Chinese service & the Bangkok train - more similar than one might think

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008: We arrived back in China today, though i've been inhabiting a world full of uniquely China worries since Thursday.

We've flown into Shenzhen and need to get to Shanghai, thus timing our journey to perfectly coincide with more migrant worker chaos on the railways (just like then and then and then .).

On Thursday i finally realised that the National Day 7-day holiday starts this week, so i got on the phone to try to organise Shenzhen-Shanghai train tickets. Too late, i was told by two friends, the tickets for Monday will be long gone so you'll have to fly.

So i got onto a few Chinese discount airfare reservation sites. Infuriatingly, however, the website with the cheapest fare, the only one we could actually afford, appeared to be down. The main page, strangely enough, was working so i suspected it was a ploy to simply suck customers onto the site.

After about an hour wasted trying to navigate through to the promised fare, i tried the whole process again, from the start. This time it worked, and i got as far as to be staring at a "Reserve ticket" button. But when i clicked on it, nothing happened. In fact, it was quite clearly not linked to anywhere at all.

The "reservations hotline" was prominently advertised all over the website, though this fare was supposed to be a special cheap internet fare. Once again i suspected a desperate ploy and was proved wrong. I called up the "hot" line and a fellow answered. I explained to him the situation, principally that i wanted to reserve two of the affordable tickets i saw advertised on the website. "You can reserve them on the website. That's how you get that fare," he said. I reiterated that i had already tried that, and that's why i was calling etc. etc., at which point he went off into a diatribe that i didn't understand. So i suggested we communicate via email, he agreed, and i sent him the details of the fare i wanted.

An hour later after no reply i called the "hot" line again, and this time spoke to a young woman. I explained in my best "distressed" voice that her friend's inaction had greatly disappointed me and could i please book immediately. She replied that i could, but there was none of that cheap fare left, and i would have to pay RMB140 extra.

Here i encountered a problem that i had never imagined.

What were the passengers' names?, she asked.

I told her.

How do you write that?

I told her, but she stopped me at "A-N..."

"Which 'aey'?" she asked (all of this was in Chinese of course).

"Umm, A for Apple."

Silence. Then again:"Which 'ae'?"

"Oh, uh, anquan de A ('the A of anquan'),"

A pause, then, "Is that the A of ABC?" she asked.

"Right, right."

"And then?" she asked, still in Chinese - amazingly there actually is something to be learned from the movie "Dude Where's my Car?"

"N"

"Which 'emn'?" came the voice down the line, like the new Metallica album (and, apparently, 2000s music in general - ht titcho) fuzzy at the points where there should be critical and subtle difference. If i sounded the same to her, i could understand why she had to ask.

"Uhhh, the N of November...uhhh, the N of 'nvshi'(lady)."

Silence.

"Do you bright-clear?"

No

"Okay, it's ABCDEFGHIJKLMN de N ('the N of ABCDEFGHIJKLMN')."

She gave up. She told me to put our names in an email, which i sent immediately.

Thank you. So how would i like to pay for that?, she asked via email.

Can i come in on the 29th when i get to Shenzhen?

Yes, but she 'feared' they wouldn't have that price any more.

Could i pay by credit card?

"We will help you keep the fare to the best of our ability."

"Ai!." i replied, "Thanks, but we're students, we can't afford any unexpected thousands of yuan. We need a confirmed reservation. Do you have a secure server that i can pay by credit card on?"

"Let us help you."

"Thanks, but can you send me some kind of documentation of this reservation? Your name?"

"I'm sorry, i want to rest. My name is Ms Bu. Thankyou."

So what the fuck is the point of this "hot" line supposed to be? You can't use the web to pay, and you have to actually be in Shenzhen already to buy the ticket! Not to mention the uniquely Chinese 'let-him-work-it-out-at-the-time' service ethos. For fuck's sake. This whole process took about 6 hourss and i happened to be wracked with fever.

So it was to my great pleasure, therefore, when i discovered the "no seat" tickets on the Shanghai train, enabling us to blatantly stand them up. Unsurprisingly, however, this afternoon i found a message in my inbox from yesterday, stating that they in fact could not help me at all. The only surprise was that they bothered to inform me.

Decidedly more reliable was the Bangkok train we rode to get to the airport. It was an effective scheme that got us 9/10 of the way there for 6 baht each. It was full of middle-aged poor ladies who get on at various tiny markets. The train barely stops for them; sometimes the driver just slows down to walking pace and opens the doors and they get on while it continues moving. They sit on the floor in giant groups, gossping (or so it appears) loudly, carrying their unsold meagre wares home in supermarket baskets. The train's reliability was rather a mystery, though. It was one of those trains that just looks like a normal carriage but can move itself, and i spent the journey standing at the front of the train in front of the hole where it can link up as part of another train, seeing almost exactly what the driver sees.

