bezdomny ex patria

Ugh. This is what happens when you let little people run your country. I’m totally with the philospher quoted in this article. Far too few people realise this, but a humanities degree most certainly does impart skills that are immediately useful to life in the real world. It’s extremely frustrating that anybody should be forced to explain that statement. I understand that many fields of  university study do include some measure of vocational training – medicine, law and engineering spring most immediately to mind. But the idea that the humanities are somehow useless or impractical is utterly absurd and really should be banished from polite society, left to languish alone somewhere on a subantarctic island populated only by seabirds and seals.

But there’s more. Universities are not, and were never meant to be, institutes of vocational training or job factories. They are institutes of academic and scientific inquiry. Their purpose is to expand intellectual horizons and add to the sum of human knowledge and understanding. If it’s vocational training you want, go to a polytech or do an apprenticeship. If an expanded mind is what you want, university is and must always be the place for you.

What’s more (“what’s more”? My wife is affecting my English as well as my Chinese?), sending signals to high school students about which degrees are likely to be most welcomed when they graduate and start the Great Job Hunt won’t actually help anybody find a job. It’s not uncommon for the most popular majors – frequently chosen because of the perceived demand for them in the job market – to have surprisingly low employment rates. The reason is, everybody runs for those majors thinking they’ll step out of their last exam, and after a stop by the local student pub to celebrate, walk straight into some super-duper fancy job with a spectacularly high salary. The result is a major glut of graduates in those majors, driving down job prospects and starting salaries for those graduates. I guess the classic example would be: Just how many gazillion excess lawyers does America have? Enough to get a pretty respectable start in filling in the Marianas Trench?

No. I can understand tying a certain component of polytech funding to graduate employment rates, so long as it is only one on a long list of measures of polytech performance, as the whole point of polytechs is vocational training. But not universities. Universities must be protected as institutes of free and wide-ranging intellectual and scientific inquiry and exploration, and part of the reason is precisely to ensure the job prospects of graduates.

Rant完了.

It’s an odd little article, this, desperately short on detail. When I read this:

The Gold Coast Bulletin reported today that Smeltz had decided it would be impossible for wife Nikki and his two children to settle in Jinan, 400km south of Beijing.

I’m wondering, well, why? What’s the problem? Although I could certainly understand that from the point of view of maintaining good relations, not unnecessarily burning any bridges, and just generally being polite, the Smeltz family would not necessarily want to announce to the world exactly why they decided they couldn’t settle in Jinan.

And then I got to wondering how Chinese media reports would frame this (if they even reported it). First result in a Baidu sports news search was this, which starts out with:

在山东鲁能和新西兰前 锋斯梅尔茨完成签约后，在当地时间7月17日早晨，澳大利亚的《黄金海岸报》惊曝 斯梅尔茨因为不适应在中国的生活，欲取消转会重回老东家黄金海岸。

After completing the signing of the contract between New Zealand striker Smeltz and Shandong Luneng, on the morning of July 17 local time, Australia’s Gold Coast Bulletin suddenly revealed that because Smeltz couldn’t adapt to life in China, he wanted to go back to his old boss Gold Coast.

And later adds this:

报道中称斯梅尔茨的太太尼基和两个孩子对中国的生活条件不太满意，对于未来在济南的生活没有信心，这是促成斯梅尔茨改变决定的根本原因。

The report said that Smeltz’s wife Nikki and two children were not very satisfied with China’s living conditions and had no confidence in their future lives in Jinan. This is the basic reason bringing Smeltz to change his mind.

A tiny little bit more detail, but nothing we couldn’t have inferred from the Stuff article I linked to first. So what does the original Gold Coast Bulletin article say? Baidu can’t find it and Google is behaving suspiciously again, and neither Stuff nor Netease seems to have the courtesy to link to the original,  so I’ll have to try some other way to find it…. Yahoo! Australia, perhaps…. Ah, here we are:

The New Zealand international decided after just five days in China that it would be impossible for wife Nikki and his two children to settle in Jinan, a sprawling metropolis 400km south of Beijing.

