poison formula now?
And this morning’s news brings a report of a two month old baby in Zigong, Sichuan becoming ill after drinking New Zealand infant formula. A Ms Yin of Zigong, Sichuan, on the birth of her grandson, got online and found out that New Zealand infant formula is good quality. A shop nearby was selling “咔旺” infant formula, claiming to be from New Zealand, so on October 7 she bought eight cans and the shop gave her a ninth for free.
At 8pm on November 10 she gave her grandson his first feed*. Up until this point she hadn’t noticed any problem with the formula. But her grandson refused to drink the third feed. Whatever milk he could be persuaded to take he threw up and his behaviour was unusual. At 10am on November 11 as she opened the can to prepare another bottle of milk, she noticed a stench of mouldy bread coming from the can. That afternoon Ms Yin and some family members returned to the store, who took them to the hospital, but the doctor sent them home with instructions to see if the baby had diarrhoea or not and how serious the vomiting was and to take the formula in to be tested. Trouble was, the local Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision said they couldn’t test the formula, and the Zigong Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said they needed five unopened cans from the same batch to run a test. The shop, which is part of a chain, higher offices in the chain, and the China rep of Kraalcow all said that the batch had been sold out and they had none left. Some other stores in the chain apparently had formula of the same brand, but different batches.
My first reaction to the situation as described in this article would be to check the production and use by dates on the cans, and then to look closer to see if the dates had been altered. But my impression from this article is that this Ms Yin is neither thick nor uneducated, and given that the child had drunk the formula for a month before a problem appeared, and given how many people (Ms Yin and family, the shop, the journalist, doctor, CDC, Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision) somebody must have suggested checking the dates. After all, it is certainly not unknown for unscrupulous merchants to either sell out of date product or alter the dates on product.
But something just does not ring true. I already linked to the 咔旺 website above. “Kraalcow” is apparently the English name. “Kraal”? Isn’t that South African? Yeah, true, we got a lot of South Africans, especially of the pallid variety, moving to NZ with the fall of apartheid, but I have never heard the word ‘kraal’ spoken and have only ever read it in a South African context. Looking at the bottom of Kraalcow’s homepage I see .桂ICP备123456号, which suggests to me the website is registered in Guangxi in the south of China. Following the link to the MII website is not immediately helpful, unfortunately. Looking at Kraalcow’s ‘about’ page I see claims of a relationship to New Zealand. I can see neither Kraalcow nor Dairy Group (NZ) Limited on the list of registered dairy exporters, and Kraalcow does not seem to be a registered trademark in New Zealand, although the Companies Office has Dairy Group (NZ) Limited registered to one xie ,weixin or Weixin XIE. The address given for the registered office, address for service, and the director is 8 Apsley Rise, Henderson, Waitakere, 0612 , New Zealand, looks awfully residential on a Google NZ maps search (note: on Google NZ maps just search 8 Apsley Rise; adding anything like Henederson, Waitakere, etc seems to really confuse google). Kraalcow claims to meet the standards of the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, but searches of the NZSFA website seem to turn up nothing for either Kraalcow or Dairy Group.
Kraalcow’s ‘Contact us‘ page gives a New Zealand website whose text is written in a style that strikes me as being distinctly Chinese. Not just that, but incomplete:
Our pastures are situated at ………..and ………… .
（图片 : Kraalcow 牧场在新西兰国土的位置标注图）
Oh dear. But more importantly, look at this from the same page:
We have the world’s most pure and lush pastures. Blue sky, white clouds, boundless
green grass and white fence bordered lands constitute New Zealand’s most characteristic style, an idyllic landscape.Livestock raising is New Zealands largest industry. On average there are 17.5 cows for every New Zealander. Presently, New Zealand is the only milk producing country not to have had cases of Bird Flu, Mad Cow disease and Foot-and-Mouth disease. Every cow is completely naturally raised and consumes the world’s safest food- no pollution, hormones or genetically modified food.
A fine and pure natural environment together with superior quality soil that are regarded as the world’s best milk producing conditions enable New Zealand to produce the top quality, first class milk power.
Look, us Kiwis are known to talk up the virtues of our islands, but would any of us make claims like this? Well, maybe… but this looks an awful lot like how allegedly New Zealand infant formula is marketed on TV here in China. And the claims on that website simply do not match the single storey suburban Auckland house that Google NZ maps reveals. The ‘contact us‘ page is also considerably less than useful. And is that a Sutton Group building pictured on Kraalcow’s site? Y’know, I’m struggling to see a mention of Sutton Group on Kraalcow’s sites.
So what am I to conclude from all this? So far as I can tell, Kraalcow has no connection to New Zealand beyond somebody involved with the business living in West Auckland. Is this yet another case of somebody using NZ’s good name to make a fast buck? It certainly seems so. But if so, it’s quite an elaborate, if somewhat incomplete scam.