Just near the station the eastern line branches off on its own, down a single track, an alleyway for trains that is no wider than the train itself. The slums on both sides are built out to within a few inches of the train windows, and the train-alley is used far less by trains than by people and animals. It's covered in rubbish. Through the whole inner-Bangkok area the line is in unbelievably bad condition.
The train jolts over large gaps, swaying side-to-side. This is particularly alarming
when you notice that the narrow-gauge track is perhaps only a quarter as wide as the train itself. Parts of the track are almost buried beneath sand around construction sites, and whenever the train switches tracks the driver must slow to a walking pace to get through the points. Poverty clings to the train line for many miles, in devastating contrast with the glassy Suvarnabhum airport. This was the parting gift of bejewelled Bangkok, as memorable for me as the Klong boats

So now we're in Shenzhen; tomorrow we ride the big, stable, China train to Shanghai, and our tickets are of the "no seat" type. Whether that means "no seat for you", or just "no allocated seats", we've yet to discover, but what's certain is we'll have 18 hours to think it over, and a carriageful of worker-peasants to talk it over with.

From Suhumvit to the sickness and vomit pit

SEPTEMBER 26, 2008: We left the "Intercourt" apartments for the Khaosan hellhole . . . one last week there, for the sake of "timing our run" at a Chinese visa. Photos of Sukhumvit days

Our month at Intercourt was predictable. I liked the sounds that came from the tennis club - how do you describe the sound of tennis shots?? - and i liked watching the ladies on the ground floor below who did residents' washing by foot in large bowls. They had a lot of cats, which lazed all around them all day. The whole yard was concrete and so the ladies often swept up the cat shit with a broom made of tree branches.

Being month-by-month accommodation, the place was full of foreigners. There was the ponytailed Swiss-German looking ones (2 of them). The overweight Lebanese-looking one. The subcontinentals, a few dozen, at a guess, including the impossibly unreliable manager, Singh. The refined Korean and Japanese couples (several). The young, bald-and-pinkish fella who lowered his head when you passed in the corridor, and who was probably British (no Intercourse, not even social! - where's his public spirit?). The couple of unknown nationality who picked up the Britisher's (and our) slack by providing regular Intercourse soundtracks of 45-60 minutes to floors 4,5 and 6, both partners enthusiastically, blatantly faking multiple orgasms. Then there were the Aussies. Blond, leather-skinned Aussies in loose singlets looking like laid-off outback Queensland road workers released from flipping the lollipop sign from "stop" to "slow" and back again.

The one foreigner i spoke with was a large (though not supersized) black American teacher who sympathised with our visa predicament, he said, having been thrown out of Japan after his marriage to a Japanese woman broke down. He hadn't seen his 5-year-old son since. He didn't know when he would.

Yes, expat Thailland, unfortunately for the Thais, is a thick layer of detritus at the bottom of their muddy river of a country. It's like North Vegas as described by Hunter Thompson, "the place you go when you've fucked up one too many times on the strip." We, of course, fitted the role perfectly: expelled from the rectum of China, Yunnan province, we sank slowly down southeast Asia as if by gravity before settling on Bangkok. We contributing nothing to Thailand in our time in exile. I suppose the "Jusco" supermarket from which we bought countless 66c meals is that much more viable for our custom. But no, objectively, like everyone else, we're worthless scum!

In spite of this, i was several times invited to join drinking circles as i walked here or there in the evening. I politely declined them all, promising myself i was to work at home. But one old BBQ meat seller with a long, wispy beard who gave me the warmest smile every time i walked past, saying as i did, "sawatdee krap", without buying anything. He looked more Malaysian than Thai, but he probably wasn't given his regular companionship of a whisky bottle, which he once invited me to share as i walked home with dinner. I resolved to go back one night bearing a bottle of Scotch, and by our last night in Intercourt i still hadn't. So i bought a large bottle, nailed a few shots on an empty stomach, grabbed my dictionary and headed out to his smokey patch of roadside. He was, as expected, already drinking - it was a saturday night - along with several ladies from Issan and a motorcycle taxi rider. The jolly crowd seemed to be enjoying my company; the old man challenged me to several shot-draining contests, which i remember letting him win before my memory went blank. A mere 60 minutes after i left Intercourt i was back, staggering, draped in a greasy table cloth with a whisky glass in my hand, having been kindly shipped off home on the back of the motorbike taxi with these, my souvenirs of the only night anything happened there.

So back we came, the following day, leaving behind the strangely soothing sounds of the tennis club for what i can only call the unbearable discord of Khaosan. The only positive that could possibly come from a week on Khaosan Road was to interview Mr Yim, the famed - at least that's the implication on his signs and if it's not true now i intend to make it so - purveyor of vegetarian street cuisine and yoghurtmaster extraordinaire.