And that’s it. Rather sparse compared to Netease’s extra (although still rather vague) detail.

In any case, it seems there’s nothing Shandong Luneng can do about it, as although a contract had been signed and money had changed hands, a certain piece of paperwork had not been filed, and so the transfer had not been completed.

And the next question, of course, is: Five days?! Is that all? Is Jinan that rough? Or perhaps more likely: Was the shock that big? Oh well, as a person I knew way back in Taiyuan put it: China’s not for everybody. The Smeltz family are hardly the only foreigners who have been unable to adapt to life in China.

And it’s not all bad for Shandong Luneng. Netease adds in its report that they’ve also signed the South African defender Matthew Booth. Let’s hope for their sake that transfer goes a little more smoothly.

Apparently Smeltz’s time at Shandong Luneng could be the shortest transfer in football history. But I’m wondering, if the paperwork was not completed, does it count? Did the transfer ever occur?

It’s also interesting that Netease adds that Smeltz, who set an A-League record of 19 goals last season, received many offers, but mostly from clubs in lesser leagues in Asia and Europe. That detail seems to be missing from the Stuff and Gold Coast Bulletin reports.

It would seem that this is the first time ever I’ve written anything about football. I don’t normally pay too much attention to sport, but I do generally watch as much of the football World Cup as possible. That’s the only way I recognised the name Smeltz in the headline.

Following a link, as one does on lazy mornings when the internet is a series of unrelated tangents and the occasional rabbit hole, I came across this interesting little article. At the bottom is a small note attributing the original text to Skykiwi, but with no obvious link, so give me a minute to see if I can find the original…. Ah, after struggling with their super-slow loading and not overly cooperative search function, here it is.

Two minor linguistic points:

It did take me a while to figure out “约翰基” was John Key, New Zealand’s prime minister. Yes, I feel silly.

The Chinese rendering of “New Zealand” as “纽西兰”, apparently common in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has always bugged me for some reason. Totally irrational, I know, and it is closer to the sound of “New Zealand” than is “新西兰”, but pet peeves are never rational. I suppose it’s because all my Chinese has been learned on the mainland, and so “新西兰” just sounds “correct”, while “纽西兰” just doesn’t.

Anyways, the article states John Key is encouraging young New Zealanders to learn Chinese. His reasoning is that it would make doing business in China easier. He’s right, of course, and I have heard complaints that New Zealand’s business community pays far too little attention to language and culture when they attempt to do business here, meaning they’re much less successful than they could or should be. I would add there are many other reasons to learn Chinese, but hey, John Key’s a businessman, and on this point he’s absolutely right. And on the subject of teaching Chinese, he points out one serious problem:

他说，纽西兰现有的 2500个学校中只有89个开设中文课程，这实在有些少了。

He said that of New Zealand’s 2500 schools, only 89 had opened Chinese classes, which is really far too few.

And on the subject of New Zealand’s traditional bad attitude to the study of foreign languages:

纽西兰商人已经在中国经商20多年。他一再强调，纽西兰人的确应该换换思路了。以前因语言相通，纽西兰人非常愿意和澳洲、英国人做生意，但现在必须明 白，纽西兰的未来在中国，在亚洲。

New Zealand’s business people have been doing business in China for 20 years. He continually emphasised that New Zealand really should change its thinking. Before, because of the common language, New Zealanders really wanted to do business with Australia, the UK and the USA, but now they must understand, New Zealand’s future is in China, in Asia.

I would say there’s a slight overstatement there in that I don’t think New Zealand’s entire future lies in China, or even in Asia. There’s plenty of possibility on the other side of the Pacific, in Latin America, too, and no reason why Africa should be ignored, and plenty of reasons to continue to trade with our traditional trading partners and the Pacific. But yes, New Zealand desperately needs a major change in its thinking, a thought transplant, perhaps, towards the study of foreign languages. We do need more people studying Chinese, and other Asian languages, and other global languages, and we do need our business leaders to start valuing linguistic and cultural skills much more highly than they traditionally have. Otherwise we might as well become Australia’s newest and weakest state, and give Tasmania somebody to look down on.