*first and third in the paragraph I’m summarising here don’t make a whole lot of sense. I’m guessing “first and third from the package just opened”.
somebody finally notices
Posted by wangbo in news, tilting at windmills on November 13, 2012
And so somebody in New Zealand finally notices that China is rejecting substandard infant formula imported from New Zealand. And no, there’s no indication that this lowly blog, my meagre efforts, and the great assistance of Messrs Martinsen and Ji had anything to do this, no. Christopher Adams had a look at People’s Daily’s English site and Shanghai Daily (go to his article for the links) and tracked down the same Ioland site that provides a Ningbo address (wait… does the fact that his link opens to Ioland’s Chinese page imply he reads Chinese? I don’t know, but I hope so – Sinoliterate NZ journalists could only be a positive development). But does this imply that only Christopher Adams of the NZ Herald has noticed? Try again… Apparently, yes.
This worries me because the implications for New Zealand’s economy if this substandard New Zealand infant formula and fake New Zealand brand story continues to build steam here are not exactly positive. If New Zealand doesn’t sort this issue out then it could well find its biggest export earner frozen out of its biggest potential market.
But Mr Adams did manage to get in touch with Sutton Group and Carrickmore Nutrition – and I note a Carrickmore Limited of New Zealand is named in that Word document Mr Ji found yesterday for problems with its labelling. These four paragraphs sentences are what leap out at me:
James Shortall of Sutton Group would not confirm or deny whether the firm made Ioland products.
Some formula was being rejected by Chinese authorities because of different testing regimes in China and New Zealand, and Sutton Group was confident babies would be safe consuming all the products it made, Shortall said.
Chris Claridge, managing director of Christchurch-based infant formula exporter Carrickmore Nutrition, said some of the product rejections in China were “questionable”, but the coverage of the insufficient iodine levels in Ioland products was a concern as it tarnished all New Zealand infant formula brands.
A large number of Chinese baby formula companies were creating “false fronts” by registering in New Zealand, giving the impression they were Kiwi firms, Claridge said.
So, it would seem likely, although by no means certain, that Sutton Group produces Ioland infant formula. But I really don’t see how it’s constructive to blame the different testing regime or label product rejections as “questionable”. Especially considering Sutton Group has failed inspection before. China has standards and a testing regime, New Zealand companies wishing to export to China can find out what they are and can ensure their products meet those standards as measured by that testing regime. And then there’s this:
Michael Barnett, independent chairman of the newly formed New Zealand Infant Formula Exporters Association, with 10 founding members, said the group was working to set standards for exporters, while establishing a “line of communication” with Chinese authorities.
See? That’s a much better approach. Get the industry together, figure out what they need to do to succeed in China, and hopefully take the obvious next step – set up systems and practices to ensure that New Zealand products pass China’s testing regime and meet China’s standards.
I’m really not sure what to make of the final sentence and MPI’s rather enigmatic statement that its figures don’t match those in some Chinese media reports. How do they not match? What are MPI’s figures? How do those figures compare with AQSIQ’s?
But it is nice to see this issue getting some coverage in the New Zealand media. It’s a start. Hopefully this coverage continues and we start to see some answers as to why New Zealand infant formula is failing inspection in China, how this issue can be resolved, and what New Zealand dairy exporters are doing to ensure their products are not rejected by China.
how much more?
Posted by wangbo in news, tilting at windmills on November 12, 2012
Mr Ji found still more about about Chinese brands selling infant formula produced by Sutton Group, two articles online and a Word document that looks like it comes from AQSIQ.
First up is Qinbei’s article taking a rather general look at AQSIQ’s list of substandard imported food and cosmetic products for August. It’s a fairly equal opportunities article lacking that focus on the dodgy New Zealand produce in other articles I’ve seen of late, but it does raise two products with an apparent New Zealand connection.
First is 优萌/Ustrong, which Qinbei says is from Singapore. Odd, because both Mr Ji and I trace it to Hong Kong. I also found Ustrong .com and .com.cn websites, but I get a 403 warning trying to open them. Not sure what’s going on there. As Mr Ji said in his comment, Ustrong does claim to be made in New Zealand. I was intrigued to see 新西兰 on the pictures of the cans, as I thought 纽西兰 was more common in Hong Kong. Whatever, the New Zealand connection is made and Qinbei reports that 5 tons of its stages 1 and 2 formula were found to contain too much sodium and potassium and not enough protein. Maybe its my unfamiliarity with trad characters getting in the way, but I’m not finding any information about who in New Zealand actually makes Ustrong, or precisely where it’s made, or anything similar.
And then Qinbei mentions 奥兰 again, but this time with the ‘English’ name Orkloland. I really can’t figure out if the 奥兰 that uses the ‘English’ name Orkloland is the same as the 奥兰 that goes by ‘Ioland’. But again its the same problem with iodine levels.
