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An American in China

Archive for June, 2010

Chicoms Have to Pay People to Not Be Corrupt!- New Policy Deducts a Corruption Tax

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 30, 2010


This is bizarre, or no, its just China. The Communist party is setting up a fund to reward public officials for not being corrupt! Is this great or what? Corruption is so rampant, that they must give some type of reward to the few the proud, those who are not corrupt. Funny thing is that it will probably never work, within one year the person in charge of this will be found to be corrupt embarrassing everyone. The highest ranking will have around U$225 taken from their checks per month and held till they recieve a clean bill of health viz their non corrupt activities.

“GUANGZHOU – The city of Jiangmen in South China’s Guangdong province has established a fund to reward civil servants who resist corruption and remain honest. According to the newly proposed measures on the “clean governance accumulation fund”, about 4,600 civil servants will have a certain amount of their paycheck deducted every month.

The amount will be deposited in their personal accounts within the fund starting on July 1. The city government will also put 20 million yuan ($2.94 million) into the fund every year, which averages into 4,000 yuan for each civil servant’s account per year.

The civil servants will be able to withdraw 70 percent from their funds every five years, if they receive a clean assessment. The rest will be given to the civil servants in one lump sum when they retire.

According to the proposed measures, a prefecture-level official will have 1,600 yuan deducted every month, while a county-level official will have 1,400 yuan deducted and the lowest-ranking government employee will have 300 yuan deducted.

An official from the city government, who declined to be named, said such a fund, which is similar to the country’s housing accumulation fund, is not a form of welfare or special reward for the city’s civil servants.

“Introduction of such a fund does not mean we cultivate clean governance through high pay either,” the official said on Tuesday.

Posted in Big brother..., Cultural oddities | Leave a Comment »

Communist Party Defends Communist Party Schools in China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 30, 2010


BEIJING – A senior official of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee denied that the venue for training senior Party officials is “a social platform”.

Central Party School removes its veil of mystery
Luo Zongyi, spokesman of the Central Party School

At a rare press conference on Tuesday, Li Jingtian, vice-president of the Central Party School, was asked to comment on criticism over whether senior Party officials actually study there.

The Central Party School is the main educational institution for the training of senior Party officials from across the country, such as provincial governors and ministers. It is also the think tank for decision making in the CPC, as well as a theoretical research institute.

However, rumors have circulated that some officials brought their secretaries in to attend classes and write theses on their behalf, while they themselves made use of the school as a platform to “meet people, make acquaintances, have a good meal and have a good rest”.

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Recent Chinese Test Scores Underwhelm the Country- The Demise of Bright Chinese

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 29, 2010


In an article from the chinadaily, they stated that in the latest go-round of nation wide testing of Chinese high schoolers, they all sucked. The test results were pretty poor which lead the country to collectively be underwhelmed by their performances. (story below). The thing is that one has to wonder if it is not mother nature or Darwinism impacting this country. In a place where only one child can typically be borne (there are exceptions), this leads the Chinese to do bizarre things, ie. infanticide, killing female fetuses, having 120 boys for every 100 girls.

The impact is that in general the one-child babies seem to be less bright, emotionally and physically adept, and mentally stable as a result (this was proven in tests by both the USA and China). It has also been stated that the young Chinese boys are less “like a boy” than other countries children (the view of the Chinese). So, it makes you wonder if it is not mother natures way of ensuring that the new breed is not overly hostile so as to preserve the race…

excerpt:
“Every June, they capture the nation’s attention as they become the top scorers, or zhuangyuan, in the college entrance exam, or gaokao, across China. People take it for granted that these students are headed toward a bright future. But a recent survey revealed that reality shows otherwise. The survey kept track of more than 1,000 top scorers from 1977 to 2008, and found that none of them stood out in the field of academics, business or politics, failing to fulfill people’s expectations.