The morning i got up to interview Yim i was running a fever. Yim was obliging but when i got back to the hotel i couldnt stand the thought of transcribing the interview in the reception area downstairs. Our room at the Live Good Guest House didn't have a power point; none of them do. My laptop needs a power point. Perhaps it was just a convenient excuse not to get on with what i had to do, but i decided instead that to trek out to the train station and check out the prospects of getting to the airport cheaply would be more bearable. More manageable, i thought - sitting on a bus listening to music. I wasn't thinking straight. The stop for the Bangkok free bus was 20 minutes walk away through the epicentre of desperate hawkers, tuk-tuk drivers and pavement grease.

The bus was packed. I phased to the space i saw up front before i realised i was standing on the platform above the engine and had to bend my neck to fit. There were no vents and the heat from the engine and the bodies could rise no further than the stratum my aching head was occupying. After 10 bad minutes i managed to phase backwards off the platform, claiming the position right under the raised safety hatch. My head almost protruded out the top. When the bus moved the wind blowing across the top of my head cooled me.

But the free bus takes the most congested route possible to the train station. The air along the streets from the Reclining Buddha through Chinatown is tinged blue and the bus and everything else on the road stops and crawls, crawls and stops. The streets were lined with hundreds of posters for mayoral candidates. The comical angry-man, catfish moustache bristling; the smiley, soft-featured suit with the web address www.futurebangkok.net; the looker with a neatly trimmed moustache posing on a motorbike. I liked the bristling catfish man. Passing his posters made me laugh many times over. I had a splitting headache for the rest of the day.

Back at Live Good Guest House i fell asleep before 6 and was wide awake at 10. The rooms at Live Good Guest House are clean, cheap and extremely small. None have extractor fans or vents, so there's no way for accumulated heat at the top of the room to get out. The only way to extract the heat is to stand outside, opening and closing the door like some hotel doorman stuck in a time glitch. The ceiling fan was on high, blowing the hot air down on us, creating a 40C desert gale inside the room. It's cooler with the fan on low.

With great effort i dressed and went to the nearest shop and bought ice. Back in the room, after filling up my second glass, i decided to balance the ice bucket on my foot rather than on the ground and it overturned. It was nice, crushed ice, not big, hard-to-eat cubes. About half of it melted on impact, the rest within about 20 seconds. Despite my weakened, feverous state or perhaps because of it, i flew into a vessel-bursting rage and nearly gouged my own eyes out in substitution for screaming, which i had somehow remembered was not the done thing in a guest house. Shortly after, i scolded myself for being so unphilosophical. I am by nature a clumsy motherfucker. You're fighting against the irresistible course of nature, i thought. Too bad getting angry was also a force of nature, i thought.

I went back to reading Platform. Its self-loathing was entirely satisfying and i finished the brutal last third of the book in smart time. The forlorn final words rattled around in my head and prompted me to study Chinese to go to sleep. After an hour i was positively alert. So i turned the Silver Jews latest album and listened, wondering, without wanting to, what Michel would make of the opening track's earnest exhortation:

"When failure's got you in its grasp
And you're reaching for your very last
It's just beginning."

I remembered, without wanting to, the Silver Jew, David Berman's brave criticism of Radiohead for not attempting meaningful lyrics; on the heels of Platform, Radiohead's lyrics stand uncorrected.

I woke to the early morning squawks of Thai washing ladies in the alley below. My dreams had been continuations of Michel's hopeless closing monologue. I switched on David Berman. The bed was soft enough that if i tapped my foot slightly the motion would ripple through my whole body in time with the music. That was one thing i liked about Live Good Guest House.

XINHUA: Pakistan buys 100 Chinese military planes that will be absolutely excellent against India

Caption: By 2015 Pakistan will have over 100 assorted Chinese battle planes, including the "Owl-Dragon"

PAKISTAN BUYS 100 CHINESE MILITARY PLANES THAT WILL BE ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT AGAINST INDIA

Source: Young China - Youth reference

From Indian press trust reports of 7/9: Pakistan will spend big in buying over 100 advanced warplanes from China, which will bring Pakistan's Air Force's warplane numbers up to India's in a leap of strength. Pakistani Air Force generals say it will achieve "decisive excellence". Pakistani-Chinese military co-operation has continued to strengthen, leading to American and Indian worries.

--100 Chinese fighting machines to become the leading force---

Pakistan Air Force commander Tanvir Mohammed Ahmed said on the 7th of September that Pakistan and China had signed an agreement bringing in the fighting machines, the recent agreement including a project for the assembly and building of 42 JF-17 (FC-1 "Owl Dragon" in Chinese) fighting machines. Ahmed said the 'Pak-Air-Army' (Pakistani Airforce) had already received 8 fighters, and that these would mainly be used for testing and assessment. According to a leak, Pakistan has ordered 150 fighters altogether, with the possibility of increasing that up to 250-300.

