A blue-eyed, red-furred view of the world!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Things couldn't be finah in Chinah


Tucker:  You've been on the computer for hours.
mr_ed:  I pulled together information for a couple of blogs I want to write, but I'm tired now and they're too heavy.
Tucker:  The blogs will smash the computer?
mr_ed:  They'll require a serious tone that I don't have the energy to write with and wouldn't want to read, anyway.
Tucker:  Heavy means serious?
mr_ed:  Sometimes.
Tucker:  Light means not serious?
mr_ed:  Sometimes.
Tucker:  You have something light to write about?
mr_ed:  A little.
Tucker:  This is going well.
mr_ed:  How about a Chinese man who can inflate and burst hot water bags through his nose?
Tucker:  Chinese hot water bags?
mr_ed:  I guess so.
Tucker:  They must be poor quality.
mr_ed:  Oh, goodness no. Haven't you heard? China produces high-quality stuff! Like the toys Mattel recalled - "Difference in standards was a main reason why the country's exports to some countries were frequently alleged to be problematic in quality, said the watchdog."
Tucker:  Oh.
mr_ed:  Yeah! And can you believe it? Some countries are "playing up China's product quality issues and using them as trade barriers" to increase sales of domestic stuff.
Tucker:  I've never heard of such a thing!
mr_ed:  That's why I'm so surprised that "the country's four-month special campaign to improve food and product safety" has temporarily halted "more than 300 toy export companies" and "identified 92 food export enterprises that had violated the rules."
Tucker:  My.
mr_ed:  And they've "recorded 32,800 cases of individuals and companies making or selling fake, poor-quality food and shut down 2,000 production facilities."
Tucker:  Mercy!
mr_ed:  And that's not all!
To date the [State Food and Drug Administration] has suspended 6,441 drug registration applications, cancelled 578 drug license numbers, the production permission certificates of five drug manufacturers and 1,202 medical appliance companies.
Tucker:  Are you sure this is a light blog?
mr_ed:  How about, "Reporter jailed for cardboard-stuffed bun hoax"?
Tucker:  Huh?
mr_ed:  A reporter "fabricated a TV news saying that Beijing dumpling makers used cardboard as a filling."
Tucker:  That's good for one ::har::
mr_ed:  Hmmm. Well, there's the story headlined "China establishes crruption prevention bureau."  [Headline has since been corrected online.]
Tucker:  That's good news.
mr_ed:  In Guangdong, 45% of women would rather marry a rich man than get a good job. Also, More than 40 percent of women said being good looking was more beneficial to finding a good job, then having ability.
Tucker:  Like spelling. When you write for a newspaper.
mr_ed:  You've got it. But being rich isn't easy, you know. You're in the spotlight, even in China, and a headline says the "Nation's rich have poor reputation."
Tucker:  They have reputations for being poor?
mr_ed:  They have reputations for not having "a sense of social responsibility" or "a caring heart."
Tucker:  How do they show caring hearts?
mr_ed:  They can say that they've "made obvious achievements in protecting" wildlife, I guess, and deny that "it is 'inhumane' to extract bile from the gallbladders of farmed bears."
Tucker:  Well, but what about individually?
mr_ed:  You could scold people who push to the front of the line.
Tucker:  Scolding is caring?
mr_ed:  You scold some people because you care about others. Like when you bring out your army.
Tucker:  Of course. What are you talking about?
mr_ed:  You hold joint military exercises with Russia and a few other countries "[t]o crack down on the 'three evil forces' - terrorism, separatism and extremism."  By saying that separatism is an evil force the Russians mean, "We won't let Chechnya be independent even though our constitution says they can be if they want."
Tucker:  So you scold Chechens because you care about Russians.
mr_ed:  And Chinese. On a lighter note - in fact, a bank note - a woman passing counterfeit money tried to swallow the evidence when she was caught by police. She choked on it and a hospital saved her life.
Tucker:  She was trying to be generous with her money. She just didn't have any to be generous with.
mr_ed:  Speaking of not having something, the 50 people who live in a Hainan village changed its name from Tianmeidong to Tianweiban. A feng shui master had told them it would increase their prosperity. But the character for ban isn't in the set of computer encodings officially used in China (though it's present in Unicode and even Big5 encoding).

Therefore the village name can't be entered into bureaucratic computers. Therefore
"Many villagers have not been able to get marriage certificates and are facing difficulties while seeking jobs, traveling and dealing in property," the China Daily said, citing an earlier report in the Nanguo Metropolitan News.
Tucker:  Bummer.
mr_ed:  Apparently some news reports said the character was obscure. But as xiaolongnu and michael farris noted,
> [T]he real story here is not how weird the character is, but how limited the Chinese bureaucracy is.
Here I am thinking that the real story is: Don't let a fortune teller name your village.
Tucker:  Good point.
mr_ed:  The take-home message.
Tucker:  The bottom line.
mr_ed:  The name of the game.
Tucker:  The meat.
mr_ed:  The nut.
Tucker:  The kernel.
mr_ed:  The heart.
Tucker:  The core.
mr_ed:  The gist.
Tucker:  The substance.
mr_ed:  The quintessence.
Tucker:  The brass tacks.
mr_ed:  The nitty-gritty.
Tucker:  The reality.
mr_ed:  Zhong Fu.
Tucker:  Naturally.
mr_ed:  Inner Truth.
Tucker:  I see.
mr_ed:  No, I Ching. "There will be advantage in crossing the great stream. There will be advantage in being firm and correct."
Tucker:  I'm going to firmly and correctly go to sleep.
mr_ed:  Good idea.

4 comments:

Khady Lynn said...

Very scary stuff. My humans are trying real hard not to buy us treats and chewy's made it China. But, it's very hard to find them! At least our food is made here, and is all grain free!

Holly

The Army of Four said...

Tucker, you and your human have VERY cerebral conversations! I liked the "I see" "No, I Ching" part best ... hee hee hee!
Love,
Amber
PS: We're adding your link to our blog finally - OK?

Anonymous said...

Tucker... my mom is doing the same as Holly's... trying not to buy stuff made in China. My food is grain free too :) Thanks for stopping by my blog! I am a bit behind, so sorry that I have not been lately.
Hugs,
Sitka

Kapp pack said...

I'm with the other doggies on the no china thing.....mom makes sure now to buy things for us that are not made in China.....she's also scared our little bipeds toys might be recalled too....bad bad stuff!

Woo woo, Kelsey Ann