China Teacher (David’s big adventure)

I imagine most of you have read or heard about the tainted milk in China. Some of the most respected milk companies here have been found to have a harmful chemical (Melamine) in some of their products with the biggest issue being milk powder for babies. The chemical is especially harmful for babies and more than 50,000 babies have been hospitalized with kidney stones being a common symptom. The company with the most pervasive tainted products knew about the problems before the Olympics and kept it quiet until after the Olympics and only then addressed the problem because an affiliated company in New Zealand learned of the problem and blew the whistle on them. I regularly consume milk from one of the companies that was found to have limited problems. The milk companies blamed the problem on suppliers who apparently added the chemical to boost the nutritional test results of watered down product. The small amounts of Melamine that I may have consumed are supposedly not enough to harm adults. The issue came to light about a month ago but just in the past 10 days the small grocery store on campus has been out of almost all liquid milk. I went to the big grocery off campus this morning and found Nestle milk available. More than 95% of the milk here is sold at room temperature in cardboard cartons as China doesn’t have the infrastructure for storing and transporting cold milk. The taste of the milk here is barely tolerable to me and I buy the best quality stuff available. I read a translation of a blog written by someone in the film industry in China and she said that if the government paid as much attention to food safety as they did to monitoring the film industry there would be no tainted food problems. According to the blog, the government must approve all movie scripts, script changes and the final cut of the movie before it can be released for distribution. The Premier recently said that the government was also accountable for this problem and had been lax in supervision and management. I know there are risks galore here when it comes to eating. I watch the locals and if the locals are eating something I figure it’s probably okay. I try not to eat too much of anything unless I know for sure it’s safe (such as American company products). I especially stay away from fish. I’ve been pretty lucky and haven’t had any major illnesses except 1 case of extremely overactive bowels which required medical treatment.

It’s surprising how frequently in my daily life here that I’m reminded of my business career in the states. Pretty much every day I consume Coca-Cola Company products such as Coke and Minute Maid orange juice. I often see and sometimes dine at KFC or McDonalds which are customers of Henny Penny Corp., the equipment manufacturing company in Ohio where I worked for 5 years. I also often see and consume Nestle products (Edy’s and Dreyer’s Ice Cream merged with Nestle several years ago). I was recently reminded of my time at the hotel company in Orlando when a few weeks ago I saw the owner of that company on CNN. He is the owner of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan that was bombed.

I recently saw an article on the internet talking about a simple news quiz that was given to some Americans. The questions were 1) which political party is in the majority of the House of Representatives, 2) who is the Secretary of State, and 3) who is the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Apparently, only 18% of the respondents got all 3 right. I got all 3 and the answers are democrats, Condoleezza Rica, and Gordon Brown. What I find interesting about this is how little attention most Americans pay to world events. I doubt very many Americans could name the President or Prime Minister of China but I think most Chinese could name the U.S. President and many could also name the Secretary of State. The news on Chinese tv including the Chinese language stations has a lot of coverage about events in the U.S. such as the presidential race. I’ve been surprised by how much coverage U.S. events get on the news programs here. Of course, sometimes the coverage is tilted towards propaganda.

I arrived in Singapore on Thursday afternoon (7-10) and spent the next few days seeing the sights such as the National Museum, Asian Civilizations Museum, Chinatown Heritage Museum, Singapore Zoo, Riverwalk area and some of the ethnic neighborhoods (Chinatown and Little India). Singapore is very clean, orderly and tightly controlled. Opposition to the government is not allowed. It has a bit of a science fiction movie “big brother is watching” kind of feel to it. Punishments for crimes are severe, chewing gum is outlawed and it seems it would be easier if they put up signs in the subway saying what’s allowed rather than what’s not allowed because so many things are prohibited. If you’re a rule follower it seems a very livable place; modern and very westernized. Many western food chains can be found here including Hooters. English is the official language but most people also speak the language of their heritage. Singapore is a city/state of only 228 square miles and has a population of 4.4 million people of which Chinese make up the largest group followed by Indians and Malay. It became part of the British empire early in the 1800’s and became an independent state in the mid 1960’s. Pushed by a strong leader the country became somewhat of an economic miracle.

It’s pretty expensive here (I’m paying more than $40 U.S. a night for a very small room in a hostel without a private bath) with prices for many things being about the same as in the U.S. My first night here I sat at an outdoor cafe overlooking the Singapore River sipping on a Singapore Sling. The zoo here is very nice and they have a “Night Safari” which highlights some of the nocturnal animals and brings in a lot of revenue for them. It was a bit creepy walking through the exhibit with the large fruit bats close enough to reach out and touch while they were hanging upside down eating their fruit. The taxi’s here are all very clean and well maintained and the subway system is a great way to get around. The people here are very friendly, polite and helpful……sometimes when you ask for directions or information it seems they respond like they know big brother is watching…. .lol. I haven’t taken many pictures here so I’ll wait to post pictures until later. On Monday morning I will be taking a bus north for about 6 hours to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

I am writing this on the train that’s taking me from Kunming to Nanning. I opted for the “soft sleeper” cabin with 4 beds. The trip will take 13 hours and will arrive ... [Continue reading this entry]

I posted a bunch of pictures that have been taken over the past couple months. To see the pictures click on "Pictures" under "my links" on the right hand side about half way down. ... [Continue reading this entry]

The earthquake has proven to be a tremendous tragedy. The final death toll will likely exceed 70,000 and they say they are 5 million people homeless! That would be like the entire population of ... [Continue reading this entry]

I have received quite a few e-mails checking on me to make sure I’m okay after the earthquake. I didn’t even feel it and there was no impact here in Kunming. I haven’t ... [Continue reading this entry]

It’s been about 4 weeks since I’ve written mostly because the last two weeks I’ve been incredibly busy. I have been working on finding a different job, dealing with some issues at my property in ... [Continue reading this entry]

Last Friday was a holiday (“Pure and Bright Day” for honoring the dead) so many people had the day off. Some friends invited me to go with them on a trip to Dali and Jizu Shan (mountain). Four ... [Continue reading this entry]

I actually teach for 2 different schools even though I collect my pay from just one of them. Half my classes are YUFE (Yunnan University of Finance and Economics) classes and the other half are IBS (International Business School) ... [Continue reading this entry]

School is back in full swing now and I have 17 hours of classes this semester vs. 16 last semester. I have 6 oral English classes and 2 writing classes. One writing class is with freshmen and 1 ... [Continue reading this entry]