The project also includes two squadrons of around 36 FC-20 (Chinese name: Destroy-10 "Vicious Dragon") multi-use battle planes, as well as 18 new-model American F16 battle planes. Before this Pakistan had received a batch of 12 American F-16s, refitted and facelifted by Lockheed Martin Company. Pakistan has allegedly also signed up with Ukraine for mid-air refuelling planes, with the first flying-machine expected to be delivered within a month. Ahmed let slip these details while a local television
station interviewed him.

Ahmed said Pakistan's airforce hoped to receive Swedish-made Saab 2000-model early warning patrol planes within the year. Pakistan and Sweden have agreed on a project to bring in 5 of these 2000-model early warning planes. The first flying-machine had come off the production line in April this year, and was currently in being tested Sweden.

By 2015, the Pak-Air-Army will have more than 100 JF-17s (FC-1 "Owl Dragons"), FC-20s (Destroy-10s), F-7PGs (Destroy-7PGs) and assorted other Chinese fighting machines, and also mid-air refuelling planes and early-warning planes brought in from other countries. General Ahmed said when the project was completely realised, the Pak-Air-Army would have achieved "decisive excellence" in the South Asian region. And from the details of this project it can be seen hence that with their outstanding capability and large number, Chinese-produced battle planes will become the Pakistani Air Force's principal power.

--"Owl-Dragon" internationally competitive--

Chinese and Pakistani military co-operation has a long history: China previously exported F-6s (Destroy-6s), F-7s (Destroy-7s) and many other models of fighter plane, which have been in service in the Pakistani Air Force for many years as the backbone of the Pak-Air-Army.

And the Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 (FC-1 "Owl-Dragon") Battle Plane Joint Production Project is the embodiment of the deep-seated military co-operation.

According to public reports, the Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 (FC-1 "Owl-Dragon") Battle Plane Joint Production Project is extremely unique, with Pakistan's Air Force taking up 50% of the investment, and the China Aviation Technology Import and Export Company and Chengdu Aviation Industry Group jointly providing the remaining 50%, China and Pakistan sharing the JF-17's technology, and jointly assuming responsibility for production and sales. The "Owl-Dragon" can accomplish over-the-horizon attacks and precision ground attacks, and can adapt to the 21st century war environment's needs for an all-weather, multi-use light-model battle plane. The Pakistan Institute of Air Defence has indicated that the "Owl-Dragon"s combat capabilities are up to 70-80% of the F-16A/B model's, at a much cheaper selling price, making it strongly competitive in the international market.


Caption: China's own self-developed Destroy-10 battle plane has equalled or even exceeded the F-16's level
---

Original link: 巴购百架中国战机将对印度形成绝对优势

"Platform" rattles my platform

SEPTEMBER 20, 2008: Don't you just love it when you find that something you've written, something you so took for granted that you wrote it almost subconsciously, is patently false?

I do, at least when i discover the bullshit before it goes on the public record. I've been writing a foreword to a 1909 book that my company is reprinting, outlining how i perceive the author to have carefully cultivated a pompous and bigoted persona in order to foist scandalously progressive/borderline hippy views concerning the West's influence on China and the superiority of the Chinese philosophy onto 'respectable' society. At the same time, i've been reading Michel Houllebecq's Platform, submitted, as i usually am, to the author's superior intellect, and the following passage rattled my cardboard shanty of a theory like an earthquake centred on Calcutta:

"I could have mentioned that Europeans had never thought of the yellow races as inferior helf-monkeys, but rather as civilised and possibly dangerous people." (paraphrased cos i already sent the book in the mail but i think it's pretty close.)

I had written that my book's author's views were deviant "at a time when the world's greatest empire hung by the thread of assumed racial superiority." The statement's got a ring to it...it's the kind of statement your eyes just glide over these days. Mine must have, several times, before Houllebecq's claim shook me awake. Actually i was more so shocked by the fact that i had written such a statement without thinking about and therefore didnt really mean it. But how well does Houellebecq's claim stand up in light of the old China books i've been reading as a job this year?