And then Mr Ji found this 北京晚报/Beijing Evening Post article playing up the ‘假洋牌’ (fake Western brand) angle, tying it in with other scandals in which brands claiming to be Western were revealed to be purely Chinese. This article reveals another brand claiming to be selling formula made by Sutton Group, 纽瑞滋, which Google suggests is this Nouriz. And then it suddenly starts to look like a bit of a puff piece. It says that Nouriz and Sutton Group fronted to the media for the first time to explain their situation, but nobody from Sutton Group is mentioned and the only independent voice seems to pretty much agree with the founder of Nouriz. The Nouriz founder, Liu Ning, is quoted as saying:
纽瑞滋是华人创建的品牌，销售的是原装进口产品。
Nouriz is a brand created by Chinese selling imported product in the original packaging.
Nouriz is a family of companies registered both in Shanghai and New Zealand, the entire production process, including packaging, is done in New Zealand by Sutton Group, and the Chinese branch handles sales and after sales service in China. It is also pointed out that as Nouriz infant formula is made in New Zealand and sold in China, it is subject to both countries’ standards and therefore does nothing to weaken Chinese safety standards.
Liu Ning then argues there’s a bit of a misunderstanding. In its marketing material Nouriz emphasises that it is made in New Zealand, it has never claimed to be a Western brand, although some have thought that it is. And looking at their website that does seem to be a reasonable statement. The contact page, for example, lists only Chinese phone numbers and addresses, and the entire site seems entirely devoted to the Chinese market. The “made in New Zealand” claim is out there and emphasised, but I can’t see any claim that Nouriz is anything but a Chinese brand.
And if all of these claims are true, Nouriz infant formula really is produced in New Zealand and really does meet both New Zealand and Chinese standards, then I’m finding it hard to blame Liu Ning or Nouriz. Why shouldn’t they play the ‘Made in New Zealand” angle? Where do they claim to be anything other than a Chinese brand selling infant formula produced in New Zealand?
But the continued 奥兰/Orkloland/Ioland confusion and the frequency with which Sutton Group products are showing up in AQSIQ lists of substandard imported food products really does have me worried. Which brings me to that Word document Mr Ji found. It does look like it belongs to AQSIQ, but buried in the address I saw this: www.ccccq.org. I don’t know what business an electronic and electric appliance quality supervision and inspection station would have with food products, but never mind. The list is interesting. Sutton Group is by no means the only New Zealand company exporting substandard products to China named, but it is there twice, once under its English name, and once under its Chinese name. Under its Chinese name of 新西兰善腾有限公司, Sutton Group is named for exporting to China 奥兰(Ioland/Orkloland) infant formula stages 1, 2 and 3 and stage One 200g that do not meet the iodine content standard and under its English name for exporting to China 佳顿可儿金装婴幼儿配方奶粉/I’m struggling to find an English name for it, but it’s marked as having problems in the selenium, iodine and lactose content/selenium content/selenium content. I assume that’s for stages 1, 2 and 3 respectively. These problems seem rather similar to other problems reported with Sutton Group-produced infant formula.
And so I’m still confused. On the one hand, I can’t see a problem with Chinese brands that source their product in New Zealand and then play up the NZ connection in their marketing. On the other hand, I do see a very big problem for New Zealand if we have companies exporting substandard infant formula. Playing fast and loose with the health of people’s children is not a good long-term marketing strategy. And on yet another hand (I’m going to need Guanyin’s help with hands before too long… ) there’s the huge risk of brands slapping a “Made in New Zealand” label on product that isn’t.
What I do know is that New Zealand has to act to protect its reputation – and not to continue to maintain an undeserved reputation (“clean, green”… clean thanks to the lack of people, green as in the colour of the cowshit-sodden lowland waterways), but to make sure the reputation for quality, clean, pure products is both deserved and preserved. What I also know is that I haven’t seen mention of this problem in New Zealand’s media…
the plot thickens
Posted by wangbo in news, tilting at windmills on November 11, 2012
And the plot thickens. On Weibo, Mr Ji alerted me to this article. I’m not sure how to interpret the headline (and let’s face it, it takes years of training, supervision, and practice to become proficient in that darkest of arts that is headlinese), but this is on a website run by”中國防偽碼查詢中心有限公司“, giving an English name of “China anti-counterfeiting code inquiry Centre Limited“, and this line sets a clear enough tone for the article:
奥兰奶粉被曝假洋品牌 实为中国宝宝特供奶
Ioland milk powder has been exposed as a fake Western brand, in fact it is exclusively supplied to Chinese babies
At this stage I think ‘fake’ is a touch harsh. If, as this article states and the Ioland website Mr Martinsen found claims, Ioland is made by New Zealand’s Sutton Group, then it is actually ‘Western’ or ‘洋’ in origin, but this article states that Ioland and several other brands of infant formula made for Sutton Group are simply not sold out of China, not even in New Zealand, and are in fact packaged exclusively for sale in China. So, sure, the milk may be ‘Western’, or at least ‘南太平洋’ in origin, and may well have been turned into infant formula in a country generally considered to be ‘Western’, but the brands are ‘fake Western’ in that they are brands sold exclusively in the Chinese market and not available in ‘the West’.