But it’s not all bad news: He goes on to point out that last year the number of people studying Chinese surpassed the number studying Latin for the first time. I should bloody well hope so! I see nothing wrong, and indeed much value in studying Latin, but I do think more people should be studying living languages than dead languages. We need a nation with good international communication skills, not a nation of linguists and classicists. I would also add that when I started my university studies, only two high schools in the entire country taught Russian. 89 schools teaching Chinese is far too few, but the trend seems to be heading in the right direction.

The article ends with EuroAsia director Kenneth Leong:

他认为，在中国早已经兴起了英语热，中国的商界精英很多都熟谙英文，但纽西兰人中懂中文的非常非常少，这明显会将Kiwi放在不 利的地位上。因此，无论从哪个角度出发，都是时候好好学学中文了。

He thinks the English craze broke out very early in China, and many of China’s business elite are good at English, but very, very few New Zealanders understand Chinese, which will clearly put Kiwis in a disadvantageous position. Therefore, regardless of which angle you start from, it’s time to start seriously studying Chinese.

Actually, in that last sentence, I’m not really sure how to work the “好好” or the repitition of the verb “学” into English. Any better suggestions than what I wrote? Anyways, many people will read that and say, “If they’re all learning English, why should we learn Chinese?” I guess the most obvious answer is that if you’re monolingual, you are completely at the mercy of your business partners and translators, you have no way of knowing what is being said or written in Chinese, you have no way of judging the quality or accuracy of the translations, you are totally denying yourself any chance to read all those little cultural subtleties you can read in your own people and therefore denying yourself a major chance for intelligence gathering (I mean, legitimate gathering of information for purposes of legitimate business, of course), you are opening yourself up to being cheated, exploited, and thoroughly ripped off. Whereas if you do learn Chinese, you are, as John Key stated, giving yourself a huge leg-up in understanding the market and the people you are doing business with, and also in safeguarding your own interests, and the more you learn, the bigger the advantage you give yourself.

I’ve certainly found that learning Chinese has made my job much easier, and the more I learn, the easier it gets.

Yesterday at lunch with my colleagues the spookiness of coincidences was mentioned. How’s this for spooky coincidence: An Air France Airbus A330 flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on November 29 met the exact same meteorological conditions in the same region as the Air France A330 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1. Here’s Le Monde’s article with my dodgy translation:

Le 29 novembre, un vol Rio-Paris a rencontré des conditions similaires à celles de l’avion qui s’est écrasé en juin. C’est une information que révèle Le Figaro. Il y a dix jours, le vol AF 445, qui est le nouveau nom donné au vol AF 447 d’Air France depuis l’accident du 1^er juin dernier qui avait fait deux cent vingt-huit victimes, a subi de fortes perturbations exactement dans la même zone que celle où l’AF 447 a disparu.

November 29 a Rio-Paris flight met similar conditions to that of the plane that crashed in June. This information was revealed by Le Figaro. 10 days ago, the flight AF 445, which is the new name given to Air France’s flight AF 447 since the accident of last June 1 that killed 228, suffered severe turbulence exactly in the same zone as that where AF 447 disappeared.

Faute d’avoir récupéré les boîtes noires, toujours au fond de l’Atlantique, les enquêteurs attendent de pouvoir analyser les données du vol AF 445. Le bureau d’enquêtes et d’analyses (BEA) en charge de l’investigation sur le drame a aussitôt lancé une enquête.

As they failed to recover the black boxes, which are still at the bottom of the Atlantic, investigators are waiting to be able to analyse the data from flight AF 445. The Bureau d’enquêtes et d’analyses (BEA) in charge of the investigation into the case has also launched an inquiry.