Well, i have indeed seen an attitude emerge of "yes, they're civilised, more so in some ways than us, and yes they're a threat." But the fact is that especially around the time of the Boxer Rebellion China was certainly considered 'barbarian' by many in the English-speaking world. American doctor and newspaper correspondent Robert Coltman (why so many turn-of-the-century correspondents were doctors i'm wholly unenlightened...i thought doctors were supposed to work long hours) wrote in 1901 of "barbarian, uncivilised China". And Mr John Bland, the author of the subject of my foreword, writes of "unsavoury natives", "the exegencies of racial division" and the 'Chinaman' as "a deformed half-brother" - views which, given the praise for the book at the time, were clearly widely accepted. And of course, Old China was a world populated, in English at least, by 'men' and 'Chinamen', and though it may have been used out of convention by many who had no such thoughts, the implication is of beings of two different species. Could the same be said about the terms "Frenchman" or "Scotchman"? Yes but from the depictions i've seen and read, the 'Chinaman' was often seen as a kind of pygmy. The biggest trouble is working out how often. My response is that on matters of race and culture the views of those who leave their mark in literary works have been and continue to be more progressive than society at large, i.e. "the masses" are more racist. The "yellow races", then, were generally considered inferior, only partially civilised (with Africa as a basis of comparison), and indeed, possibly dangerous.

So what then, of my dodgy claim of the empire hanging by the "thread of assumed racial superiority"? Well, I tried to cover my arse by changing "racial" to "moral", deviously narrowing the focus to the missionary justification for colonialism...and submitted the dodgy fucker anyway.

Me and my theories. God damn. Platform is a great book. I'm amazed that sardonic nihilist parody of the useless degeneracy of western people can be interwoven with romance, wonder at the beauty of the world, and an attitude towards male-female relations that's so fucking cynical it's newborn-innocent. With Michel's living life consisting of nothing but sex, he illuminates it in a purest possible light. This "light of innocence" spreads to whores, sex tourists, even the lowest-common-denominator "give the punt-uhs what they want" corporate ethos. Just like the extremes of political leftism and rightism i.e. violence bend the continuum into a circle, extreme cynicism, it seems, ends up as extreme innocence.

"In the end what all lovers of journeys of discovery seek is confirmation of what they've already read in their guide books."

XINHUA: Why has the American Dream become the American Nightmare?

The Beijing Daily News and Xinhua rub their hands and cackle with glee at the American financial crisis.

The writer of the article, attributed only as "Feng", seems to not know of the 1930s Great Depression, judging by his "worst crisis ever" pronouncement. But cmon, admit it - that's what we're all hoping for. We all love a good stock market crash, all those alpha-types suddenly hitting rock-bottom....and - hey hey - another Great Depression will surely prolong, and might even save the species! [Update 21/9: The writer is not actually just "Feng", but rather "Wen Feng", a pseudonym of a honcho of the paper's parent company which has appeared before spitting forth red-blooded "home truths". Thanks, Joel]


WHY HAS THE AMERICAN DREAM BECOME THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE?

From: Beijing Evening News

America's Lehman Brothers, after 158 years of history, has collapsed, initiating a US financial crisis that has spread through the world economy, causing panic in world markets. The American government has issued emergency loans of $85 billion to on-the-edge American International Group. Not long ago, the American Government took over crisis-strciken Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, making this the worst financial crisis in America's history, and there's yet to be seen any capability of stopping the bleeding, with serious problems appearing concerning companies like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

America boasts of its "mature capitalism" and that it has the most effective management-ladders - so why has a financial disaster like this appeared? Not long ago , experts from these very companies were the economic authorities every country referred to. With their own illnesses incurable, they talked eloquently of others': When it came to China's economy, they unanimously opined that China's financial management was weak, that it was the Chinese economy's lurking danger. The reason (they said) was that China's financial institutions were state-owned and not free enough, that they couldn't operate in accordance with the market. With these words still ringing in our ears, America's market-operated, perfectly free financial institutions haven't collapsed - they've been bought by the Government. What could possibly explain this?

American people have always been very arrogant, ordering others around. When a nation is strongly self-reliant its people conclude that everything about it is always right, that anyone deviating from America's line must be "executed or convinced otherwise". It seems that the world can only have "American standards" and no others. At every turn it has demanded others be "responsible stakeholders". The writer emphatically disagrees - who should be responsible for this? Is America or the world responsible? Or are China's masses responsible? The American government is only responsible to America, it doesn't care about other people's hardships. This time the disaster is an American one, one that's bringing disaster to the world, and you might say it's been very irresponsible in its behaviour.

In the end, the financial disaster that has happened in America is the myth of the American system being shattered. [Can't transate, i'm not good enough]. This is a lesson to all those flatterers of the Western system who said it was the "ultimate and final" model. As an American said today on a television broadcast: "It was originally thought that everyone could realise the American Dream, but this is an American Nightmare." (Text: Feng)

---

Original link: 美国梦为何成为美国噩梦

XINHUA: Guangzhou - Road suddenly collapses，swallowing a car

Caption: A white car is submerged by water

I couldn't resist this one: my thoughts homed straight to the Sunday Times' grime/crime/death/serious-injury reporter, in all his token 'eyewitness quote' glory...but this story is so much better than anything Perth could serve up.

