The Shenzhen Web

The Shenzhen Web appears to be a good resource for facts and information regarding ole Shenzhen:

• 17,000 - foreigners living permanently in Shenzhen
  
  
• 430,000 - foreigners studying or working temporarily in Shenzhen
  
  
• 8.46 million - Shenzhen hukou holders in 2006
  
  
• 11 million - target limit of Shenzhen hukou holders by 2020
  
  
• 15 million - “warning threshold” at which “the per capita public resources will be reduced and the city’s development restrained”…
  
  
• 12345 - Phone number for English language hotline for laowai to whinge about lack of public services.

"Support the One-child Policy!"

Support the Planned Reproduction (read: One-child) Policy! -- so says this governmental propaganda on the side of a fence. Fence of an apartment complex in Shenzhen, China.

Excellent kebabs in Hong Kong

When in Hong Kong and sick of both Western and Asian food, consider grabbing a kebab at Ebeneezer's.

Red sea in Shenzhen

While blue-green algae attacks the Tai Lake in Wuxi in the northeast of China, Shenzhen and Hong Kong are dealing with red algae in the seas.

Red tide of algae hits Shenzhen coastal area

By Jonathan Yeung (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-06-07 07:03

SHENZHEN: A marine algal bloom commonly known as "red tide" has returned to Shenzhen bay, causing serious pollution and killing off many marine plants.

A red tide is caused by a buildup of marine plankton that consume oxygen while releasing toxic substances into the water, killing off fish and plant life.

"This is the biggest red tide that has ever appeared off the city's coast," said Zhou Kai, a marine expert with Shenzhen's municipal sea fishery environment monitoring station.

He said this marked the third time this year a red tide had appeared off Shenzhen. The first appeared near Shenzhen bay in January and another appeared near Dameisha last month.

Based on the monitoring station's observations, the most recent red tide is mainly west of Shenzhen. The infected area is about 50 sq km. Sea to the east of Shenzhen appears to be free of the plankton at this stage.

"We strongly urge the public to stay away from the polluted sea areas and not eat sea products from there," Zhou said.

A red tide has also been spotted near neighboring Hong Kong in the past few days, with as many as six beaches in Tunmen and Qingshan Bay being affected.

The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has reminded people not to swim in polluted areas.

Zhou said the red tide would recede if it rained. "But the weather remains sunny and hot, which means the red tide is here to stay for now," he added.

He said the recent weather conditions were favorable to the plankton.

A lot of rain has fallen off Shenzhen's coast in recent months, pulling nitrogen and phosphorous up from the sea bottom. Plankton feed off these nutrients.

This, compounded with the hot weather, has helped the plankton breed and spread, Zhou said. He said the red tide would not cause major economic losses because very few people were breeding sea fish in the affected areas.

"But the foul smell of the dying algae will be unpleasant for the people living in the affected areas, and the tide's annoying red color will also mar the pleasant view," Zhou said.

Full moon over Shenzhen

An eerie full moon over the Merchants Bank Tower (aka the Shenzhen World Trade Center) in Shenzhen.

Friday afternoon stroll through Shenzhen

A random walk through Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on a Friday afternoon.

E-learning seminar video clips

Distance education and e-learning are taking off in China. The following are some video clips from a seminar held by iTech Holdings Limited on the subject.

The New China?

Interesting juxtaposition. The New China?

Dim Sum Breakfast

Breakfast may be the best meal of the day in Canton (Guangdong Province). Dim Sum. Here is a video of a typically crowded dim sum restaurant in the morning in Zhuhai, China (across the border from Macau).

How would you like that stir fried?

Waitress in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China discussing the methods for stir frying the ordered vegetables. At a Hunanese cuisine restaurant.

Tea kung fu

A tea master pours tea out of a long-spouted kettle. It's a sort of herb and flower-ladden tea mix. This was taken in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China. In an Hunanese restaurant.

Breathe the air in southern China - lose 3 weeks of life over the next 5 years

香港大学研究员发布： 未来5年呼吸香港的空气就失去150，000“人生年”。 平均每人失去3个星期人生。

http://totallyhk.scmp.com/thkarts/health/ZZZN97TH8JE.html

By Robin Kwong

Delays in combating air pollution can be deadly, sometimes literally so. By the most optimistic projections, Hong Kong's air quality won't significantly improve until 2010, the deadline set by the government for local power companies to meet emission reduction targets.

Likewise, while several large-scale power plants, fuelled by relatively cleaner liquefied natural gas, are to be commissioned in Guangdong by mid 2007, how much less coal and oil will be burnt as a result depends on energy demand in the province.

In the meantime, Hong Kong will still be paying the costs. But how much will air pollution cost us in these intervening five years?

At the South China Morning Post's request, the University of Hong Kong's department of community medicine has worked out a rough estimate of life years lost as a result of the wait.

"We have estimated the effect if we could remove all air pollution right now compared with if we removed it in five years - that is, what is the difference caused by the delay," said the department's Dr Sarah McGhee.

Measuring just the impact on mortality rates for people aged 40 and above, Professor McGhee said the cost amounted to 150,000 life years, or about three weeks per person. This was a conservative estimate, partly because it did not take into account the impact on younger people.

Life years, moreover, may be just the tip of the iceberg in cost evaluation, because it does not factor in ill health and loss to quality of life. "We can't estimate all of this effect yet, but we know it must be substantial," she said.

"Since we will not remove all air pollution, we would only save some proportion of that effect in real life, but it gives us an idea of what we might aim for eventually."