Earlier, Agriculture Minister Du Qingling rebuked local producers of poultry vaccines for distributing sub-standard and fake vaccines to poultry farms in the region.
‘The use of fake and shoddy vaccines will result in a disaster,’ Du told the China News Service.
‘If the vaccines are not up to standard, then immunization to the virus will not be uniform or effective. This could bring huge losses.’
Farms in the region were highly concentrated, he said, meaning that any problems in vaccinating poultry could result in the epidemic spreading.
‘If we miss the chance to exterminate the virus in the early stages, then the difficulty in wiping it out will increase by several times, as will the spread of the epidemic,’ Du said.
‘We must fully recognize that at present there is a possibility that the epidemic will spread and expand. This is not an exaggeration just to scare people.’
The question is, why would those who produce vaccines think of distributing fake or poor-quality substitutes? What would make them put their short-term personal gain over helping their fellow citizens and assisting in a long-term effort to keep the country healthy?
Courtesy of TuTu (in a roundabout way; he sent me a Powerpoint file with references to the site), here is ChavScum, a site dedicated to expanding our understanding of the chav culture, “Britain’s peasant underclass”. I hope to find sites about bogan and Beng culture soon.
Back in early October, I let out a little teaser. Now that they have reached their intended recipients, I can let everyone in the whole goddamned world know who they are. Yes, I made myself (well, I made Mark and Kristen) a Weegie chav and chavette. These are the first dolls that have required the use of non-sock, non-felt fabric. Neds and Sengas love Burberry, y’see. So I took Neil and myself down to the fabric market and found some 100% genuine Burberry cotton/polyester mix material, all for the sake of making these little caps you see here. These are probably the most expensive sock dolls I’ve made, since I also splashed out and purchased metal bracelets, a tough manly one for Ned and a 100% genuine Dior one for Senga. There’s nothing too good for my pals.
It’s hard to tell in the photos, but Senga is expecting a wee bairn. According to Neil, being preggers is a fairly frequent occurrence amongst the senga set. In case you weren’t aware, her baby is made of polyfill, too.
Here are a couple of chav-like phrases we can all learn to say:
“Gie’s a gonk, ya dobber.”
“Check the nick ae’ you, ya fan dan!”
Neil’s afraid to tell me more in case I start calling him Ned.
(Kristen assures me that Ned and Senga live on a high shelf and Rosie can’t get to ‘em.)
Carolina Panthers cheerleaders Renee Thomas, 20, and Angela Keathley, 26, allegedly had sex together in a cubicle in a Florida nightclub.
They were then involved in a fight with angry women who had been waiting to use the toilet at Banana Joe’s in Channelside, reports the St Petersburg Times.
Terry reckons, “If they did this in the mens room, I doubt anybody would have complained…”
What if they had been male cheerleaders shagging in the men’s room?
You have a Chinese knick-knack hanging on your rear view mirror.
You sing karaoke.
Your house is covered with tile. Does this count if it’s a rental?
Your kitchen is covered by a sticky film of grease. We don’t cook, so…
Your stove is covered with aluminum foil. See above.
You leave the plastic covers on your remote control.
You’ve never kissed your mom or dad. I don’t remember ever doing so.
You’ve never hugged your mom or dad.
Your unassisted vision is worse than 20/500. Probably true. I’m not about to go and calculate it.
You wear contacts, to avoid wearing your “coke bottle glasses”.
You’ve worn glasses since you were in fifth grade. Nope, since I was in Primary 2. Which is worse.
Your hair sticks up when you wake up. Oh, I thought it was just me!
You’ll haggle over something that is not negotiable.
You love to use coupons.
You drive around looking for the cheapest petrol. And waste all that petrol? No chance
You drive around for hours looking for the best parking space.
You take showers at night. That would be because I never got around to it during the day because I was too busy playing on my computer. Like today.
You avoid the non-free snacks in hotel rooms. Hell yeah, I’d rather buy them at the shops outside.
You don’t mind squeezing 20 people into one motel room.
Most girls have more body hair than you, if you are male.
You tap the table when someone pours tea for you.
You say “Aiya!” and “Wah!” frequently. I think I say aiyoh more often — I guess that counts.
You don’t want to wear your seatbelt because it is uncomfortable.
You love Las Vegas, slot machines, and blackjack. I don’t gamble, but I remember that Circus Circus was fun.
You unwrap Christmas gifts very carefully, so you can reuse the paper.