Le parallélisme entre l’accident du 1^er juin et l’incident du 29 novembre est saisissant, note le quotidien. Le vol AF 445 aurait rencontré des conditions météo perturbées dans le “pot au noir” (zone de convergence intertropicale) proches de celles de l’AF 447. Il s’agit également de la même famille d’avion : un Airbus A 330-203 pour l’AF 447 et un A 330-200 pour le vol 445. L’incident aurait eu lieu à 18 kilomètres de la zone supposée de disparition de l’AF 447, la nuit aussi. En revanche, l’AF 445 n’a pas subi de givrage de ses sondes Pitot et de pertes d’informations anémométriques, à la différence du vol AF 447.

The parallels between the accident of June 1 and the incident of November 29 are astounding, the daily noted. Flight AF445 met disturbed weather conditions in the “pot au noir” (Intertropical Convergence Zone) similar to those that AF 447 encountered. Both planes were of the same family: an Airbus A330-203 for AF 447 and an A330-200 for flight 445. The incident occured 18 kilometres from the zone from which it is assumed AF 447 disappeared, also at night. On the other hand, the pitot tubes of AF 445 didn’t frost over, nor did it lose its airspeed data, unlike flight AF 447.

Well, I think I’ve got the right meaning across. I should note that a French-French dictionary is not as useful for French-English translation as I first thought. Trouble is, I have yet to come across a decent online French dictionary. I would like to know, if there are any sailors out there familiar with the tropics, if there is any English language sailor slang equivalent to “pot au noir”. I should also note that I have never seen an English translation of Bureau d’enquêtes et d’analyses- and it’s been in the news a fair bit recently, what with Air France’s crash and the crash of an Air New Zealand A320 into the Mediterranean off Perpignan.

Anyway, it’s strange to see a flight from the same airline, the same kind of plane, encounter the same weather in almost the same spot as where one plane was downed not so long ago. And if what I just read about the Intertropical Convergence Zone is accurate, then I have to wonder just how many other similar incidents there have been in similar areas.

Following on from my last post, 新京报/The Beijing News has an article today reporting several developments in Beijing’s preparation for the upcoming ‘flu peak season. The headline states that the city’s elderly will be able to get vaccinated against Influenza A H1N1 from next week. The article itself states:

据北京市疾控中心副主任庞星火介绍，60岁以上老人用的甲流疫苗正在向卫生局申请调配，预计下周内可在社区启动接种服务。

According to vice chairman of the Beijing Municipal Disease Control Centre Pang Xinghuo, an application to deploy H1N1 vaccine for over-60s has been submitted to the Ministry of Health, and it is expected that vaccination service in the community can begin next week.

But the article seems to be more a collection of interesting little tidbits of news than a single, coherent piece. Up until yesterday, 630 thousand Beijingers had been vaccinated against H1N1 and, as reported in the article I wrote about in the last post, the rate of adverse reactions is the same as that of the vaccine for seasonal ‘flu over the same period of time. When combined with vaccinations for regular ‘flu- which has been supplied free to over-60s and primary and middle school students, and for which vaccinations end today- a total of 1.9 million people have received ‘flu vaccinations, an increase over last year’s vaccination rate.

Now, I’m all for an increased vaccination rate, but those numbers don’t look quite so impressive compared to Beijing’s total population. Still, H1N1 vaccination has yet to start, so hopefully over the next few weeks the numbers will continue to increase.

What of those masks more and more people are wearing? First up, the municipal drug bureau says there are over 7 million of them stored up, which should be ample to supply the market’s demand. Apparently some company in Tianjin claims to have made a mask that can control the H1N1 virus. The municipal drug bureau says there are no such masks in Beijing at this point. And besides, according to the Ministry of Health’s disease control centre:

甲流主要通过飞沫传播，合格的医用外科口罩即可满足个人防护需求，身体健康的人在日常生活中最好不戴口罩。对于个别口罩生产及销售单位宣传的“抑制或杀灭微生物”功能，其实对防控甲流并无显著功效。

H1N1 is mainly spread through droplets, and standard surgical masks meet individual prevention needs. Healthy people should not wear masks in everyday life. As for the “control or eliminate microbes” function advertised by specific mask production and sales companies, in fact they have no noticeable effect on the prevention or control of H1N1.