The ‘fake Western’ brands produced by Sutton Group named in the article are: 纽贝贝 (Newbaybay), 奥兰 (Ioland), and 纽贝斯特 (NBST (is that a New Baby Best I see in miniscule print?)), but they come with a 等 – etc – afterwards, so presumably there are others, or at least the reporter or subeditor wants us to think so. Note how they all play up the Made in New Zealand connection? This is not uncommon in the marketing of infant formula in China. Note also that the 纽 in two of those brand names also occurs in the common Hong Kong and Taiwan transliteration of New Zealand that makes an occasional appearance here on the Mainland – 纽西兰/Niǔ Xīlán.
Now, given modern China’s flood of food safety scandals, including fake infant formula of zero nutritional value and adulterated infant formula and the obviously huge investment into children who are often the only ones their parents will be allowed – and increasingly the only grandchildren their grandparents will be allowed – it’s perfectly understandable that Chinese infant formula companies would play up the New Zealand connection when marketing formula they source in New Zealand. It’s also to be expected that companies sourcing their formula right here in China will claim it was made in New Zealand. And it’s a touch ironic that one of the biggest adulterated milk scandals was sparked off by a Fonterra joint venture that turned out to be the worst culprit of all those caught in that scandal, but never mind… But the big questions to ask are, of course:
- Is the formula actually manufactured in New Zealand from New Zealand-sourced milk?
- Does the formula meet New Zealand and Chinese standards?
- Is the formula being exported legally from New Zealand by a registered dairy exporter?
Trouble is, I see no statement in the article Mr Ji sent me that the reporter checked with Sutton Group that Ioland, Newbaybay, NBST, and the apparent other brands of infant formula are actually manufactured by Sutton Group. It is clear that the original reporter sought information on Sutton Group, but it is not clear whence that information was sought. Sutton Group’s website does include brief introductions in Chinese, but says nothing that I can see of the brands it manufactures for. I did email Sutton Group to ask about their relationship with Ioland, but have yet to receive a reply (and fair enough, it is still the weekend, and I’m not anybody important). If I do receive a reply, I might ask about these other brands, too.
But you know what? If these brands are selling infant formula manufactured in New Zealand, that formula is legally exported (and therefore subject to NZ quality controls) and that formula reaches, or preferably exceeds, the standards mandated by Chinese and New Zealand law and relevant regulations, then I have no problem with them playing up the New Zealand connection in their marketing (so long as they don’t confuse the New Zealand and Australian flags, for crying out loud!). It makes absolutely perfect sense for companies to play up the advantages of their products, so if you’re on the up-and-up, then go for it. But I am concerned about how many eggs New Zealand seems to be putting in the “let’s rely on dairy exports to emerging Asia, especially China, for our economic survival” basket, and how quickly and easily that basket could be snatched up, its eggs thrown on the ground and trambled on, and the basket set on fire if too many less than scrupulous companies start to get too much attention in the media for slapping “made in New Zealand’ labels on product made anywhere but, attracting the ‘fake Western’ brand label, or selling New Zealand product that falls short of the relevant standards.
New Zealand is a tiny economy at the edge of Nowhere, and we really can’t afford to have ourselves shot in both economic feet in our rush to get ahead.
more on Ioland
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on November 10, 2012
Mr Martinsen did the obvious and found the Ioland website. Why it never occurred to me to google Ioland even though I knew it was East Tree’s trading name I don’t know, but never mind… It states very clearly:
All the products are manufactured strictly under every single infant food safety standard in New Zealand by Sutton Group New Zealand.
On its Strategic Partner page it has a brief introduction of Sutton Group, placing it in Airport Oaks and with a picture that would seem to be taken from Sutton Group’s homepage, but I can not find any mention of East Tree or Ioland on Sutton Group’s (rather uninformative) website. They do have a ‘contact us’ page, perhaps I could try asking them…
I note that a Sutton Group of New Zealand has previously been caught exporting substandard infant formula to China, with that previous incident also involving iodine levels.
Ioland also claims:
As a registered dairy maker in Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA), the products of this expert team are now distributed to global customers across Asia, Africa, Europe and Oceania.
