What if those Chinese pigs left some DNA behind in the river?

A funny picture from a friend in China.  Obviously someone was having a bit of fun with Photoshop, but maybe we should start working on this - could make for a tasty fish!

Dead Pigs: The Epilogue

The final tally of dead pigs from last week's "Shanghai Swine Tsunami" (maybe I should copyright that) is 12,000.   That's a lot of putrid pork, and it got me thinking; could this festering flood have an impact on the market price of pork in China?  After all, on the same day I read the 12K death toll, there was another article stating that the Chinese consumer price of pork had fallen 10% in recent months.

Pork for sale at a typically unsanitary-looking Hong Kong outdoor market

 

Hmmm, could there be a connection?  One would think a shortage of pork caused by a mass die off would drive prices upward, unless of course the dead pigs really were going to the slaughterhouse, flooding the market as it were with low cost meat.  I decided to resolve this suspicion with some mathematical analysis:

• 12,000 pigs, waterlogging aside would weigh somewhere around 2.4 million pounds
• The non-muslim human population of China is estimated at 1.4 billion, give or take
• If we divide the 2.4 million lbs. of "off the market" meat into the above human population, this works out to .002 pounds of pork per consumer.  2 thousandths of a pound, less than 1/30th of an ounce.

I am going to conclude two things based on this.  First, this is not enough to have a significant impact on prices, and second, the scale of everything in China is really, really huge.  2.4 million pounds of meat is a blip in a market this size, nothing more.

How Do You House a Few Million Migrant Construction Workers?

China is building! Construction sites are ubiquitous in every city I visit.  Like massive birds, construction cranes sit perched by the dozens above the ever-growing skylines.

Cranes on a Chinese skyline

Buildings going up in Shenzhen

Many of the workers building these new modern cities, or rebuilding the older ones like Shanghai come from elsewhere and, as is typical in many developing countries, can't really afford to live in the same city they are erecting.  So where do these former farmers from rural China live while building row after row of new apartment blocks?  In places like this:

Shanghai construction site

Prefabricated, temporary workers dormitories.  You see these next to nearly every sizable constriction site. Each building is a kit, trucked to the site in pieces and assembled.  Each may have 12 or so units on two levels, each of which contain multiple beds.  In addition, a prefab kitchen and toilet/shower facilities are also assembled.  Everything a work crew could need, except perhaps a living wage, workplace safety regulations, paid time off, health insurance...

The Bodies are Piling Up!

To the "Teeming Dozens" who read this blog, I've got your back!  I am closely following the dead Chinese pig situation and will keep you in the know.

As of this morning, the China Daily is reporting the total number of pig carcasses pulled from the Huangpu river has topped 8000 and the number continues to climb.  To put this in perspective, if you laid these soggy swollen swine tail to snout they would stretch 8 kilometers (that's 5 miles for us non-metric folk) and weight more than 1 million pounds.  That's a lot of bad bacon my friends.

There is increasing evidence that many of these pigs died of disease before being disposed of in the Huangpu, upstream from Shanghai.  The local government still claims the drinking water is unaffected.  As bizarre as this situation is, perhaps there is a positive spin to the dumping of dead pigs - at least it may be an indication that even in China, you can't sell a dead diseased pig to a slaughterhouse.

I'm On Dead Floating Pig Watch!

The China Daily this morning reported the number of dead pigs pulled this week from the city's Huangpu River is now officially 5,916 and counting.  I am working in my Shanghai office today which overlooks this river.  Numerous scans have not turned up any visible pig carcasses, but I will keep a vigilant eye out.  Still no official word on the source, although ear tags on some pigs show them coming from neighboring Jiangxi Province.

Also no word on the cause.  Perhaps the pigs in China have become despondent over their future prospects leading to a mass porcine suicide.  I can picture the poor porker's final moments as he plunges from the riverbank to his doom.  "You want to eat me mother f&%$@*, well eat THIS!" followed by a splash, a faint squeal, and... OK, I think I need some coffee or something...

Shanghai's Huangpu River, sans any visible pig carcasses

"Brown Skies, Smilin' At Me...."

Songwriting in China could be a lot of fun...

Morning sky over Wuxi, China

Soggy Sows Scare Shanghai!

The big news from Shanghai this week involves pigs.  Dead pigs to be precise, floating in the city's Huangpu River.  A lot of dead pigs.  3000 dead pigs!  The local government claims they do not know where these pigs came from, but there is concern, justified I think, that perhaps these soggy swine might have an adverse effect on the city's water supply, much of which is pulled from this same river.  The Chinese government issued a statement today saying the water supply has been tested and, I quote "...meets established quality standards."

OK, while I am usually skeptical about statements from the Chinese government, skepticism was not my initial response.  My first thought was "Wait just a minute, do you mean that this nasty-ass, bacteria-ridden, will kill you if you drink it water supply meets some kind of standard?  Yesterday's water was OK in somebody's book?  What the hell does this standard measure, flammability?

Is it just me, or does this boat look like it was specially engineered for pulling dead pigs from a river?

Incidentally, I have decided I will not be eating any more pork on this trip to Shanghai, especially if it appears to be at a suspiciously low price...  You just never know!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Direct from China I Bring You...

The worlds largest pair of pants!

New building under construction in Suzhou, China

Wow!  What the hell was the architect smoking when he had this idea?  A sixty-story pair of Levi's?  I know they make most of the clothes for the rest of the world here, but do they really need to rub it in?  But just to show how fickle fashion can be - these are hip-huggers.  That is so 2000's.  Out of style before they are even complete...