I would like to bold that entire quotation for emphasis, but doing so would take away the emphasis. Try this approach instead:

• Standard surgical masks are perfectly adequate.
• Healthy people shouldn’t wear them, anyway.
• There are no masks that can control or prevent H1N1

There is also an attached “related news” article which sets out the rules decided by the education committee and health bureau for how universities must respond to outbreaks of acute respiratory illness and fever in both dormitories and within class groups. To be honest, I doubt I could get my head around the numbers in any language, but I’ll try:

In dormitories:

If half the students in one dormitory have acute respiratory illness and more than 10 students in a neighbouring dormitory have a fever, then all the students in the dormitories must stop going to class and must be quarantined.

Class groups:

In classes of 30 students or less, if 5 or more cases of fever (temperature over 37.5 degrees) occur in one day, or, in classes of over 30 students, if 20% or more develop a fever in one day, then the affected students should be quickly taken off for treatment and quarantine. Campus hospitals are instructed to give the appropriate treatment to students with mild symptoms, and send those with severe symptoms up to the next hospital.

Also, schools have to check students’ temperature daily.

I hope I got all that right.

There’s also an interesting little note at the end about district- and county-level education committees being told to prepare for “internet education” so that education will not have to stop in the event H1N1 forces school closures.

Assuming I’m reading all of that right, it’s comforting to see Beijing making preparations for a possible outbreak of H1N1 (and believe me, school dormitories are prime breeding grounds for respiratory illnesses) without any of those preparations going “over the top”. It’s also good to see the government calling “bullshit” on these masks.

新京报/The Beijing News reports that Beijingers can get free vaccinations against Influenza A H1N1. Anybody over the age of 3 who is willing and gives their informed consent and who is a registered Beijing resident can get their free vaccination from any of 402 vaccination centres any time between November 16 and December 13. I take “registered Beijing resident” to mean that foreigners and Chinese whose residence is registered in a province, municipality or autonomous region other than Beijing still have to pay for vaccines. Unfortunately the 3.63 million doses of vaccine Beijing currently has are for some reason not suited to over 60s, so the city’s elderly will have to wait.

The article also reports some interesting statistics regarding Beijing’s H1N1 vaccination programme to date:

北京自9月21日首先在国庆庆典参与人群中开展甲流疫苗接种以来，至昨日已累计为超过44万甲流易感人群（主要是中小学生，医务人员，司乘人员等重点岗位的社会公共服务人员）提供了甲流疫苗接种。

From the launch of H1N1 vaccination on September 21 among those participating in the National Day festivities up until yesterdaya total of over 440 thousand people susceptible to H1N1 have been vaccinated (mainly social and public service personnel in key positions such as primary and middle school students, medical workers, transport workers).

“不良反应发生率并不比季节性流感疫苗高，且多为局部的轻微不良反应。”市卫生局疾控处处长赵涛说，随着疫情发展，以及甲流疫苗在广泛人群中接种后的安全表现，现在，有意愿接种甲流疫苗的市民越来越多。

“The rate of adverse reactions is no greater than for seasonal flu vaccinations, and are mostly localised minor adverse reactions” said Municipal Health Bureau Disease Control Office directer Zhao Tao. Along with the development of the epidemic and the expressions of safety among the broad masses of those vaccinated, currently more and more citizens wish to be vaccinated against H1N1.

Further down, the article states that from November 16 the vaccination centres will be open between 8am and midday and 1:30pm and 5:30pm. Somehow I doubt that many people reading this blog will be eligible for free vaccinations, but if you want to know where the nearest vaccination centre is you can check the Municipal Health Bureau’s official website (there are links to English, French and Japanese sites at the top of the page- but I hope others have an easier time trying to find the locations of these vaccination centres than I’m having) or dial 12320. Also, large-scale work units such as universities, schools, government institutions, and large enterprises may also get their own vaccination centres.

