Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

Please Remove My Nonsensical Asian Tattoo

Fark.com - Me Chinese, me play joke, me tattoo you funny Chinese symbol that doesn't mean what you think it does because you a dope.

She thought it said "blood and guts," but it really said "blood and intestines." He thought it said "rock 'n' roll," but it really said "to sway and to roll."

The touchy-feely, quasi-spiritual trend of getting Asian-language tattoos became popular in the 1990s. For many youngsters, or for people who wanted to feel young, a tat with the characters for “peace” and “truth” seemed just the thing.

But now that the fad-following hipsters of a decade and a half ago have graduated to jobs and families, they are going to tattoo-removal specialists in droves, trying to erase an embarrassing reminder of the mistake they made one drunken night so many years ago: They were permanently inked with an Asian-language word that didn’t say quite what they thought it did. (Fox News)

Ernst & Young Withdraws China NPL Report

Ernst & Young, the international accountancy firm, has withdrawn a controversial report on China's non-performing loan (NPL)s, saying its estimate for the country's big four state banks "cannot be supported and …is factually erroneous."

The announcement by E&Y, released at the weekend, came days after the report was attacked by the People's Bank of China, the central Bank, which said it was "ridiculous and barely understandable" and at odds with the firm's own auditing of Chinese banks. (Financial Times)

Ernst & Young Global Headquarter published an apology on their website on Friday.

Uh-oh…  “Factually erroneous”… tricky, and sounds familiar, painfully.

The Chinese Driver's License Test

I was speaking to Kim (one of my Chinese team-mates) about her upcoming driver's license test. Apparently they are quite strict about them in China. However, just like the university education system, the theory is excellent, but when it comes down to practise......... :)
We couldn't resist imagining what multiple choice questions on one of these tests could look like...

1. What kind of car will you be driving:
a. A BMW
b. An Audi
c. A VW Getta
d. A cheap copy of one of the above

2. What is the maximum speed limit along main roads in cities?
a. 40 Kmph
b. 50 kmph
c. 60 kmph
d. Just kidding. (We really should be asking what the lowest speed limit is just so that we can keep the traffic moving along. If we made you lose face by asking this trick question and you have relatives in government, please hand the test in and our staff will do their best to fill it up for you. If you don't have relatives in government, continue the test you ignorant peasant!)

3. When going around a roundabout, which direction must you drive in?
a. Clockwise
b. Anti-clockwise
c. It doesn't matter. It's a round about - everyone gets around it somehow.
d. It doesn't matter. I only wear the latest digital electronic watches. I don't know which direction clockwise or anti-clockwise.

4. It is 2 a.m. You see a poor country girl struggling with her broken bicycle. You:
a. Help her. You remember what it was like when you had to go everywhere on your cousins' 10 year old, hand-me-down Giant bike.
b. Ignore her. There's 1.4 billion people in China - someone will come along to help her.
c. Ignore her. There's 1.4 billion people in China. Shit happens.
d. Drive right up next to her and scare her as you go by. The ignorant Peasant!

5. You're caught for some traffic violation by a cop. He's asking you to pay RMB 300 for the fine. You:
a. Admit your mistake & give him the money. This is the new China, and everyone must pitch in to make it work.
b. Give it to him - but only after you let him know (for 20 minutes) that you think he's wrong (and an ignorant peasant!).
c. Fight with him about how the government still tries to make the lives of an ordinary comrade so difficult.
d. Use your guanxi - You know the daughter of the neighbour of the cousin of the guy who is married to the lady who works as an assistant to the guy who played golf with Hu Jintao's bodyguard.

Automatic for the people..

The Beijing Municipal Committee finally has finally finished it's implementation of the smart card system across major public transport facilities. It was quite funny to watch everyone proudly flashing their little blue cards over the little pods that have been installed on all buses and subway platform entrances. I even saw a group of journalists interviewing & photographing passengers about the new system. Everyone seemed to be smiling, so I dont think they were having too bad a time.

Shorter queues that move faster, one time money transactions, fancy blue smart card in my wallet, I think it's time to switch over...

The only thing that worries me is what is going to happen to the thousands of ladies who stand at all the entrances to the platforms & on the buses to check everyone's tickets. Has a Communist country actually succeeded in proactively unemploying a large number of people at one go?!

Top 10 archaeological discoveries 2005

The Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries of 2005 were unveiled Tuesday night in Beijing and more than half of them from outside the Yellow River Valley, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization.

The Xiaohuangshan relics in East China's Zhejiang Province, which were excavated early last year, are an example.

The relics, which date back 8,000-10,000 years, could rewrite the country's archaeological history as they are much older than the Hemudu site in the province, which was previously believed to have nurtured the earliest Neolithic culture in China's south about 7,000 years ago. (list)

Indispensable website...

http://www.sepa.gov.cn/english/air-list.php3
Find out the pollution level in any city in china and compare it over time. Today, Beijing is at 174 for example and is the worst in the country.

There is great general commentary on China by Mark Eadie who works for an Environmental and Social Consultancy: his blog is http://singleplanet.blogs.com/.

5,000 Companies Pay for 'Background Music' in China

Increasing numbers of shops and restaurants in China are agreeing to pay for one of the most common commodities of all -- background music.

Government campaigns to raise public awareness of intellectual property rights are paying off with more businesses signing up to pay royalties on the almost ubiquitous melodies that keep customers happy.

"The music here gives me a better appetite," said Liu Lu, a sophomore student in law with Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, while dining out at an Origus Pizza Works restaurant. She and her classmates have enjoyed the occasional hearty meal at Origus without realizing they are getting a free side order of background music.

However, from Tuesday, Origus will legitimately play music under a contract with China Music Copyright Protection Association(CMCPA).

Standard international practice requires public venues to obtain permission and pay royalties for background music, said Qu Jingming, secretary-general of the CMCPA. (CRI)