Great. But is it a registered dairy exporter? Because my understanding is that is the status required to legally export dairy products from New Zealand. Well, they do also have a ‘contact us’ page, so I guess I could ask them too, but…
…The address listed on Ioland’s website, whether the Chinese- or English-language versions, are for Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, and not the Auckland, New Zealand address for East Tree International Trading Limited that the Companies Office says uses the Ioland trading name. Well, I guess I could ask them about that, too…
I do notice, though, that although Ioland does use the same Chinese name for its products, 奥兰, as that which has had 26 tons of infant formula recalled over iodine levels, I do not see that really weird seeming English name Orkloland that I found yesterday. But I’m struggling to find a “超级金装” on Ioland’s products page.
And I have one more question: If they’re so keen to play up the “made in New Zealand” angle and have a silver fern logo in the bottom left corner of every page on their site,
why the hell do they have an Australian flag next to the Chinese flag on their website?!
Just for the record: Yes the Aussie and Kiwi flags are similar, but the New Zealand flag has four five-pointed red stars with white borders. The Australian flag has six seven-pointed stars of varying sizes, all of which are white.
still more dodgy milk powder
Posted by wangbo in news, tilting at windmills on November 9, 2012
Well, if New Zealand is going to bank its future on dairy exports to emerging markets in Asia, the first line of this article should be cause for alarm:
质检总局通报进境不合格食品名单，其中过半来自澳大利亚和新西兰
AQSIQ released a list of substandard imported food products, of which over half come from Australia and New Zealand.
This ain’t a good look, especially when it’s infant formula:
新西兰“奥兰超级金装婴儿配方奶粉”共26吨因碘含量不符合国家标准要求而被退货
26 tons of New Zealand’s Orkloland Super Gold infant formula were required to be recalled because the iodine content did not reach the national standard.
ORKLOLAND?!?!?!? The Chinese name sounds quite normal, but Orkloland looks, sounds and feels weird, and that google.co.nz search makes it sound even weirder. The Companies Office doesn’t seem to have heard of it. Ah, here we go, it’s a trade mark registered to East Tree International Trading Limited, whose sole director is one Hailin DU, and whose address seems to place it in a residential-looking area of Auckland. One does have to wonder how 26 tons of infant formula, substandard or otherwise, originates in a house in a very ordinary-looking suburban Auckland street. Looking through Food Safety’s list of registered dairy exporters, I see neither East Tree nor Orkloland, nor Ioland, which the Companies Office says is East Tree’s trading name, nor Hailin DU. I’m also failing to find a registered dairy exporter with the same address as East Tree. The Companies Office doesn’t list an email address, so I can’t compare that with the email addresses on the list of registered dairy exporters.
And now I’m wondering: Is this Orkloland/奥兰 for real? Is it actually produced in New Zealand? Is it legally exported? From the information I’ve found, I really don’t know.
And the article’s last paragraph is interesting. It says that before the melamine incident there were only 5or 6 domestic [presumably Chinese] companies that had registered milk powder brands in countries like Australia and New Zealand, but that number jumped to over 20 after the melamine incident.
“三四年前新西兰的奶粉品牌只有五六家，而目前新西兰的奶粉品牌猛增至20余家，新注册的奶粉品牌大多找当地企业代工，专供中国市场。”乳品专家王丁棉告诉记者。
“Three or four years ago there were only five or six New Zealand milk powder brands, but since then the number of New Zealand milk powder brands has exploded to over 20, and most of the newly registered milk powder brands find local [presumably New Zealand] companies to produce for them then specially import it to the Chinese market,” dairy product expert Wang Dingmian told this reporter.
Should I interpret that to mean that Fonterra partner Sanlu getting caught doctoring its milk with massive amounts of melamine and every other Chinese dairy company other than Sanyuan caught with at least some melamine in their products launched a rush of Chinese businesses to New Zealand to source milk powder from a “safe” country? Am I to take it that not all of these businesses are entirely scrupulous, that they’re happy to trade on New Zealand’s clean, green image, but not so keen to make sure their products live up to that image? This has me worried.
牛
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study, reading on October 28, 2012
Last Wednesday after the morning’s classes I stopped by one of the campus newsagents on the way to lunch, as is my habit. I was quite presently surprised to see a pile of Mo Yan’s books on the table and had a look through them. None that I’d heard of, so I picked the one that struck me as most immediately appealing. That happened to be 《牛》 it doesn’t appear on Paper Republic’s list of Mo Yan’s works, for whatever reason, nor can I see it in Paper Republic’s list of books, but it is listed under ‘novellas’ in the list of works on Baidu Baike’s article on Mo Yan – although the link takes you to an article on bovines rather than an article about the novella. So I guess it’s up to me to give 《牛》 a temporary English name to tide us over until Howard Goldblatt gets around to translating it. I think Ox will do for now – all Mo Yan tells us about the the particular species of bovine is that two are called Big and Little Luxi (鲁西) and the other is called ‘Double Ridge’ (双脊) because of his apperance. A bit of poking around reveals that 鲁西 is a kind of ox from western Shandong. He also tells us that they’re a ‘means of production’ (生产资料) – a statement that is repeated throughout the story. And Ox strikes me as being equally short and punchy as 牛.