Thinking Back to "Sesame Street"

Maybe you remember the song.  A woman's voice would sing "One of these things is not like the others.  One of these things just doesn't belong..."  and on the tiny TV screen would appear four images; three pieces of fruit and a banjo maybe.  It was a learning exercise to identify patterns.

I saw these images last week at the top of a menu in Japan.  See if you can spot the one that doesn't fit.

I am really not sure where they were going with this one...

All Seafood Tastes Good, No Matter How Creepy It Looks

Case in point.  The Geoduck clam

Never mind that it resembles a foot long penis, a resemblance which is enhanced by the water streaming out of a hole at the end when it is removed from the tank I might add.  Our restaurant in Hong Kong last week served ours sashimi style; raw, sliced into bite-sized pieces and dipped in soy sauce with wasabi.  It tasted like a clam although the texture was a bit odd.  It somehow managed to be rubbery and crunchy at the same time.  It was good nonetheless.

One of the dozens of seafood vendors at the Lei Yue Mun fish market

We had dinner at a restaurant attached to the Lei Yue Mun fish market where you buy your food, and then bring it to the restaurant where it is prepared.  Some pretty interesting creatures in these tanks...

Dim Sum at the Lin Heung Tea House

If you ever get to Hong Kong and want a really unique dining experience, Dim Sum is a must, and the Lin Heung Tea House in Central is a great place to get it.  I have wanted to try true Dim Sum for years, but to be honest I was too intimidated.  I speak only a little Mandarin and no Cantonese, but after a visit to this restaurant, I now realize that speaking is not required.  All you are required to do is point.  Its that easy.

Here is how my Dim Sum experience at Lin Heung worked.  Upon entering the dining room on the second floor, a woman behind the register yelled to me "Share table, anywhere".  The room is large and contains maybe 50 large round tables which seat 8 or so people each.  The place was very busy, and I must have looked confused looking for an open seat, but a kindly older man waved me over and pointed to an empty rickety and well-worn chair at his table.  I thanked him and sat down.  The table in front of me was covered with dirty dishes from the previous diner, but this was quickly cleared, the table wiped down and fresh plates, cups and chopsticks, and a BINGO card were placed before me.  A bowl was also put down and filled with boiling-hot water from a large kettle.  I knew from past experiencing that this bowl for you to use in sterilizing your tea cup, eating bowl, and utensils, which I did.

What makes traditional Dim Sum different is that you don't order your food.  The food comes to you on a fleet of steamer-filled carts.  If you can flag down the old woman (they were all old women) pushing the cart, she will lift the lids to show you what each steamer contains.  All I had to do was point at what I wanted, she handed me the steamer, I handed her my BINGO card which she stamped, and I had my food.  It's that simple.  I also ordered tea which everyone in the place was drinking.  I had four separate steamers, mostly dumplings, all of which were very fresh, delicate, light and really good.  A great breakfast.  I was stuffed.  I waddled to the register with my BINGO card and payed the bill.  96 Hong Kong Dollars, about $12.00 US.  I may never eat another overpriced hotel buffet breakfast here again.  

Chinese Pharmacy

I spend a lot of time wandering about the neighborhoods in Hong Kong when I am here, and I am not often afraid to just walk through a shop or restaurant that looks interesting.  Yesterday while hiking around Kowloon, I decided to check out a local pharmacy.  Not exactly Walgreens...

Chinese medicine has a 2000 year history, and much of it uses dried plant and animal parts as treatments.  You see a lot of things like the ones pictured above.  Dried scallops, various herbs, and a few things that look like they belong in a B-grade horror film.

The other side of the store had shelves filled with Ibuprofen vitamins and the like, but that did not make for a very interesting picture.  I'm not drawing any conclusions on the relative popularity of Western medicine here, but the traditional remedies took up by far the majority of the shelf space.  

Even a Broken Body Clock Is Right Twice a Day...

Thanks "Grayunit" for the inspiration...

Jet lag is a strange thing.  I don't understand why, but it affects me differently on different trips; the one consistency being the effects peak on the third day and then quickly disappear.  In general it bothers me less than when I first started traveling long distances.  Perhaps I just accept the disrupted sleep patterns and grogginess at midday now, or maybe my body had developed some resistance to the effects.  But even after years of frequent travel across multiple time zones,  sometimes it still hits me hard.  Not that this is all bad - even though I often feel brain-dead around 2:00 in the afternoon, for the first few days I am incredibly productive at 4:00 in the morning!

I have yet to come up with a sure fire strategy to minimize the effects.  Some things do help, albeit inconsistently.  Here is what I have tried so far:

• Take a nap on arrival.  If your schedule permits, this can offer some relief.  2 or three hours of napping and then going to sleep at a normal local time can help, but I will still usually be wide awake at 3:00 AM
• Drink lots of water on the flight.  For those of us who live below 10,000 feet, the air in the cabin of an airliner will be unusually dry and dehydration can result.  Drink lots of water to counter this and you should arrive feeling better.
• I am undecided whether it is better to sleep on the plane or stay awake.  I have tried both but I think I need more data.  Unfortunately, I can only sleep on a plane if I sedate myself - two double bourbons do the trick nicely, but they also add to the risk of dehydration.  I will keep working on this...
• Drink coffee throughout the day after arrival.  This one is a must for me.

If I ever figure this out, I may write a book...