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.

Really bad air in Shenzhen

Really bad air pollution in Shenzhen:

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."

China's air pollution - the world's problem now

The New York Times as reported on Boingboing.net confirms the horror of China's air pollution -- now the world's problem:

China is already the world's second-biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions and is expected to surpass the United States as the biggest. Roughly a third of China is exposed to acid rain. A recent study by a Chinese research institute found that 400,000 people die prematurely every year in China from diseases linked to air pollution.

Nor does China's air pollution respect borders: on certain days almost 25 percent of the particulate matter clotting the skies above Los Angeles can be traced to China, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental experts in California predict that China could eventually account for roughly a third of the state's air pollution.

However, an interesting analysis ensues -- 400,000 deaths a year is only about 175 deaths in Guangdong Province each year (given that the population is 70,000,000 in that province).

Blocking the Dalai Lama

No surprise here. The Daili Lama's new Web site is blocked from China...

www.dalailama.com

And the old www.tibet.net is still blocked.

Monday, December 12, 2005 Dalai Lama launches personal website to spread world peace
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Dharamsala

Self-exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Sunday launched a personal website to spread his message of world peace and take questions via email. The website www.dalailama.com was inaugurated on the international Human Rights Day and the 16th anniversary of his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. "The website is not to promote the Dalai Lama himself. It is to reach out to the world with his message of love, peace and compassion and universal responsibility," a team member, who designed the website, told AFP. His messages have been posted both in English and Tibetan and questions can be emailed directly to the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan government-in-exile, based in the Indian hill town of Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh state, had also launched an Arabic version of its official website www.tibet.net, the team member said. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet and crossed over to neighbouring India in 1959 after the collapse of the resistance movement opposed to the 1950 Chinese invasion. China has maintained that Tibet is a province of the country and that the invasion saved people from feudal oppression. Beijing formally established a Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1965 but the Dalai Lama says there is no real autonomy and seeks greater rights for its six million people.

Racist Park

Another wrong translation. The Chinese on the sign says "The Park of the Ethnic Chinese Race" -- poorly translated as "Racist Park."

翻译错误: 英文的意思是 "种族歧视公园."

Only white people for market surveys, please

Upon crossing a border into Hong Kong, there are often staff taking surveys of tourists. They are very professional with PDA's and short, to-the-point questions. However, they seem to only ask foreign (white) tourists questions. I am almost always accosted to reply to their questions. And, I have often seen these survey takers only asking other white people (often there are only a few white people crossing the border with me in a sea of Chinese). My concern is that these surveys are thus unrepresentative.

Perhaps the ethnic Chinese are unwilling to answer these survey takers? Or are rude?