Three headlines grabbed my attention this morning:

Beijing: CCTV building soon repaired. Actually, I don’t care too much about this, but that burnt-out shell has been sitting there for so long… If, as the article says the architect claims, the structure is basically sound and it is salvageable, then cool, salvage it.

And in not-so-good news: 5.0 earthquake in Yunnan, 28 injured, Civil Affairs Bureau launches level 4 response. The quake hit Bingchuan, up near Dali, at 5:07am yesterday. No reports of deaths, at least not in that article, which is fortunate- and hopefully it stays fortunate- but there are plenty of damaged houses. Relief supplies are being rushed in.

Better news: 60% of central heating boilers already lit, won’t be stopped if weather warms up. To be honest, I haven’t even read that one yet. As soon as I read the headline I sprinted madly round the apartment bleeding the radiators. There was much hissing of slightly pressurised air coming out, followed by water. Cold water, but hey, that means there’s water in the pipes, and hopefully the cold water will soon be followed by hot. I did notice smoke coming from a heating plant not far north of here yesterday. I can’t see any other chimneys from  my apartment, but I will be looking out for them and hope to see plumes of smoke. And I hope to soon feel heat coming out my radiators.

新京报/The Beijing News reports on an interesting little development in Beijing’s central heating: Contracts. TBN’s Du Ding reports:

“供热合同”出台 供暖不达标将向市民赔偿

“Heating contract” promulgated. Citizens to be compensated if heating not up to standard.

北京今年出台“供热合同”，明年试行，今冬供暖11月7日点火试运行

Beijing promulgates “heating contract” this year, to be trialled next year, this winter heating to be lit November 7 for trial operation.

今后供暖期，供热单位将和市民签订“供热合同”，昨天，北京市市政市容管理委员会供热办主任郭维圻做客“首都之窗”时表示，为保障供热双方利益，今年北京将出台“供热合同”，明年试行并推广。内容包括供热企业达不到合同规定标准，将给市民赔偿等。

In the upcoming heating period heating companies will sign a “heating contract” with citizens. Beijing Municipal Cityscape Management Committee Heating Office chairman Guo Weiqi said yesterday as a guest on eBeijing (English) that in order to guarantee the interests of both parties, this year Beijing will promulgate a “heating contract” to be tested and promoted next year. The contents will include a requirement for heating companies to compensate citizens if they don’t reach the required standard.

今年出台“供热合同”

“Heating contract” promulgated this year

每年供暖期，都会发生部分市民、单位因嫌供热单位供热不到位而拒交供热费；一些供暖企业因收不到供暖费便降低供热质量。郭维圻表示，针对此问题，北京市 将通过立法的形式加以规范和完善，“立法过程中就要建立合同制度。”据介绍，该“供热合同”将由市民与供暖单位签订，如果供热企业达不到合同规定的标准， 将会给予市民相应的赔偿等。

In every year’s heating period there are some citizens and units that feel the heat supplied by heating companies is not up to standard and so refuse to pay the heating bill; some heating companies, because they don’t receive heating fees, lower the quality of heating. Guo Weiqi said that, with this problem in mind, Beijing would set standards and perfect the system through a legislative form. “We need to establish a contractual system in the legislative process.” It is said that this “heating contract” will be signed by citizens and heating companies, and that if heating companies don’t meet the standards stipulated in the contract, they will have to appropriately compensate citizens.

62357575供暖热线将开通

Heating hotline 62357575 opened

[eliding a paragraph- I don't think we need a rundown on how much gas and coal is ready to be burned to keep us warm]

李楠表示，全市各个供热应急抢修队伍11月7日开始实行24小时值班。另外，从11月7日起将向社会开通市级供热服务热线：62357575。各区县政府大型供热企业和单位，也要同时对社会公布服务电话。

Li Nan [note: a member of the Beijing Municipal Cityscape Management Committee] said that all the city’s heating emergency repair teams would start implementing 24 hour duty from November 7. Also, from November 7 a city-level heating service hotline, 62357575, would be opened to the public. Every district and county government’s large-scale heating company will also need to publicly announce a service phone number at the same time.