So. Ox.
The story is told from the point of view of a 14-year old boy, Luóhàn (罗汉, meaning ‘arhat’), caught up in the events following the castration of three bulls owned by a production team (生产队), although the narrator is looking back at events in the past, remembering and telling us this story that happened when he was 14. But he doesn’t seem terribly much older than 14 – the language feels as if he’s in his late teens or early 20s. And I think it’s that language that’s the key – it’s earthy in that it is firmly rooted in the people of the production team and the few officials of the commune they deal with. And it’s narrated with a directness that grabbed me right from the first sentence. The book opens thusly:
那时候我是个少年。
那时候我是村里最调皮捣蛋的少年。
那时候我也是村里最让人讨厌的少年。
I was a youth then.
I was the naugtiest, most trouble-making youth in the village then.
I was also the most irritating youth in the village then.
And the story proceeds with that same simple, direct honesty. We’re sucked so much into the narrator’s world that it’s a surprise to see a helicopter mentioned in the final chapter, but no surprise to see a motorbike described as the fastest thing they’d ever seen*.
As for That Question, based on simply this novella, I’m going to have to agree with Brendan. Through Luóhàn’s 14-year old trouble-makers eyes, as remembered by an older self, we see his uncle, the production team chief,Grandpa Du, the old man in charge of the production team’s cattle and Old Dong, the commune vet all trying to manipulate each other into doing what they want while maintaining their own image of squeaky socialistic cleanliness, as defined by the dictates of the Cultural Revolution. And as it turns out, the commune officials they’re so terrified of aren’t any better, but are just as much out to pursue their own interests through the chaotic system of the time as the lowly production team members. Nobody comes out of this story looking all angelic.
Chapter 12 started with what was for me a good laugh – partly through sudden similarity with personal circumstance, but mostly because it was quite a pleasingly awful twist for the fates of some who should’ve known better. ‘Pleasingly awful’ – yes, the black humour of this book is most enjoyable.
In short: Read this.
And so I would like to thank the Nobel literature committee and my campus newstand for finally spurring me to read Mo Yan.
*Chapter 12 reveals the events of the story as having taken place at the end of April, 1970, which would make Luóhàn roughly the same age as Mo Yan himself. Luóhàn and his Pockmarked Uncle, the production team chief, are surnamed 管 (Guǎn), which just happens to be Mo Yan’s surname. I would be surprised if those characters in the story old enough to remember the War had never seen anything as fast as a motorbike, but I’m going to trust Mo Yan on the absence of such things in the rural Shandong of his youth.
rental bikes
Posted by wangbo in Beijing transport on October 16, 2012
I’ve been seeing articles in the newspapers about a new rental bike scheme to be introduced in Beijing in the near future for some time now, but hadn’t really paid much attention. Then a few weeks ago I turned the corner and saw this:
A new bike rack around the corner – for this new rental scheme?
A long rack with slots on the ground roughly the width of a bicycle tire and slots at the top with a box and some kind of electronic interface, and at the end a post with a screen, keypad and pad for an IP or IC card or something similar…. hmmm…. a sign that this bike rental scheme really is coming soon?
Well, then, yesterday I decided to take the scenic route home. No new battery in my watch after two weeks is a bit ridiculous, so I went and got that seen to first at a place on the far side of campus then took a slightly less direct route home than necessary, and what did I see?
Bikes in the rack, customers, onlookers
This is a different rack from the one I first saw, but there are bikes in it, all uniform and distinctive as the rentals. There was a young woman at the post apparently in the process of renting a bike, perhaps returning it, I don’t know, and people apparently queueing behind her, and, as you can see, curious onlookers keen to check out what’s new in the neighbourhood.
At another rental station up the road I got a snap of the screen:
The screen
It’s not very good, but none of the photos from my phone are, but you can see a map of the area – certainly not all of Beijing, but a very easily cyclable area in our corner of the city – with what seems to be the locations of rental stations in that area.
Now, I don’t know how to use the system, and unfortunately Google and Baidu aren’t turning up terribly much information, but this article announcing that the system is now open to foreigners says there are five places to get a bicycle rental card:
- Outside Exit A2 of Subway Line 5 Tiantan Dongmen Station
- Outside Exit A of Subway Line 2 Dongzhimen Station
- Outside Exit A of Subway Line 2 Chaoyangmen Station
- Sanlitun Sub-District Beisanlitun Shequ (三里屯街道北三里社区)
- Maizidian Community Minibus Station?!?!? (麦子店便民小巴停靠站)
Yeah, I’m really not sure about the last two.
