Another semester at the University is drawing to a close. I’m an English Teacher and   I’ve given the oral exams, along with a written test.  Student skill varies from high  enthusiasm to mild annoyance at being forced to come to the final exam.  Out of four classes I had several show up 25 minutes late for the exam, and four people showed up without pens. . .  Well, I guess that isn’t so bad out of a total of 140 students.

Soon it is off to the USA for a month in sunny Northern Michigan.  I’ve signed a new contract, so I will be teaching here in China for another year, God willing.

I was watching Channel 141 of our Guizhou TV, and at a little before noon, the English language version of “1984” came on, complete with Chinese sub-captions. This is a movie made during the height of the cold war to justify the US hatred of communism. I watched the really terrifying movie starring Richard Burton and John Hurt about government mind control and the brainwashing that takes place when one party rules the country. It showed how the one party watches everybody and prosecutes people for thought crimes.  Well, go figure.  I can’t imagine such a propaganda film being shown in China, but it is. I just watched it.

It occurred to me that the two parties, Republican and Democratic,  have their own versions of mind control.  There is a war between the parties and all kinds of stories about the vile intent of the other. These stories are popular with party members. Both parties campaign against the politicians, who have the status of niggers prior to the civil war. I must say that politicians are not popular in China, but they are at least respected.

 

 

If you haven’t spent time in China, you don’t realize the simple things that trip you up every day.  Stairs are uneven, so when you think you are stepping up, you miss the step and trip. There are holes in the sidewalks and other obstacles.

In the older buildings, doorways often have a threshold that is an inch or two high to trip you.  After coming to China for 13 years, one would think that I would see these little stumbling blocks . . . NOT YESTERDAY.  Who would think in a new building . . .

Dead Pigs in Shanghai’s Huang Pu River are the most visible of China’s health issues. As discussed below, it appears that the pigs are not the work of one perpetrator, but rather the result of a crackdown on sales of diseased pigs.  If you can’t sell your sick pig, what do you do with it?

Latest incident of dead animals in waterway raises concerns about disposal procedures

Scores of dead pigs have been retrieved from a Central China waterway, just weeks after thousands were discovered in Shanghai’s Huangpu River.

Authorities have been pulling the carcasses from Liuyang River in Hunan province since Saturday. More than 70 pigs had been retrieved as of Sunday, but an official figure has yet to be released.

The carcasses were probably dumped by pig farmers upstream and were carried along the river due to recent rainstorms, the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported on Monday, quoting an unnamed agriculture, forestry and water resources official for Changsha’s Kaifu district.

“We have to immediately remove them in a sanitary way to avoid water pollution and contamination,” the official said.

Wu Guohua, another official, said it is rare to see such a large amount of dead pigs in the river.

The district environmental protection bureau said it will closely monitor the river’s water quality to guarantee residents’ safety.

“No bird flu virus was detected on the dead pigs,” Tan Jingming, deputy director of the Changsha animal disease prevention and control center, said.

A series of similar discoveries have been reported across China since residents started complaining on March 5 about finding dead pigs in Huangpu River.

There has been an abnormally high number of dead hogs following an outbreak of porcine circovirus, a common disease, plus changeable weather this winter, the Ministry of Agriculture said on its website.

“Authorities should seriously investigate where the dead pigs come from and harshly punish the pig dumpers,” said a resident surnamed Zhang, who said the situation posed a great threat to people’s safety, especially after a new and deadly strain of bird flu was detected.

The discovery of tens of thousands of pig carcasses nationwide has raised concerns about how the country deals with numerous dead pigs every year.

The National Bureau of Statistics said China had about 700 million pigs in 2012, of which 18 million died of disease.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, pig farmers can get a subsidy of 80 yuan ($12) for each pig dead of disease. Regulations require animals that died in this way to be disposed of in a sanitary way, such as burial at least 1.5 meters deep or cremated.

But because the subsidy application process is complicated, many pig farmers choose to sell the dead pigs to illegal buyers, said Li Waiguang, a farmer in Yingtan, Jiangxi province.

“If authorities crack down on dead pig transactions, farmers will dump the dead into the nearest rivers,” he added.

Li suggested authorities establish sanitary treatment stations for dead animals to help farmers.

Wen Xinzheng in Changsha contributed to this story.

Chinese investors are fascinated by the property values in the City of Detroit. China is in love with the auto and Detroit is still known as the auto capital of the world. Further, property values have skyrocketed in China and the low cost homes of Detroit have caught the Chinese attention.

I attended the wedding of Shabai and Tao at a local church on April 12.  It was a good Christian ceremony and a fine facility.  Computer screens helped provide the messages. We were reminded of the nature of marriage in God’s eye.

I am a former resident of Michigan where social problems are raising havoc with living conditions. Flint is about 150 miles south of Traverse City, my home town.  Many people come to China for a better quality of life.