You only buy Christmas cards after Christmas, when they are 50% off.
You have a vinyl tablecloth on your kitchen table. Chinese kitchens are too small to accommodate a table.
You spit bones and other food scraps on the table. That’s why you need the vinyl tablecloth.
You have stuff in the freezer since the beginning of time.
You use the dishwasher as a dish rack. I’ve never had a dishwasher. Us plebs hand wash.
You have never used your dishwasher.
You keep a Thermos of hot water available at all times. Then what would our electric kettle do, become a microwave in protest?
You eat all meals in the kitchen. See above.
You save grocery bags, tin foil, and tin containers.
You have a piano in your living room.
You pick your teeth at the dinner table (but you cover your mouth).
You twirl your pen around your fingers. Alas, I have never managed to master that skill.
You hate to waste food. According to Neil, I am damned good at wasting food.
You have Tupperware in your fridge with three bites of rice or one leftover chicken wing. We wish we actually had food in our fridge.
You don’t own any real Tupperware – only a cupboard full of used but carefully rinsed margarine tubs, takeout containers, and jam jars.
You also use the jam jars as drinking glasses.
You have a collection of miniature shampoo bottles that you take every time you stay in a hotel. Only if they’re nice.
You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes). These snacks are always dried and include dried plums, mango, ginger, and squid.
You wash your rice at least 2-3 times before cooking it. See above.
Your dad thinks he can fix everything himself.
The dashboard of your Honda is covered by hundreds of small toys.
You don’t use measuring cups.
You beat eggs with chopsticks.
You have a teacup with a cover on it.
You always look phone numbers up in the phone book, since calling information (*69) costs 50 cents.
You only make long distance calls after 11pm.
If you are male, you clap at something funny and if you are female, you giggle whilst placing a hand over your mouth. Actually, I tend to fall over.
You like Chinese films in their original undubbed versions. We used to watch Spanish or Mexican drama series that were dubbed into Chinese…
You love Chinese Martial Arts films.
You’ve learnt some form of martial arts.
Shaolin actually means something to you.
You like congee with thousand-year-old eggs. Yummy.
You prefer your shrimp with the heads and legs still attached.
You never call your parents just to say hi.
If you don’t live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you’ve eaten, even if it’s midnight.
When you’re sick, your parents tell you not to eat fried foods or baked goods due to yeet hay.
You know what yeet hay is.
You e-mail your Chinese friends at work, even though you only 10 feet apart. Neil Skypes me when he’s in the next room — does that make him more Chinese than I?
You use a face cloth.
You starve yourself before going to all you can eat places.
You know someone who can get you a good deal on jewelry or electronics. I know someone who knows someone…
You save your old Coke bottle glasses even though you’re never going to use them again.
You own your own meat cleaver and sharpen it.
Your toothpaste tubes are all squeezed paper-thin.
You know what moon cakes are. Yummy, especially with more salted egg yolks.
When there is a sale on toilet paper, you buy 100 rolls and store them in your closet or in the bedroom of an adult child who has moved out.
Your parents know how to launch nasal projectiles.
You iron your own shirts. Er… I don’t actually know how to iron anything.
You play a musical instrument.
Even if you’re totally full, if someone says they’re going to throw away the leftovers on the table, you’ll finish them.
You’ve eaten a red bean popsicle. That sounds like eating a diarrhea pudding.
You bring oranges (or other produce) with you as a gift when you visit people’s homes.
You fight over who pays the dinner bill.
You majored in something practical like engineering, medicine or law.
You live with your parents and you are 30 years old (and they prefer it that way). Or if you’re married and 30 years old, you live in the apartment next door to your parents, or at least in the same neighborhood.
You don’t tip more than 10% at a restaurant, and if you do, you tip Chinese delivery guys/waiters more.
You have acquired a taste for bitter melon.
You eat every last grain of rice in your bowl, but don’t eat the last piece of food on the table. I usually eat everything but the rice.
You can hear your family/friends talking even though they’re 20 meters away.
You always stay up on Chinese New Years’ eve and chat while eating sunflower seeds.
You use plastic shopping bags as garbage bags because you’re told “they’re environmentally friendly”.
You can’t rap.
No one you know can rap.
Your parents think that you don’t spend enough time studying.
If you get a B in your grades, they’ll ask you why you didn’t get a A.
You always go to those Chinese video stores to borrow shows to watch.
You go to at least 3 different coaching schools because your parents think that you need to be faster than the rest of your school.