Notes:

• 北京市市政市容管理委员会- well, I found their website easily enough, but I couldn’t figure out why, although their address (bjmac!) was clearly based on an English name, no English name was apparent, even if only in tiny type in the logo. So I just made up a name, and I think “cityscape” sounds way cooler than “Municipal Appearance Committee” or whatever it’s supposed to be.
• 北京市 将通过立法的形式加以规范和完善- I wound up just having to mangle that. If anybody has better suggestions, comment.
• I used “heating company” for every word referring to any kind of organisation responsible for supplying heat for simplicity’s sake.
• Yeah, I know, that last sentence I translated uglily.

Anyway, it’s good to know there’s likely to be hot water running through our radiators from November 7 and that they’re working to set and improve heating standards. Last winter our apartment hovered around the 15/16 degree mark on the coldest days and it was occasionally necessary to crank up the aircon.

Just came across an interesting article on Newenergy.org.cn: Apparently Inner Mongolia’s wind power industry is taking off, with installed capacity already No. 1 in China. Wang Yutian and Bai Bing report:

随着大批风电项目和风机设备制造厂落户内蒙古，当地风电产业迅猛发展。目前内蒙古全区并网风电装机容量３００万千瓦，累计完成投资近４００亿元，占全国风电装机总容量的四分之一，跃居全国首位。

Following the setlling of a large group of windpower projects and turbine equipment factories in Inner Mongolia, that region’s windpower industry has been rapidly developing. Inner Mongolia currently has an installed grid-connected windpower capacity of 3 million megawatts through the whole region, with a total completed investment approaching 40 billion yuan, accounting for one quarter of China’s installed windpower capacity, leaping into first place in China.

据内蒙古自治区发改委高技术产业处处长孟青龙介绍，近几年内蒙古风电产业发展速度加快，２００７年、２００８年内蒙古完成风电吊装容量较上一年分别增长１７５％和１４２％，产业规模快速形成。预计内蒙古风电装机容量今年年底将达到５００万千瓦。

According to the head of the High Technology Office of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Development and Reform Commission, Meng Qinglong, in recent years Inner Mongolia’s windpower industry has developed more rapidly. In 2007 and 2008 Inner Mongolia’s completed windpower hoisted capacity grew by 175% and 142% over the previous year, quickly forming the scale of the industry. It is predicted Inner Mongolia’s installed windpower capacity will reach 5 million megawatts by the end of the year.

And here I will admit defeat. I just cannot figure out this sentence: “与此同时，风电产业呈规模化发展趋势。”, and besides, the rest of that paragraph is just a city-by-city breakdown of windpower capacity, installed and under construction. Chifeng leads the way with a million megawatts installed already, and a bunch of other cities including Baotou and Tongliao in the 350 to 800 thousand megawatt range. And what’s under construction takes the total up to 5.9 million megawatts.

The final paragraph begins by stating that Inner Mongolia’s level of operational management of windpower has been unceasingly growing, but I can’t see how they prove it. Not that I doubt that statement, I just don’t see the relevance of the supporting sentences. Maybe that’s because I’m an English teacher, not an electrical engineer. Whatever, it does say that at the end of April, Inner Mongolia had 3.5 million megawatts of windpower connected to the grid, of which 2.24 million megawatts is fed into the Inner Mongolian grid (7.3% of the capacity tracked by the regional grid), 1.1 million megawatts into Northeast China, and 160 thousand megawatts into the Northwest.

Puff piece? Advertorial? Smells like it, but I don’t know. I don’t really think it matters, either. What matters is the rapid development of windpower in Inner Mongolia, and if there’s any truth to the reported numbers, what’s happening out there is looking very good.

Got an old car in Beijing? You could claim a subsidy for scrapping it and buying a new one, according to this report in 新京报/The Beijing News. Wei Xuezhen reports:

北京启动汽车“以旧换新”

Beijing starts “replacing old cars with new”

24日起将正式受理车主申请，将与黄标车政策同时执行

Applications formally accepted from the 24, to be carried out simultaneously with the “yellow sticker” vehicle elimination policy.

