the bus chatting. They were at least half the length of the bus away from me, so my first thought was, “wow, those guys are really loud, and they’re not even talking on cell phones.”

Immediately after that, it hit me. Except for those two older men in the back, the bus was dead silent. Everyone was gripping a strap, latched onto a hand rail, nestled in a seat, just staring silently off into nothing.

And I thought, “Wow, it’s so quiet in here. This can’t last.” But it lingered on and on, those two old guys in the back the only dissenters.

“Do you realize that out of all the people on this big long bus, the only two people making any noise are those two guys in the back?” I whispered to her. I think half the bus heard me. She smiled and nodded back.

Then the bus got moving, and it was easy enough to pretend that we were all a part of the energy outside that we were careening through.

Soon thereafter some middle aged ladies got on and started talking. It even got close to a normal Chinese bus scene before we got off at our stop. I think some passengers may even have remembered they were alive.


04

Mar 2004

Foreign Boyfriend, Chinese Parents

I normally am not very interested in reading Chinese online. I just really can’t get interested in a lot of what’s written about. Recently, though, I found something that caught my eye. The writer is a Chinese girl with a foreign boyfriend (who is also very coincidentally named John). When she told her parents about her boyfriend, they were less than supportive. Below is a translated excerpt from the original.

> Friday, I finally mustered enough courage to tell my mom: John is my boyfriend.

> My mom was shocked, this being totally out of her realm of expectations. Without thinking she responded, “No way! Absolutely not! Your dad and I do not approve!”

> Although I had already steeled myself for her response, I never expected her attitude to be so adamant. Worriedly I asked her, “Why?”

> “He’s a foreigner. Your life backgrounds are just too different. In the future how are we supposed to communicate with him?”

> “He’s studying Chinese, so you can speak to him in Mandarin,” I said.

> My mom went on for some time, almost in tears by the end, saying, “What would you have us tell our friends? You’re not a kid anymore, why can’t you just find a nice classmate? I’m begging you!”

> I couldn’t continue the conversation with her; her words had stung me. It was as if John was her sworn enemy, who wanted to steal me from their side, never to return again.

> My mom called my dad into the room, because ever since I was little I had always listened to him the most. My mom hoped he could persuade me. Dad was calm, hoping I could consider the matter practically.

> My dad said, “You haven’t been dating John for very long at all — how can you understand him? Other than what he’s told you, you have no way of knowing about his past or his family. Westerners are too independent. Your methods of solving various problems are going to be drastically different, and your lifestyles are different. A lot of this can’t be changed over a whole lifetime. He can’t stay in China his whole life; he’ll want to leave, and he can leave any time he pleases. Then what are you going to do? There’s a whole string of problems that are going to be very hard to solve.”

> My parents love me deeply, and I’m their only child. They have put their everything into raising me, keeping me from all harm. All their hopes lie in me, and I’ve always worked hard to perfect myself. Nevertheless, their brand of subtle affection can sometimes feel suffocating. It’s like I’ve broken free from the refuge of their embrace to go explore a strange and wondrous world. I’m not my parents’ property. I should have my own life.

What strikes me most about this story, which took place in northern China, is how completely different it is from my own experience. My girlfriend’s parents’ reaction to me was not even remotely similar. They have always been warm and friendly, and talk to me like I’m a normal Chinese person. My girlfriend’s dad loves having a few beers with me. My girlfriend’s mom makes mental notes about any food I particularly like or mention liking, and next time I go to their house for dinner, it’s on the menu. I could go on and on. While I can never know how my girlfriend’s parents really feel deep down, the evidence seems to indicate that their point of view on this matter is worlds apart from the parents of this writer.

All I’m trying to say here is:

1. China is such an incredibly varied place; you get all kinds of people with all kinds of life circumstances and outlooks.
2. Shanghai is a singular phenomenon in China. There is no city like it, for so many reasons.
3. I am really incredibly lucky.

[NOTE: This excerpt has been translated and published with permission from the author. I am grateful to her for allowing me to share such a personal experience with an English-reading audience.]


01

Mar 2004

Getting Legal

I wanted to have a blast in Hangzhou all weekend as I’ve been planning to do for weeks, but somehow it turned out to be largely about getting legal.

See, to work legally in China, you need a work visa. In China, it’s called a Z Visa. (Z for 职业, of course.) If you have a full time job in China, your employer has to do the necessary paperwork to get you the Z Visa.

But there’s more. I also needed an Alien Employment Permit (外国人就业证). In Hangzhou I had a Foreign Experts Certificate (外国专家证). Apparently the transition from “American spoken English teacher at a university” to “trainer/consultant fluent in Chinese at a private company” involved a change from expert to alien as well. Oh well, the pay’s a lot better. I got my Alien Employment Permit last week.

But there’s one more important document. As a foreigner, I also need a Residence Permit (居留证). In Hangzhou my school used to repeatedly renew a Temporary Residence Permit (临时居留证). The temporary permit was a flimsy little piece of paper that you can just tuck inside your passport. The full-on Residence Permit looks like a dark green passport and requires a yearly physical examination. Apparently ZUCC found the physical exam requirement too much of a bother. That was fine with me. But now I need a physical to get my Residence Permit in Shanghai.