GUANGZHOU: ROAD SUDDENLY COLLAPSES, SWALLOWS CAR

Yesterday mid day, around 12 o'clock, in Guangzhou City, Whitecloud District, near Goldsand Island, a road cave-in occurred, perfectly swallowing a car that was driving on the road. Many eyewitnesses said the male driver of the car quickly jumped out as the car was being swallowed by accumulating water, before he was immediately taken away in an ambulance. Judging by eyesight, the pit was about 70-80 square metres in area. According to locals, the collapse may well be connected to a nearby construction site.

"During the mid day just after 12, i was in my house eating food when i suddenly heard a boom from outside," Sand Phoenix Village resident Mr Chen told this reporter. He thought it was thunder at first, and went outside and looked at the sky, but the it was completely clear. Later he noticed more and more people encircling the high-speed city ring road bridge behind his village, then he knew the incident had happened over there.

The car was there, then it wasn't

When this reporter arrived hurriedly at the scene, he only saw a huge pit in the road of area 70-80 square metres, wherein a lot of water had accumulated, so much that the bottom couldn't be seen. An onlooking villager told this reporter he was passing nearby when the incident happened: "Suddenly there was a bang, and the ground shook, and i only saw a bus emerge from the dust in front - the white car behind me wasn't there." A few seconds later a passer-by dashed over and discovered the road surface in front of him had subsided into a large pit, and the white car had just fallen right in. "It was lucky the driver was clear-headed - he quickly opened the car door and climbed out." This reporter understands the driver was a man in his 30s, and that he climbed out of the pit with the help of the crowd. As the police took statements and the ambulance arrived, the folks on the scene looked on helplessly as the bottom of the pit started filling up with murky water eventually leaving no trace of the car. "The driver received no serious injuries. One arm was bleeding, but nothing life-threatening. He looked shaken," an eyewitness said.


Caption: A white car fell into a giant pit.



Caption: The car that fell into the pit is pulled out by the lift-vehicle.


Original link: 广州：路面突然下陷 吞没过路轿车

XINHUA: "Urban villages" - Beijing City's building management's chronic illness

This one's long so i'm doing it in pieces. Songyuan City has these villages - at least before we left it did, it's quite possible they're all gone now. There's a post, quite a good post by this "blog"s standards, and two photo albums full of up-close photos of these places in their day of reckoning (the second one has more).

"URBAN VILLAGES" - BEIJING CITY BUILDING MANAGEMENT'S CHRONIC ILLNESS - Xinhua Net - Beijing Channel - Masterminds: Su Huizhi & Li Xu - Reporter: Li Puquan - Editor/producer: Wang Jing

[continued from last time]

A foul stench assails the nose as you enter Majiabao Sanqi's number 37 compound, a dozen or so rows of cheaply constructed brick-and-tile houses arranged in rows that wander like a lost child. The reporter observed row 5, number 23 - dark and damp with flies buzzing around the kitchen tabletop and a strange smell coming from the kitchen. Inside a room less than 30 square metres were 6 bunk beds and 5 single beds, covered in piles of bedding and clothes just lying about. On the ground lay building materials and assorted personal possessions. 3 preschool-age kids were playing in the room while several adults reclined on the beds. A resident said 13 people lived in the room, all of them Sichuanese migrant workers. "What's it like to live here?" the reporter asked. "I came here to go to work - nothing else matters."

At Majiabao Road South, number 65 compound there is a self-made 2-storey building, with 20 rooms - upstairs are the owners, downstairs the renters. A landlady introduced the place to the reporter, describing it as half-industrial, half-rural. She said she never planned to add the second storey, but when she saw all her neighbours clamouring to build one, she couldn't help but do it. She receives 2,000 yuan per month from rentals and she's absolutely not satisfied with her living environment. She hopes the government will come and take control ASAP, although she's worried that if the government takes over she'll lose her rental income and be left with no life-source. Below the landlady's house is a common area of about 10 square metres where 9 gas hotplates are set up. The reporter asked an old man who was cooking at the time, "Is it safe to live here?". The old man replied, "It's not safe, but what can we do about it?"

According to Majiabao Neighbourhood Office head Zhou Qingfu, Majiabao Sanqi currently has 541 households, 1780 people, the vast majority of whom are "Former farmer residents". 12 years ago a Beijing developer commandeered 100,000 square metres of land in the Majiabao area for a project to build a complete Majiabao apartment complex. But after the first and second stages of planning were completed, and attention turned to auxilliary facilities at the third stage, it didn't get the large investment it needed and wasn't built. The "former farmer residents" who were living there at the time in single-storey dwellings slated for demolition are still there now. As they don't have any income, and the population has been growing rapidly, these households have needed to build extra storeys. Now the number of poorly constructed, self-made buildings has reached 1,115 - none having passed safety inspections, and all this has brought about safety, hygeine and public order problems.