But otherwise I’m struggling to find any decent information on the system. Serves me right for waxing lyrical about how Beijing’s getting so much information out there. I guess if I’m curious enough I could just bowl up to Chaoyangmen subway station, find Exit A, and see what I can see… Or is Tiantan Dongmen closer? Much of a muchness, I suspect, but I’d much rather head to Tiantan Dongmen than Chaoyangmen. That part of the city is still built on a humane level.
getting information out
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, travel on October 7, 2012
I found Matt’s take on Weibo’s place in Chinese civil society quite intriguing, but there’s one aspect he skips over, one way in which I’ve found Weibo really useful, and that is as a source of information from various government departments. No, seriously. No, really, stop laughing, it’s for real.
I follow a variety of Beijing government departments on Weibo, and although a lot of their posts are little feel-good stories, perhaps a kind of soft propaganda trying to create a tender, caring image of the various departments, many of their posts are useful and timely information that is actually really helpful. For example, @pinganbeijing (平安北京, official Weibo account of the Beijing Public Security Bureau (police, in other words)) has often posted reminders of upcoming rotations in Beijing’s traffic restrictions (next rotation starts tomorrow) or road closures or other temporary traffic management measures for big events like triathlons, marathons, or road cycling races with links to more detailed information. And over this Golden Week holiday period the Beijing Municipal Transport Commission has done a pretty good job of posting updates of traffic conditions on the expressways, warnings of accidents affecting traffic flows or queues forming at toll gates, and this morning even warnings of road closures and reopenings due to fog in Tianjin.
And it’s not just Weibo. Both the Transport Commission and the Beijing Municipal Traffic Management Bureau have frequently updated maps of traffic conditions, and Baidu Maps has a traffic conditions setting. Notice how I didn’t link to Baidu Maps? Well, despite the economic orthodoxy drilled into us for so many years now that private enterprise somehow magically does everything better than government just because it does, so shut up and obey, private enterprise magically good, government inherently evil, I’ve found the government maps actually more useful than Baidu’s. Baidu’s advantage is that you can zoom in to a very local level, while the two government maps only cover main thoroughfares. But at the start of the holiday we had to travel into The Place (and yes, I did shudder as I typed that) to collect some mooncakes (no, really, these ones are good – ice cream in a dark chocolate skin – off to pinch another one before I continue typing… ). I opened Baidu Maps, zoomed in to The Place, and groaned at all the roads highlighted in orange and red. Brilliant, holiday or not the traffic’s going to be as bad as always. But when we got there, there was hardly another car in sight. And of course, The Place opens at 10 am… So where did Baidu get its information from?! The Transport Commission’s map seems more accurate, so far, although I haven’t known about it for too long so I can’t be sure. But its big disadvantage is that it covers only the central city. The Traffic Management Bureau’s map, like the Transport Commission’s, only covers main thoroughfares, but it covers a much wider area – central city main roads, all the Ring Roads including the 6th, and expressways in some cases right out to the provincial border (although it only covers the G6 into Yanqing County and the two very limited sections of the G7 included are always grey, meaning it doesn’t yet have any information), and best of all, the information generally matches what I experience when I get out on the road.
But there, of course, lies a major problem. The information I check, whether on Weibo or the Transport Commission’s or Traffic Management Bureau’s websites is automatically out of date once I step out the door. I’m driving on a “last I heard” basis, and traffic is a very dynamic beast. There are the large electronic signs along the Ring Road and Expressway networks, but no matter how timely their updates they’re just as prone to the situation changing as I pass them as Weibo and the official websites. Sure, Weibo can be checked via cellphone, and the Transport Commission has apps for those with iPhones or Android phones (I have neither), but they’re no good unless I have a navigator to keep an eye on the phone or I’m irresponsible enough to use a phone while driving. No, I’m not that irresponsible, and I only sometimes have somebody capable of acting as navigator.
So, none of this is perfect, and it does nothing to fix the myriad other problems with governance in China, but it is nice to be able to step out the door with information up to date at that moment on traffic conditions I’m likely to face. Any information is better than no information, and more information is better than less information. This holiday I was able to plan our journeys to and from the village based on experience of the roads twixt here and there and logic (tourists will be heading out in the morning, back in the afternoon, so we’ll head out in the afternoon and back in the morning) backed up with near-real time monitoring of the road network in the days, hours and minutes leading up to each journey. Had an accident occurred on one of the roads I planned to take and reported by the Transport Commission on Weibo before I set out, I would have been able to plan a detour around the problem before setting out. I’m pretty confident in my navigational skills, but this extra information was a nice extra boost.