To make a long, boring story short, my new work institution was too slow in getting all my paperwork processed, so I had to go to the bureau of something or other on Saturday morning to get my Temporary Residence Permit extended so I don’t get fined 400 rmb (US$50) per day. But they took my passport, so I can’t get my physical today, as scheduled. I will have to make a new appointment.

The other reason I didn’t leave for Hangzhou Friday night was that Melody had its company dinner Friday night. It seems to be a tacit understanding that attendance is mandatory. That turned out to be a lot better time than I expected, though. The food was good, my co-workers were fun, and there was a lot of beer drinking. (Too bad it was all Budweiser.)

I did finally make it to Hangzhou Saturday afternoon. I got to see all my Hangzhou friends and made some new ones. Heather had a great house-warming party.

Returning to ZUCC, I somehow feel like I’m returning to the comfort and security of ma and pa on the farm, back from big city life. Life was simple and pleasant all those days at ZUCC. It still is.


29

Feb 2004

Uncreative CNN

John over at Zero Dispance recently linked to a CNN story about the likely decline of the global importance of English and ascendancy of local languages. One language highlighted was Mandarin Chinese.

None of this really surprises me. Aside from just loving the language, practical matters such as future importance in the world market also motivated my academic pursuit of Chinese. So the message of the article doesn’t come as a shock to me.

CNN.com graphic

What did catch my attention was the ugly graphic included in the story. I mean, come on! It’s just dumb. A red box with han zi (“Chinese characters”) written in it. A black background with a fuzzy character tree, clearly taken from zhongwen.com (they call their tree system 字普 — zipu). Random characters reading “speak Chinese” and “individual character,” and a generous helping of just the word CHINESE in English slopped about, along with a “stylish” gray transparent stripe. Weak. What’s most disappointing, though, is that if you click on FAQ at the top of the zhongwen.com homepage, you’re already at the page where everything for the graphic was lifted from. Look at the entry for 字 and the zi pu. It’s all there.

Western media, devoid of imagination, indirectly stealing from Chinese in its news. How ironic.


27

Feb 2004

Greg's ESL Cafe

It’s an instant classic, if you ask me. Greg (with the help of Jamie) has compiled “a more than adequate list of activities, lectures, debates and games you can use to aid you during your semester of teaching here in China.” I don’t think useful is the right word for it, but funny is an extreme understatement. Check it out ASAP!

NOTE: Greg’s humor is the “no holds barred” type, so if you’re looking for PG humor, it might not be for you.


26

Feb 2004

Nostaljia

There’s a new blog in the Sinosplice Network called Nostaljia. It’s kind of a different concept from the others in the scene. A girl in Shanghai approached me with this concept: it’s a blog not about someone’s personal life, politics, entertaining links, or any kind of news. It’s a blog about “foreign” products a Chinese person discovers abroad. The blog is bilingual. In this way, the average Chinese person can find out about some interesting products not available in China, and foreigners can get a Chinese person’s light-hearted take on the utterly normal products from back home which are conspicuously absent in China. Current examples include cheese, Twix, Centrum, baby cut carrots, and deodorant. It’s one to watch, and won’t take up much of your time.


24

Feb 2004

Lost in Translation: Thoughts

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation

I recently saw the movie Lost in Translation. My major in college was Japanese, I have lived in Kyoto for a year, and I still have friends there (both Japanese and foreign). So I had been looking forward to this movie for some time.

I liked the way the movie used language to alienate the characters, particularly in Bill Murray’s scenes — the Suntory photo shoot, the hospital visit, and the ridiculous talk show. There are no subtitles. The effect was a little spoiled for me because in each case I actually understood what the Japanese people were saying, but this really only added to the comic effect. (Here’s a translation of the first Suntory photo shoot to give you an idea.) I imagine a lot of the “acting” was really just improv between two people who really couldn’t communicate in real life.

(Of course, when I was laughing during these scenes and my girlfriend was only smiling, she wanted to know what was so funny, and then I needed to translate from Japanese to Chinese for her, which is a hard switch for me to make if my attention is partially diverted — which it was — so sometimes my “Japanese to Chinese translations” would come out as Japanese paraphrased in more Japanese. Oops. That really confused her.)

One of the reviewers on IMDb felt that the movie was overrated, and that Coppola largely ripped off Wong Kar-Wai. Interesting claim. I don’t know how much the movie was hyped overseas; I missed all that. I do know that I enjoyed the movie, but perhaps largely due to my familiarity with Japan on a personal level. I don’t usually enjoy Wong Kar-Wai’s movies.

One thing I hate about the American media is its neverending charade of “look how wacky those Japanese are!” The American media loves to find the most bizarre aspects of Japanese society and then exploit them. Yes, cultural differences are interesting, but the overall message that the media seems to be trying to convey is they’re not like us, and that can be dangerous. Lost in Translation presents cultural differences (and, indeed, even wackiness) in a way that seems very human. It didn’t annoy me; it made me smile. (Meanwhile my girlfriend, who has been to Japan but doesn’t speak much Japanese, was saying, “Haha, the Japanese really are like that!”)