Your parents are never fair when you’re trying to negotiate something with them.
You live very close to your entire family (and this includes your grandparents.)
The only time you ever get pocket money is when you receive those red packets on New Years and then your parents take the money off you and tell you they’re going to save it for you (even though you never see the money again).
You’ve actually read up to 99. Yup.
You realize that most these reasons are actually true!
While I believe strongly that history is a very subjective thing, i.e. kings and ancient scribes (and whoever else wrote stuff) left behind what they wanted us to believe happened during their reign, I am also aware that those who cite references and bibiliographies can very easily mislead readers by counting on the fact that most of us won’t bother to check. I still give the benefit of the doubt to authors when I read what is noted as non-fiction, I’m not so cynical nor an expert in any field (except for one type of sock doll), and this essay’s arguments make clear that Menzies did make rather… er… fascinating leaps of logic in order for the background material to support his claims (at least for those covered in the rebuttal essay, that is).
(There’s an additional comment on the forum where the original complaint was posted, this one about an ‘odd ball‘ from the early Ming dynasty. Very cool.)
My thanks to whoever it was who posted the comment, whether it was Geoff Wade himself, my friend who said he would ask Geoff Wade, or anyone who was interested enough to take the time.
People think I’m weird when I stick my camera into the tubs in the fresh food section of Trust-Mart, Xiamen’s Taiwanese answer to Wal-mart.
Don’t they look thrilled at the prospect of being taken away and cooked?
Anytime any Chinese person asks if you want tian ji (田鸡), please know that that’s a frog (at least you won’t get H5N1). It is also a good time of year (in China) to start eating dog stew, very warming, apparently.
I, on the other hand, live by my deadlines. It gives my dominant anally retentive personality a sense of accomplishment to finish things on time. If I didn’t give myself goals with timetables, good God, I’d never get out of bed. Ever.
This is my way of saying it’s busy days at What’s On Xiamen headquarters (i.e. the small room where all our shite is stored, along with my laptop and sock doll supplies).
In celebration of my new craft site, Twisted Sockster*, I present Disembodied Dippy the Hippy, my submission to November’s Month of Softies challenge, This guy is an accessory.
I’d thought maybe I wouldn’t participate this month, since sock dolls don’t really count as accessories — unless you stick them down the collar of your shirt, leaving only the head and arms exposed. My cousin used to do this with his favourite toys when he was a kid, and I am proud to carry on the practice here in Xiamen. Sure, he was ten at the time and I’m pushing thirty, but who’s counting.
Neil thinks I need some mental help, but he knows nothing of my family’s precious traditions.
Anyways. I have a stack of sticky notes on my desk (the real-life kind), with to-do’s and ideas for sock dolls. And a bunch of extraneous sock material left from my earlier projects (i.e. scrap I could not bear to part with in case I found a use for it) — a quick consultation of the ‘sock doll’ idea list reminded me of one thing I thought would be funny, a 70s sock doll.
I mean, come on, what’s funnier than a disembodied bloke with an afro who only wants peace, love, and understanding in this world?
Yeah.
(Disembodied Dippy has a safety pin firmly secured to the back of his head. He’s a pin for your bags or clothing, y’all.)
And so another drug runner, Nguyen Tuong Van, faces the death penalty for attempting to smuggle heroin through Singapore’s Changi Airport on the way home to Australia. Singapore can’t be seen to be soft on anyone who takes drugs into Singapore, be they in transit or no. That’s the official position, I reckon. Zero tolerance, etc.
Think Centre is quick to cry ‘disproportionate and cruel‘ in his case — they have been calling for a moratorium on the death penalty for years. I agree something must be done to stop gullible people from becoming drug runners, but execution does seem a touch heavy-handed in this case. Threat of execution clearly does not stop people desperate for a bit of money from thinking, Nah, it won’t happen to me. I’m smarter than those other lamers who got caught. There will always be someone willing to carry drugs for a bit of cash, no matter how many people a government hangs.
It’s a shame this young man has been sentenced to death. His ignorance or misplaced confidence was his downfall. In principle, I disagree with mandatory death sentences (and am not sure about capital punishment as a whole), but the system does not function according to my beliefs. Think Centre and other activists against the death penalty should be commended for carrying on a difficult campaign.
I’ve been dozing for much of the day. My family’s visit must have exhausted me. Nothing to do with staying out till after 4 on Saturday night / Sunday morning, nosiree (nosirree?).