北京市财政局、商务委员会和环保局昨日联合宣布，汽车以旧换新正式启动，从本月24日起将正式受理车主申请。北京环保局有关负责人表示，以旧换新与黄标车淘汰更新补贴政策同时进行，此前的差额部分将进行补贴。

The Beijing municipal Finance Bureau, Commerce Committee, and Environmental Protection Bureau together announced yesterday that the replacing of old cars with new will formally begin, that from the 24 of this month applications from car owners will be formally accepted. The person responsible at the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said that the replacing of old with new and the policy to eliminate and update yellow sticker vehicles would be carried out at the same time, and that previous differences would be subsidised.

Alright, I have no idea what “此前的差额部分将进行补贴” is on about. I would assume that there is some inequity in the two policies and that the authorities might be worried about people who’ve already scrapped their yellow sticker vehicles might be a bit put out to see people claiming these new subsidies getting more money than them. My assumption would seem justified, but:

补差额让车主“不吃亏”

Making up the difference so car owners “don’t lose out”.

按照规定，在2010年5月31日之前，报废使用不到8年的老旧微型载货车、老旧中型出租载客车，使用不到12年的老旧中、轻型载货车、出租车以外的老旧 中型载客车以及提前报废“黄标车”，并换购新车的，根据报废车型可享受3000-6000元不等的补贴。北京市环保局表示，由于今年年初，北京市率先实施 了鼓励黄标车淘汰政策措施，因此目前两项政策将同时进行。

According to the regulations, car owners who scrap and replace before 31 May 2010 old mini commercial vehicles and old minibuses used for up to 8 years, medium and light commercial vehicles and mid-sized passenger vehicles other than taxis used for up to 12 years as well as owners of “yellow sticker vehicles” already scrapped, and who then buy new vehicles can according to the type of vehicle scrapped enjoy subsidies varying from 3000 to 6000 yuan.  The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said that because Beijing took the lead in implementing measures to encourage the scrapping of “yellow sticker vehicles” at the beginning of the year, these two policies would be carried out simultaneously.

北京市环保局副局长杜少中昨日表示，由于黄标车淘汰补助水平总体高于以旧换新的政策，之前淘汰的少数车型补助低于以旧换新补贴，将补齐两项政策的差额，以保证车主“不吃亏”。根据规定，黄标车根据车型最高补助25000元。

Yesterday assistant head of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau Du Shaozhong said that because the overall level of the subsidies to eliminate yellow sticker vehicles was higher than that of the policy to replace old cars with new, and a small number of subsidies for vehicle types eliminated was lower than the subsidies to replace old vehicles with new, differences between the two policies would be patched up so that car owners would not lose out. According to the regulations, yellow sticker vehicles could be subsidised up to 25000 yuan depending on vehicle type.

Two things:

1. I wound up relying on Baidu’s image search to figure out what the different types of vehicles mentioned are exactly, and I couldn’t see a difference between “中型出租载客车” and “出租车以外的老旧 中型载客车”. They all look like minibuses to me.
2. It would seem, but I’m not sure, that some of those who have already scrapped yellow sticker vehicles got 25000 yuan in subsidies, while others got less than the 3000 yuan minimum subsidy under the new policy. I have no idea what the authorities are actually going to do about the differences in subsidies under the two policies, but I would be surprised if the government tried to claim back the difference from those who got more than 6000 yuan under the old policy, and I assume that those who got less under the old policy than the would have under the new one will be given a top-up. Or maybe I’m being too optimistic, I don’t know.

The rest of the article is about how to go about claiming the subsidies. I’m going to assume that those eligible for the subsidies read about them in the original Chinese-language reports and would not be reading anything on this blog (I may be wrong, but the types of vehicle mentioned….). It also says the Environmental Protection Bureau hopes to get an extra 20 or 30 thousand dirty cars off the streets.