Majiabao Sanqi currently has only 2 public toilets and 2 open-air rubbish-dumping places, and rubbish is often dumped in small mountains around the place. The cleaners can only use small carts to clean it up. The existing "storied buildings" are unreinforced, and could easily collapse, and with the space between the buildings so small, a fire or a flood could easily cause them to fall down like dominoes with mass casualties. Despite numerous attempts by the Neighbourhood Offfice to get their superiors in higher departments to address the issue, it remains unresolved. Zhou Qingfu says with feeling, "When i took office 8 years ago, 'Urban Villages' was the biggest headache. Now it's become a long-term illness."

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There's more but it's getting on a bit so i'm leaving it there until someone requests the rest (haha)


Caption: In the west side of Seapearl District, Xikau Village, Gate 1, is a self-kill butchering pit. Sewage from nearby houses all comes here. Whenever the sun shines for a second, the sewage emits a horrific smell that makes one vomit - it even blocks out the smell of the butchering pit.

Original link: “城中村”：北京城市建设管理的“痼疾”

XINHUA: "Urban villages" - Beijing City's building management's chronic illness

This one's long so i'm going to do it in 2 parts. Songyuan City has these villages - at least before we left it did, it's quite possible they're all gone now. There's a post, quite a good post by this "blog"s standards, and two photo albums full of up-close photos of these places in their day of reckoning (the second one has more).

"URBAN VILLAGES" - BEIJING CITY BUILDING MANAGEMENT'S CHRONIC ILLNESS - Xinhua Net - Beijing Channel - Masterminds: Su Huizhi & Li Xu - Reporter: Li Puquan - Editor/producer: Wang Jing

In recent years "urban villages" in the Beijing area have taken on the form of a malignant cycle: every time a rumours of a demolition go round it sets of a new surge of illegal construction; making demolition even harder, and development and transformation slower, and because of the demolitions, the living conditions and public order problems arising from the petitions issue become very obvious.

According to statistics from the capital's Social Security Comprehensive Management Committe Office, in just 4 areas - Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai and Shijing Shan - there are 331 of these "urban villages", occupying 950,000,000 square metres and holding a population of 715,000 in 119,000 illegal dwellngs. Illegal dwellings occupy 1,936,600 square metres, with a permanent population of 38,000.

A NEIGHBOURHOOD CADRE'S 8 YEARS OF ANXIETY

"Urban Villages" are an unharmonious phenomenon arising in the course of a city's development . In a narrow sense, it refers to rural villages undergoing the process of urbanisation; due to all or most of the arable land being commandeered [for development], farmers have become [city] residents, but are still living in their original villages which have evolved into residential neighbourhoods - these are also known as "inner-city villages".

Situated between Beijing's 3rd and 4th South Ring Roads in Fengtai District, Majiabao Sanqi is a typical "urban village". The reporter investigating found this 3 square kilometre piece of land surrounded by tall buildings and skyscrapers; everywhere were higgledy-piggledy self-made "handshake houses" and "kiss houses". Sewage flows in front of the houses, rubbish lies everywhere, and foul smells assault the nostrils. The spaces between the buildings are disorderly - in some cases two bikes wouldn't be able to pass each other - and many have no street numbers. In places the 4-5 metre-wide fire-access road has also been blocked or even stuffed full, and a fire engine would have no chance of getting in. Many people who live here have come from outside places to find work or start a business.

[to be continued]

Original link: “城中村”：北京城市建设管理的“痼疾”

And in other news...

...just by the way, this country is in the middle of an extremely serious political crisis, as you may have heard.

A few days ago i wondered why everyone was wearing yellow shirts with the royal insignia. Apparently it's a kind of insurance policy against riling anyone up, as everyone agrees that the King is Good. Even those who think he's bad - by law, they agree, he's good.

As of last week protesters have been occupying the Government House, refusing to let the elected government function unless the PM and his whole cabinet resigns.

On Tuesday the government declared a state of emergency after someone died in the streets (quite a few others were injured) when the protesters came up against anti-protest protesters.

The protesters are acting under the banner of the "People's Alliance for Democracy", and are mainly middle and upper-class Bangkokians. They've been protesting for months (during which time the Thai Baht and stock market have plunged), but there's only a few thousand of them, and from what i can gather, their main gripe is with popular democracy. They want to change the constitution so that most of the representatives currently elected by popular vote are appointed instead. They say the uneducated rural poor always votes for vote-buying crooks like Thaksin who buy poor people's votes with their crooked pro-poor policies like microfinance, rural health care and village university spots.

That name again - People's Alliance for Democracy!

I'm suspicious about General Anapong of the army's pronouncement that "the door is closed" to a coup. Despite the fact that gatherings of more than 5 are banned under the state emergency, the PAD continues to swarm around government house and no security forces are stopping them.