Posted in China Fact, China What they are commenting online | Leave a Comment »

Six Killed Ten Injured at Chinese Amusement Park- Ride Goes Awry

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 29, 2010


Chinese products are not typically safe, and unfortunately many people were waiting for this type of thing to happen. Six people were killed and ten injured in China at an amusement park. China, being China is sketchy on the details, but one can only imagine the grisly scene. China’s primary concern is money and safety in every aspect takes a back seat. This type of thing is very sad to me but not surprising.

chinadaily
“SHENZHEN – Six people were confirmed dead and at least ten others injured, five in serious conditions, Tuesday in an accident at an amusement park in Shenzhen City of south China’s Guangdong Province, local government said early Wednesday at a press briefing. Two women and one man out of the six dead people had been identified, according to the government of Yantian district, home to the park.

The accident happened at 4:45 p.m. after an entertainment facility that simulates conditions in a launching rocket for passengers to experience doubled gravity malfunctioned in the park, the Overseas Chinese Town East (OCT East).

But the nature of the accident remained sketchy. Xiao Wenhong, a publicity official with the Yantian district committee of the Communist Party of China, only said the cause of the accident was under investigation.”

Posted in China Fact | Leave a Comment »

Chasing Hookers in China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 29, 2010


You could call this the China effect. The fabulous Hilton in downtown Chongqing (one of my favorite places in China) was closed down for holding “illegal acts” ie. prostitution and such. Hmm, my house is about twenty minutes from the capital of the country and within a mile there are at least a dozen brothels, and I live in the nice area of the country’s capital. So, to me it is odd to read that they closed the place down. As a matter of fact about 1200 meters from my place is one of the most expensive KTV/massage/ brothels, in the city. But it operates 7 days a week with impunity. Thus, when I read news like this, it merely means a changing of the guard. This means that the old mob boss is out and a new one is in and the new one needs his bribes. It means nothing more than this. ”

“CHONGQING – Police in Southwest China’s Chongqing municipality on Monday gave its nod to reopen the Hilton Hotel following a week long suspension for activities involving gang-related businesses.
The police agreed the hotel could resume trial operations on Tuesday after an inspection tour by the city’s deputy police chief Gao Xiaodong on Monday morning. The Chongqing Hilton Hotel was ordered to suspend operations on June 20 after some of its employees were found to have connived with gangsters to allow prostitution and drug-related activities at the hotel.

Though the hotel has been permitted to resume all its services, the Diamond Dynasty karaoke club located in the basement of the premises will remain shut.

Police raided the club a day before the hotel was shut down and detained 102 suspects, of whom 22 were arrested.

“So far, we haven’t got any new notices from higher authorities about when the hotel will reopen. But our original plan is next Tuesday,” Doris Tan, a public relations officer at the hotel told China Daily.”

Posted in Big brother... | Leave a Comment »

Google’s Nemesis is Hiring- Baidu from China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 29, 2010


Baidu, the big Chinese search engine that works with the communist government in China, has stated it is going to the USA to hire engineers to come to China. I see a few problems with that:
-communist China is still tightly controlled by the government, so much so that the type of personality that may like the profession may be put off by the level of Chinese communist party intervention
-money, China pays much less than the west
-status, ’nuff said, you tell me, would you rather have ‘Google’ or ‘Baidu’ on your resume
-structure, read my previous posts, Chinese companies are somewhat stifling and treat employees like kids
-panache- ’nuff said

If they pull it off, it will be a coup for them and a sign that they are international. My bet is that they get the stragglers, from lesser universities or foreigners who are looking for any job just so they do not have to return to their native lands. As for highly skilled labor, I really doubt it.

Posted in China Fact | Leave a Comment »

Post about Chinese New Year and the Chicoms

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 29, 2010


Great Post to follow, it really captures the essence of the Communist party in China and how their presence is felt.

“Fun and Laughter with the ChiComs [John Derbyshire]
Sunday was Chinese New Year’s Day. CCTV, the state TV network in mainland China, marked the event as usual with an entertainment extravaganza, the highlight being a five-hour “Spring Festival Gala.” on Saturday night, New Year’s Eve. This is one of the most-watched programs in the world, estimates of worldwide viewership in the range of 800 million to a billion.

You can watch the show in North America on the CCTV international channel. We passed on it, preferring to spend the evening entertaining friends, but a correspondent in China sent me this report.

This year’s shows, apart from their entertainment function, seemed to have a higher than usual component of communist and nationalist propaganda.

