This Blog Has Moved!

www.letterred.com/Blog.

I'm consolidating. For efficiency's sake.

Suicide Run

Well, I'm far enough ahead on my work for grad school that I figure I'm ready for the the show: I've entered the 3 day novel writing contest. We'll see how this goes. Tentative title: Beijing Palimpsest.

In other news, I'm transitioning my stuff from this blogger site to one hosted on my own website at letterred.com. It'll make it easier to post, and more fun for me. But not until I write my novel.

Love to all,

Will

Chinese Writing / Walltop Grass

I've been here for about a year, now, and this is the first work of Chinese prose that's really moved me, from Taiwanese writer Miou Si, by way of Danwei.

It's hard to see new things, but easy to have your own prejudices confirmed, and I think Miou captures something of the privation-born nastiness that I constantly encounter in Beijing. Plus, Miou has the gift for unusual detail that I really like in Chinese prose-

"If I had a choice, I would willingly become a native Hawaiian."

I've just inadvertently immersed myself in a series of books concerned with ethnic identity; more than any sane man could take, honestly. Red Sorghum, Operation Shylock, the execrable The Elementary Particles, and the wonderful Enemies, A Love Story. So perhaps I've sensitized myself to the whole issue, an appeal to the ugliness of your own people.

At the Tube Station...

...by which I mean the sandwich shop behind my old building near 东四十条 station. Criminality is serving coffee at a place where the toilet looks like this:

On Expatriot Writing

Well, I'm back in la Chine for another few months- I've got to buy my Dad another couple of Mao Zedong watches. This blog wasn't intended to be the Willy's Adventures in the Land of the Red Chinese, but the majority of my hay has certainly been made from Chinese stuff.

Traveling the Beijing - Vermont - Cape Cod - Boston - Tokyo - Beijing circuit didn't culture shock me as heavily as I thought it might. I think it's cowed me a little, but made me brave in other ways. My Mandarin obviously improved a hair since I've been gone, but my already limited vocabulary shrunk. A contradiction, I know, but I just don't feel as helpless as I once did. Knowing the terrain is as important as the language, I know.

Being a student again is very gratifying. Having missions is important, and doing something I'm good at, rather than something I'm bad at, is a relief. The list of skills is perhaps the next entry...

The Constantly Updated List of Adulterated Food and Drugs

What with the announcement that the cardboard baozi story was, in fact, an adulterated version of the truth, or possibly not, I'm officially retiring the list of adulterated food. Unless someone dies in my arms, I'll leave the reporting to the pros. Not that I didn't call the story months before it blew up, of course, but that's just sour grapes...

Local baozi made with cardboard and caustic soda. I've probably downed a couple of these...

Previously-

And here's a Globe and Mail report on fake building materials used in the construction industry. Oy vey.

Fake plasma used in Chinese hospitals. Thanks, Alexis.

Antibiotics and antifungals found in imported fish. I'm feeling smug, now.

China promises to do better. Good luck with that.

The diethylene gylcol toothpaste shows up in the US. At the Dolla Store.

An interesting article on Chinese food safety. From the Southern Metropolis Daily, via Danwei.

Alexis mentioned in the comments that fugu was being sold as monkfish in the US.

China is executing the former head of it's FDA and establishing a recall system.

While that friend and defender of the little guy, the Bush administration, takes China to task for food safety, Mom and Lina have been on the case, and dug up these new examples of delicious adulteration.

Toothpaste made with diethylene glycol as a thickener. Best known as windshield washer fluid, the chemical is also popular in the manufacture of wholly counterfeit medicines as well.

Contaminated traditional Chinese medicines. (Ironically, besides arsenic, cadmium, lead, strychnine and mercury, some patent medicines are being adulterated with pharmaceuticals like acetaminophen or cortisone.)

Melamine added to pet and livestock feed, as well as protein flours for human consumption, to increase its apparent protein content. The New York Times just published an expose on the subject. As an ex-carpenter, I should have recognized the adulterant. Mom pointed me to the FDA alert. Thanks, Mom.

The article mentioned some new and exciting contamination- eels battened on birth-control pills, and cuttlefish dipped in (calligraphy) ink. Looking deeper, I found this article on the People's Daily website, which mentions fish dipped in formaldehyde and bamboo shoots treated with industrial sulfur.

I'm especially interested in the birth-control eels, if anyone can point me to some solid information on it.

Carcinogenic wax added to hotpot and to pepper oil. A lot of contamination has to do with Sudan 1. Chinese people like their food to be really red.

Human hair made into soy sauce.

Synthetic eggs (in shell).

Carcinogenic red dye in duck eggs.

"Sewer Grease" in lard.

Fake infant formula, causing a condition known as "Big Head Disease".

Bleached Rice contaminated with aflotoxin.

In an ironic twist, it seems that Chinese farmers are being swindled with counterfeit pesticide. (I have to say that we get very nice vegetables and fruit here in Beijing, probably on account of all those banned pesticides.)

Thoughts on Return

So, on Sunday, I'm returning to the US. A fourteen-hour plane ride, with, now, four bags. I'd started with three bags, but I bought a hanging bag for my three new tailor-made suits (pictures to follow). Lisa Tailor, at 三里屯 3.3 Mall did a good job, although the buttons they used were cheap...

My feelings on this are mixed. Like my long-ago trip to Japan, the pain was just immense at times. Beijing is a tough city, I've had a tough time here, although I'm glad I ate the bugs at Wanfujing. I only wish that I was this guy. Very much the best "foreigner" blog I've read. He's not especially insightful or such a beautiful writer, but he's as open to experience as anyone I've read.

(His blog reminds me strongly of JR Ackerley's Hindoo Holiday.)