Some links if u care to know more:
Al Jazeera: Profile - Thailand's P.A.D.
Time: The battle for Thailand
Bangkok Post: End of emergency near
Bangkok Post: Totally isolated PM

XINHUA: First African carbon forum ends in Senegal

As part of my resolution to study Chinese harder, i'm going to start translating an article a day from the Xinhua news agency. It's mostly just to make myself do it, but i'll try to choose somewhat interesting ones that haven't been published on the English version of the website. My style of translation will be deliberately direct and literal - more so than real translators due to both my limited ability (i.e. dictionary use), and my belief that the original language's attitude, idioms, turns of phrase etc. should rightly be retained.

So here goes.

FIRST AFRICAN CARBON FORUM ENDS IN SENEGAL

Dakar, Xinhua, 9-5 (Journalist Hu Huo, Chen Shun): The curtain has fallen on the first African carbon forum in Dakar, the capital of Senegal in Africa's western corner. This carbon forum effectively promoted investment in an African carbon trading market, advancing the clean development mechanism project in Africa one step.

Senegal's environment minister's representative, said at the closing ceremony: "Buyers, sellers and investors are here in one room, cherishing a common objective, that is to advance carbon trading."

While the forum was taking place, the World Bank released a report that indicated there were up to 3,200 low-carbon energy projects in Africa which conform to the clean development mechanism, and that if these projects were all realised Africa's greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by 740,000,000 tons a year - more than Africa's current total carbon dioxide emissions of 680,000,000 tons.

One related achievement of the forum was the reaching of agreements on several aspects of carbon trading, for example, the Senegal Electricity Board and World Bank have undersigned Senegal's first protocol on the clean development mechanism project. Another achievement was consolidating the support of private enterprise and public institutions' for an African biofuels and renewable energy fund, and some African governments have already approved the setting up of a specialised fund, agreeing to provide US$20,000,000 in investment.

The first African carbon forum was held from the 3rd to the 5th of September, and was attended by more than 600 representatives from more than 60 countries and related international institutions.

Why should every blog post have a title?

SEPTEMBER 6: The visa shit went badly enough to bother writing down the story.

First thing Mondaay we went to Immigration. This city's so unplanned that there are at least 3 "city centres" that i've counted so far. We took a truck-taxi to the BTS (skytrain on stilts about six storeys above the city) station. We took the skytrain for 4 stops or something, then we had to change to the Metro (underground).

In an exasperating example of "letting the market decide" quackery, the Bangkok Metro and the Bangkok Skytrain are run by different companies and thus require new tickets to be purchased (though they are deceitfully marked on maps just like two lines of a subway system). So with two or more people, if you have to change trains it ends up cheaper to go by taxi. Bangkok, you deserve the world's worst traffic.

When after we got off the Metro we then had to take another bus to get to the Immigration department. After filling in all the forms etc., we approached the submit-application desk...which bore a sign saying extensions were granted for a maximum of 7 days for the sum of 1900 Baht.

I tried to weazel out of some of the overstay-fine money by stressing that we only realised on Friday afternoon, and that we had gone to Klong Tan police station at 9am on Saturday morning.
"No accept," said the woman at the desk, who then kindly informed us that we were to be fined 6,000 Baht, and that if we had wanted to save money they were open on Saturday morning and that we should have come in then.

I replied shrilly that the Immigration Department website stated very clearly that opening hours were 8.30am-4.30pm Monday-Friday.

"No accept," she said again. But the "we are poor, our money is only China money" plea evidently drew pity, and she made a valuable (and almost certainly illegal)suggestion: that we walk out, illegally overstay another day and get on next morning's bus to Cambodia, step over the border and come straight back, where the guards would welcome us with a 30-day visa - for free!

So the following day we got on the first Klong boat of the morning, which slices through a glassy Klong covered with rubbish. I wish this photo was better...


Departing for Cambodia from Khaosan, we then gained the valuable experience of travelling on a "VIP" foreigners' tour bus, where everyone else was on a package tour to the Angkor Wat. Two Aussie girls were behind us, talking, or rather shouting in bogan tones about how they didn't really sound very Australian and that country people "sound jus, like, i dunno, bogans". The subject moved on to their matching drunken tattoos of the Southern Cross ("it's, like, a set of stars that you can only see from Australia") to their drinking miscreances on this trip, then onto British girls who, we hear, are "feral! just so feral, like, they're just like, always talking about how drunk they were and it's like, muuuuuuuuh, omigod feral." Oh and one of them has Italian family but somehow she doesn't have to shave her legs. Like, how weird is that, djno? She's, like, a blond Italian who doesn't even shave her legs.

A Korean guy across the aisle (who also doesn't have to shave his legs) was getting angry at the foiling of his sleeping plans, so i taught him to say "shut your trap sheila" but the ungrateful bastard refused to say it to them.

[Edit: yeah we got the visas.]