I’ve noticed a lot of government departments at provincial, municipal, and even district and county level have official Weibo accounts, with the ones I follow at least being quite proactive at getting information out and dealing with netizen enquiries. I’m not saying they’re perfect, and of course, Weibo provides a new platform for the old practices of ‘information management’, obfuscation, and worse just as much as it provides a platform for openness and transparency, but they’re there, proactive, and frequently useful. And Weibo now seems to be running ‘provincial theme days’ featuring a selection of official Weibo accounts from different provinces each day. They certainly involve a few steps sideways, perhaps even backwards, but there are areas in which they’re making definite steps forward, and that I am liking.
sorting things out
Caijing reports that New Zealand is going to crack down on illegal purchasing agents buying infant formula for shipment to China. It’s an odd article, offering a quick and incomplete summary of a report from AQSIQ, then attaching said report. The AQSIQ report begins:
新西兰严打非法邮寄婴儿配方奶粉出境
New Zealand to crack down on the illegal posting overseas of infant formula
9月28日，新西兰初级产业部(MPI)与新西兰海关在官方网站发表声明，联合开展行动打击非法输出婴儿配方奶粉的行为。依据1999年颁布的新西兰动物 产品法案规定，一切将奶制品带离新西兰本土的行为都被视为输出，包括网购及亲友赠送等渠道，而只有在初级产业部注册备案的出口商才有资格输出包括婴儿配方 奶粉在内的奶制品。这意味着除代理商进口之外其他途径输往中国的新西兰婴儿配方奶粉都在此次严打活动的范围内，包括网络代购。
On September 28 the New Zealand Minsitry of Primary Industries (MPI) and New Zealand Customs said on their official websites that they would work together to fight the illegal export of infant formula. According to regulations in the New Zealand Animal Products Act promulgated in 1999, all actions taking dairy products out of New Zealand territory are seen as exports, including online purchases and gifts from friends and family, and only exporters registered with the MPI are qualified to export dairy products, including infant formula. This means that other than those of importing agents, all other channels for shipping New Zealand infant formula to China, including online purchases, fall within the scope of this crackdown.
And a quick glance at the MPI’s website confirms this. I note their press release quotes MPI Manager Food and Beverage Glen Neal:
“This has nothing to do with the safety of New Zealand infant formula,” Mr Neal says. “In fact, New Zealand infant formula is highly regarded and sought after in our export markets.”
Right, but that reputation needs to be carefully protected, as recent reports of substandard and possibly fake New Zealand infant forumla in the Chinese media demonstrate. That reputation is oh-so-enticing to the unscrupulous, and it’s so easy to slap a “Made in clean, green, 100% pure New Zealand” label on your product, whether you can even find NZ on a map or not. It’s also easy for unscrupulous manufacturers and exporters to cut a few corners in production and/or quality control. After all, there’s so much fake and substandard stuff on sale in China, nobody’s gonna notice, right? Indeed, Neal seems to agree on the need to protect our reputation:
Our action is about protecting the confidence New Zealand’s international trading partners have in our system of standards for exports, and at the same time ensuring a level playing field applies for all exporters of animal products in New Zealand.
And it is good to see this getting media coverage in New Zealand – though I note the major newspapers are apparently missing in action again.
AQSIQ’s report, as carried in Caijing, goes on to note that the illegal export of infant formula is a risk to product quality, health and safety and:
新西兰初级产业部与新西兰海关同时宣布，将对非法输出婴儿配方奶粉的公司和个人处以最高30万新西兰元和5万新西兰元的处罚，并酌情决定是否对其提出指控。
New Zealand’s MPI and New Zealand Customs also said companies and individuals illegally exporting infant formula could be fined a maximum amount of NZ$300 thousand and NZ$50 thousand respectively and charges would be laid at MPI’s and Customs’ discretion.
国家质检总局动植司提醒国内消费者谨慎选择经邮寄途径进境的新西兰婴儿配方奶粉，避免因此造成不必要的损失。
AQSIQ’s animal and plant department reminds domestic consumers to be cautious in choosing New Zealand infant formula imported by post in order to avoid unnecessary losses.
And it’s good to see cooperation from the Chinese end, too. After all, its the health and safety of Chinese children at risk, and the demand for imported milk powder is so insane thanks to the near complete lack of trust in China’s own dairy companies* that it is extremely easy for the less-than-moral to hawk fake or substandard product – and that has already been happening, as I have ranted about in the two previous posts to this blog linked above.
But you know what? I really hope this crackdown turns into a permanent strict monitoring of dairy exports. Because as I have ranted, New Zealand’s reputation for quality, purity and safety in one of its biggest markets could disappear almost overnight if even only a few exporters are caught selling substandard or fake product. New Zealand needs to not only jealously guard its reputation, but ensure that its exporters live up to the hype.
*Yes, I admit, we buy imported, too, for precisely the same reason as everybody else.