The Bag Ban

Earlier this year, the China State Council banned free plastic bags from retailers. Now, in China there's no choice of paper or plastic, it's just plastic, and most of the time those plastic bags are of the ultra-thin, ultra-flimsy variety. We're talking so flimsy that anything over the weight of a single beer requires double-bagging and a fast trip home before the bags break. Once used for transporting your groceries and beer (or just beer), these cheap little bags are delegated to lining your home trashcans (if the bags haven't broken yet) assuming that they're big enough. Most of the time the bags are so inconveniently small and flimsy that any shopping trip would require a dozen of the little things to hoist all your food and are too small to fit in any normal sized waste bin, which is extremely annoying.

The majority of these bags would just end up being thrown away, usually into other, larger plastic bags, but often they would just be left on the street, blocking sewers, interfering with water treatment, polluting the environment or just blowing across the streets in clumps of bags. Like tumble weed, but with bags.

That all changed last month. One of the advantages of a one party government is that you can, without having to fuss through congress, arbitrary opposition from other parties or protests from bag lobbyists. So as of June 1, free bags are banned and all stores carry plastic bags for purchase. You can buy small bags for 0.1 yuan, medium bags for 0.2 yuan and larger bags for 0.3 yuan (6.8 yuan = 1 USD). Then for the real green shopper, cloth biodegradable bags are offered for a few yuan. In addition to potentially saving 37 million barrels of oil if shoppers use reusable bags, the new bags are much, much heftier than the old ones, and they're actually of a normal size that can be useful around the house.

When I first heard about this measure I just assumed that everyone would end up buying these new bags, with a minority of frugal shoppers bringing along their own bags, but that's not the case, at least in Guangzhou. I'd forgotten that China has a savings rate that's 50% of GDP, these guys like to economize. Seemingly overnight, people have started bringing reusable plastic and cloth bags to the grocery stores, with shoppers who purchase bags at the grocery store in the minority.

It was less than two months ago that I felt like I was one of the few responsible shoppers at my local grocer when I'd bring my old bags. Now whenever I forget to bring my old bags to use when shopping, I feel like I'm the irresponsible person in the register line, most people bring their bags. Now if only I can find a good bag storage device.

"Walking the Dog" in China

Last night I went for a run along a riverfront boardwalked that's well traversed by students, pedestrians, kids learning kung-fu, old men practicing calligraphy with water and many dog walkers. There's even a group that meets in one are and show off how they train their dogs. Kind of like a middle school mixer, but for dogs.

But when I was running last night I saw one lady with a dog and I had to do a double take, then a triple take. She had a full grown dog, must've weighed at least 40 lbs, in her arms. She cradled the large dog and walked down the boardwalk with all the other pedestrians. I looked at her, then looked at her again, she looked at me, then I awkwardly looked at her one more time as I ran by.

One can only think that someone told here you're supposed to take the dog for a "walk" every night and she misunderstood what that meant.

Someone walking his dog properly

Something Happened on the Way to Class

During lunch break yesterday, I went uptown to sit in on a Cantonese class I'm thinking about taking. Shortly after the second bus stop, I saw a crowd on Xiadu Rd, a street near my house. Usually crowds on a street side are a sign of a fight, an arrest or an accident. A few seconds later I saw the doctors raise a stretcher through the crowd towards an ambulance a couple of meters away. On the stretcher was a kid, a teenage laying on his side with blood on his chest. One man was assisting in the kids position on the stretcher, helping put his very limp leg into position. I was shocked and started yelling expletives from my seat on the bus. As our bus sped away I lost view of the scene and was unable to tell what exactly happened. The poor kid was a middle school student wearing a white and green uniform. Blood was coming out of an area in between his neck and chest, I couldn't tell if he'd been hit or attacked.

When I went by the spot on the way home there was no crowd, but still a police van. I got my answer to the incident when I did a news search this morning. Apparently the kid was a seventh grader from a nearby school, on his way to lunch when he got hit by a small car. He was taken to the hospital but tragically the wounds to his head and neck were too severe. Damn.

初一男生穿马路险丢命

http://www.sina.com.cn 2008年07月09日01:03 金羊网-新快报

海珠区下渡路一学生被车撞

新快报讯 （记者 尹政军 实习生 林淑芳 李庆）昨日中午12时许，在海珠区下渡路乐涛苑路段一学校附近，一名初一学生横穿马路被一辆小车撞伤，该生头部与颈部多处受伤，幸同学急忙拨打120，受伤学生经抢救后已无大碍。据目击者刘先生称，事发时这名学生正横穿马路，一辆速度较快的小车刹车不及，一下子将其撞倒。

据称，当时该学生下嘴唇破裂，鲜血直流，头部、脸 部和颈部多处受伤。“有同学立即拨打了120。”在医院记者看到了受伤学生。据悉，他是一名初一学生，事发时刚参加完学校的期末考试。据接诊医生介绍，他 的头部和脸部均有多处外伤，但已无生命危险。

（报料人：某先生奖金：50元）

Junior One Male Student Loses Life Crossing the Street

This just in (reporter Jun Zhengzhun, interns Lin Jiaofang and Li Qing). Yesterday at noon about 12pm, in the Haizhu District at Xiadu Rd and Letaoyuan Rd near a school, a seventh grader was crossing the street when he was hit by a small car. The student's head and neck area were injured. A classmate immediately dialed 120. Despite a rush to help the student, he was unable to be saved.
According to a witness named Mr. Liu, the event happened just as the student was just crossing the street, when a rather fast car was unable to break in time. In a split second the student was knocked over, his lip was split open and fresh blood flowed from his injuries. His head, face and neck had open wounds. "Some classmates immediately dialed 120." Once in the hospital this reporter was able to see the student. It is reported that he is a Junior 1 student (seventh grader) and had just completed his final exam for the semester. According to the hospital emergency unit, his head and face had open wounds, and they were unable to save his life from danger.

(reported by: an anonymous individual. Reward: 50 Yuan)

Facebook Blocked!

Facebook, my bridge to friends and relatives across the world, the bastion of communication between old classmates and acquaintances, the time waster that reduces my productivity at work, is now blocked in China...kind of.

It started with some suspiciously long loading times over the past few days, followed by intermittent bouts of unavailability, followed by periods of easy access and now, at least over the past 20 hours, it's been completely blocked.

It started with a couple of blog posts on Sunday, such as here and here, and now there's reports on cnet Asia regarding the issue.

Facebook responded to a post by the Wall Street Journal on July 1 with the following: “We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in China are having difficulty getting access to Facebook. We have not made any changes to our site that would create access problems and are looking into the situation.” Lame! Damn those communists for ruining our fun!

I'm guessing (and hoping) that this is a temporary blockage caused by the Party's massive censorship endeavor as they test a sophisticated Facebook censorship machine that can quickly and efficiently block selective areas of the site, or the entire network, at a moments notice in preparation of the upcoming Olympics. It's only been two days, so it's too early to tell how permanent this block will be. The Chinese government doesn't release any official word on what sites are blocked and which ones aren't. When trying to access a blocked site, the page just comes up as "the page you requested is unavailable,” sometimes this is coupled with the entirety of one's internet access shutdown inexplicably for two minutes.