One segment near the end of the gala highlighted half a dozen chubby and rosy-faced teenagers of the [Communist Party] “Young Pioneers” wearing the emblematic and conspicuous red scarves, standing shoulder by shoulder together with three teachers, and singing in unison, lauding the “great and glorious Communist Party of China under whose infallible leadership and guidance our mission of building a new and powerful China would be totally inconceivable.” (Those were the actual words of the song.)

Another scene showed large pictures in chronological order of the so-called four generations of the supreme leadership of the new China, stressing their fatherly kindness and concern for the common people of China. The four pictures featured Mao Tse-tung, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and current president Hu Jintao.

In addition to all this pompously self-important and self-congratulatory posturing, the New Year programming also had a more than usually anti-American slant. One show, a comedy-drama, featured a Chinese farmer who had donated a big amount of money to a poor family — a single mother supporting a college-student son. The farmer proudly declared to his family and a news reporter interviewing him: “Everybody needs the help of others! It should be given without hesitation. Nobody can stay in a state of affluence throughout a whole lifetime, right?” He continued sarcastically: “See, even those proud, arrogant Americans have to come to our China to borrow money from us nowadays!”

Posted in Big brother... | 1 Comment »

Shit Youth in China- Finqing in China

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 29, 2010


“Fenqing” is a term used in China to describe the obnoxious and xenophobic behavior of many of the one-child Chinese kids. They are young have not much knowledge of the world and are looking to make a difference, thus they exhibit anti-social behavior that the coutnry disapproves of.

Part of this is generational, as throughout history, generation gap issues create problems. Here in China, perhaps it is more pronounced due to the fact that the one child policy kids have parents who were so sheltered, they were like North Korea. Thus, the kids have time warped into the present, but their folks still have those old ingrained beliefs.

Another possibility is that the one child policy kids suck and have emotional problems, as reported in the China daily (30 million one-child children have severe mental health problems ). I don’t know the truth, but it is probably in the middle somewhere.

Posted in Let me educate you... | Leave a Comment »

Congrats to China- I think

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 28, 2010


The story is below, or part of it, but a few observations: It says that they did not provide exact numbers, but then goes on to do so, and wtf is up with the explosives? 351 Tonnes of that stuff! I am no expert, but it seems like all of that demolitions could cause some real harm…

“BEIJING – The number of criminal explosion cases as well as gun crimes in China dropped by 13.4 and 33.1 percent year on year, respectively, in the first five months of 2010, Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Monday.
The statement, however, did not provide exact numbers. Police nationwide seized over 351 tonnes of explosives…”

Posted in Ranting in general | Leave a Comment »

China, Running out of Water, An Ecological Disaster Looms Ahead

Posted by w_thames_the_d on June 28, 2010


China is on the brink of ecological disaster. The air is dirty, the land has cancerous toxins and poisoned , and the large cities dont have sufficient water. In Beijing the problem has reached disasterous proportions. Here is a post from the chinadaily

” In a bid to relieve Beijing’s water shortage, 200 million cubic meters of water will be transferred from three reservoirs in Hebei province to the metropolis, rednet.cn reported.

This is the second large-scale water transfer for the Beijing-Shijiazhuang section in the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) project since its construction in 2008. Starting from late May, the whole process is expected to be completed in November.

From Sept 18, 2008, to July 25, 2009, four reservoirs in Hebei have transferred a total of 435 million cubic meters of water to the capital, 330 million of which was received. The transfer was carried out at a time when the SNWD project was postponed for five years.

The water shortage crisis in Beijing has been getting worse in recent years. The city borrowed up to 400 million cubic meters of water from Shanxi and Hebei from 2003 to 2008, and still is in dire need of 200 million to 600 million cubic meters per year from Hebei until 2014.

Meanwhile, the city paid for its excessive exploitation of underground water, as the water level in the plains has been reduced from 11 meters to 24 meters below sea level over the decade. An excess of 5.8 billion cubic meters of underground water has been taken, with the water storage of Miyun reservoir and Guanting reservoir decreasing 2 billion cubic meters.

Despite the water transfer efforts and underground water exploitation, there is still a lack of 400 million cubic meters of water every year in Beijing, where experts says that the gap between water supply and demand has reached a critical point.”

Posted in China Fact | Leave a Comment »