I’d like to see Hollywood come out with more movies of this “being a foreigner in a distant land” variety. It seems like other countries do it a lot more. (I guess it’s because the terrorists, aliens, and natural disasters all converge on the USA every time, so naturally, that’s where we make the movies.) No, Midnight Express and Spy Game don’t count; that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Hollywood movies that address the reality of expat life. I’m sure you could get something equally entertaining set in Germany, Thailand, Hong Kong, or even (gasp!) Mainland China.

[NOTE: I don’t pretend to be a movie expert, but that’s my take. I’d love to hear about other movies like this, or links to stories about Lost in Translation.]

23

Feb 2004

Calling All Engineers

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but what about spite? Does it fit into the invention family somewhere?

I have this great idea for a new invention. It’s this box that attaches to the wall or ceiling of one’s apartment. The box emits sound exclusively in the direction of the surface to which it is attached, which is then amplified by conduction. Sound selections might include “Deafening Pounding,” “Metal Scraping Broken Glass,” and
“Jungle Beast Armageddon.” It would come with a remote control for ease of use, which would also feature volume control and a timer function, so that the sounds could be programmed to play at any time of the day or night. The sounds could be played when the owner is not even home (but his neighbor is).

I can see the conversation now… “Oh, is my noise bothering you? Sorry about that, I’ve been doing some remodeling lately. It should only last a few more weeks. You were remodeling too, recently, weren’t you? I think I remember hearing it every single day, really early in the morning. Anyway, gotta get back to remodeling. Nice talking to you, bye!”


23

Feb 2004

"Chinese" Tea

Last week I went to a school and taught some kids. In the few minutes before the class, I chatted with the principal. She asked if I would like a hot drink while I waited, and I gratefully accepted.

From the other room, she called out, “coffee or tea?” Tea, please, I told her. I heard another woman in the office commenting on how “foreigners like Chinese tea.”

Then the principal returned with my hot “Chinese” tea. Lipton.


19

Feb 2004

Soy Sauce from Human Hair

I don’t know — maybe I missed it — but I haven’t noticed this story yet in any of the mainland blogs that I read. Several friends back in the States have mentioned it to me, and so have several Chinese friends. Yet Google News turned up absolutely nothing for all my searches. I finally found one very short article which discusses it (via Dan, via Fark.com, reportedly, though I can’t find the story on their site). That article is so short that I quote it here in its entirety:

China has ordered a crackdown on domestic ingredient makers after it was discovered one plant had been illegally producing a base for soy sauce made out of human hair.

Apparently this happened in Hubei province. The company discovered that human hair contains amino acids very similar to soy sauce. They could obtain hair from barber shops, boil the amino acids out, then add that to a water/brown sugar/salt mixture, add a little coloring, and viola! — “soy sauce” that meets China’s national standards, without the pesky fermentation process. This unorthodox method of obtaining amino acids came as a result of a huge demand for it in China.

Unfortunately for the company, besides just plain being a disgusting thing to eat, human hair also contains harmful substances.

A quote on “QS” (quality standards) from Beijing’s China Condiment Association Secretary, Bai Yan:

Previously, when the quality inspection bureau tested Beijing’s soy sauce products, more than 90% met the standard. Before that, it also tested the soy sauce from all over the country, and over 60% met the standard. Customers can use the majority of the output produced by official businesses. There’s no need for concern; it’s reliable.

For those living in China, the soy sauce brand name to avoid is 红帅 (hong shuai).

Chinese News Links:

  • csonline.com.cn provides CCTV video.
  • This link provides an (indirectly related) picture, but it’s the same story you’ll find in a multitude of Chinese news sites, originally published in 北京娱乐信报, and is also the main source for this article.
  • 繁体 editorial.

UPDATE:
The story in English, via anonymous reader comment.


17

Feb 2004

I've seen you before…

My company makes materials for teaching small children English. Then the company markets and sells those materials all over China. I assist in this process, also providing Chinese teachers with training, and occasionally I teach a class of kids myself. I probably only teach kids one or two hours a week. I really like this because I am able to keep a firm grip on my sanity (I don’t know how other teachers like Wayne do it every day!), but I am still provided with frequent reminders of the final objective of this whole English language resource production and distribution process.

Yesterday I taught a class of 5-year-olds. It was my first time at the school, so I first met the principal, and then she took me to the classroom. I arrived a little early, so the teacher there asked me to just sit down with the kids and wait a few minutes. Then she inexplicably left the room. So there I was, it not yet time to start class, surrounded by all these wide little eyes. And then the little mouths opened.

“Teacher, I’ve seen you before!”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you too!”

“Me too, I’ve seen this foreign teacher before!”

“Really? You’ve seen me before?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you before!”

“Me too!”

“So have I!”

“I’ve seen you before too!”

“A lot of foreigners look alike to you, don’t they?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“I’ve never come here before, so you couldn’t have seen me before.”

“I’ve seen you before!”

“I’ve seen this foreign teacher before!”

“Me too, I’ve seen him before!”

“I have too!”

They really are cute.



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