Happy Holidays from Chicago Coffee!

Best White Elephant Gift

I may be slightly biased but I never seen a white elephant gift as great as this one.

The creator of this excellent gift spent hours modeling a poem after Martin Luther King Jr.'s " I have a Dream" speech about Chicago Coffee and it's "American Boss"entitling it "I Have a Cup of Coffee."

New Years Eve Party & Chicago Coffee 2nd Anniversary

Click Image for Event Details!

Chicago Coffee Holiday Events and Store Hours

December 25th

Closed for Christmas Day

December 31st

New Years Eve

&

Chicago Coffee's 2nd Anniversary Party

(6pm to midnight)

January 1st

Special store hours

(noon- 9 pm)

Starting for 2010

New Store Hours

Mon- Sat 9am-9pm

Sun 12pm- 9pm

Holiday Gift Ideas

1 lb of Holiday Blend Coffee

&

any size Chicago Coffee Mug

¥100

Chicago Gift Cards

Buy 4 Get 1 Free

Any Denomination- min ¥50

Traveling Salesman- Rekindled love for fireplaces

3 cities in 2 days and all I can think about are fireplaces. Everbody has fireplaces up here but nobody is using them.


Traveling on a budget certaintly has it's frosty points. No heat when it dips down into the low 30's at night or showers where the water hovers just above freezing. You will never see me move as quickly as I do running to throw on clothes after a shower when those two things combine for a blizzard-like effect.

These are all the more reason for the use of perfectly good fireplaces. Most shop owners say the season for it hasn't arrived yet. But if freezing isn't rationale to start using a wood burning fire then I am afraid that season will never come.

Give me a latte, a good book, and a wood burning fireplace and I will brave as many cold showers as you like.

- Posted via iPhone

Traveling Salesman- the Good Idea

Once in a while an idea comes along that grabs your attention and won't let go. It's the kind of idea that keeps your brain churning late at night despite your body's plea to just go to sleep. For a traveling salesman maybe the idea can simply simmer on the back-burner but for a traveling entrepenuer this kind of idea is what makes all the other failed ideas fade into oblivion. It makes you feel like even for a few fleeting moments that this is the idea that simply can't fail. It's 2 am and my only canvas is the darkened ceiling of my hotel room. Welcome to my life.


- Posted via iPhone

Traveling Salesman- Day 2

Day 2

6:03 am - Struggling to get out of bed because it dipped into the 20's last night and there is no heat where I'm staying.

6:57 am - Ready to go early today since our bus leaves at 8 am for Lugu lake. My derriere still hasn't recovered from yesterday but no time for resting. I did have time to enjoy a little Monday Night Football and a french presses Mt Kilimanjaro Blend (which I had to backtrack 30 minutes yesterday because I forgot to grab it on the way out. Why backtrack for a bag of coffee? You may asking. Well I at a point in my life where I can't possibly leave my coffee needs up to random chance and the hope that someone is serving something fresh or real). I am definitely thankful for the little things though. Like being able to watch American Football live despite being thousands of miles from the actualy game. In fact is there someone watching it further away than I am?


7:35 am - Out the door and off to find the bus. The trek through the mountains will take anywhere from 7 hours to 11 hours depending on fallen rocks and/or other acts of nature.

10:45 am - A few hours out and making good progress. Not sure it will really take even 7 hours as I keep checking in on the map on my iphone and it doesn't look that far. The picture below is from the side of the road at a "rest stop." A "rest stop" here is simply a Chinese outhouse and few local sellers offering some fruits and vegetables from the trip. If you look carefully you can see the winding road. I know my Mom would not have been able to make this trip with me. Way too many mountain passes.

1:30 pm - Lunch break for the driver. I hope I am wrong but I have a bad feeling that the driver may have had a beer at lunch as his personality has completely changed and the last 30 minutes of the trip made me feel like he all of sudden decided to get there as fast as possible.

3:02 pm - The secret is out. As we stop for a 1 hour break to rent canoes on the lake, I realized that the trip only takes 6 hours but the driver gets some kickbacks from these types of places for making planned stops.

3:35 pm- After asking our business acquaintances to come pick us up at the canoe rental place we have finally made it to Lugu Lake. Absolutely beautiful. Crystal clear water completely surrounded by mountains on all sides. Lugu lake is home to one of the last untouched and unpolluted resources in China and also to a matriarchal society. The women of the Mosuo people are in charge of all production and management and marriage is non-existentent as men float from woman to woman until the woman tires of them or as long as the woman likes.

- Posted via iPhone

Gotta Love the Chinese Media

You can't go wrong with a re-enactment of the Tiger Woods incident. You just can't.

Life of the traveling salesman

Tripping out to Lugu lake this week to explore the possibility of bringing my roasted coffee to the far stretches of Yunnan province. Although I'm not really a traveling salesman but I thought to blog about this experience might be interesting. Besides, something crazy always happens to me.


Day one entails a 7 hour drive to Lijiang, a city north of Kunming, and half-way to Lugu lake.


- Posted via iPhone

We Steal from the Chinese

They say that 1 human year is the equivalent to 7 dog years. Not sure how they came up with this or why the two have to be compared in this way. Isn’t it simpler to just say that dogs don’t live as long as humans? Then we can start using the dog year analogy for other things. For example, 1 year running a business in China is the equivalent to 7 human years. I am sure this might apply to more things then just running a business, but I can speak first hand that it has been 2 years since the Chicago Coffee Company was established and the toil it has taken feels nothing short of an equivalent 14 years of life.

There are ways to keep this kind of wear and tear off the proverbial business tires. Shortcuts. There are shortcuts to be had in any country in the world and even the US of A is certainly not without its share of corruption and injustice. But here shortcuts in this political and economic system are so widely used that they can no longer be considered shortcuts. They are the status quo. Because of this “playing by the rules” and “following the law” are such foreign concepts that in order to do so the government has actually set it up to discourage such behavior. i.e the Fapiao 发票 system (which I hope to touch on in a later post).

One of those shortcuts is the use of 关系 “Guan Xi” or the use of relationships or each person’s social capital to incur favors in order to get something done that otherwise would not be possible. The more guanxi one person or one company has the more favor one can enjoy from other companies, individuals, or government entities.

Another shortcut is less a cultural custom and more of a universal injustice practiced in almost every country in the world. That shortcut is simply the violation of an established minimum wage for workers and/or the violation of basic employee rights in order to save money or time or both. Fast food giants, McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut, are notorious minimum wage violators and have been found guilty in some Chinese cities of underpaying its workers.

It is no secret to most that these Fast Food giants have been paying sometimes half the minimum wage or as little as 3 or 4 yuan per hour (43 – 58 cents per hour) despite having lower operating costs and the same prices as their U.S. based counterparts. Instead of just settling for making a hefty profit they have chosen to steal from the Chinese so they can make a killing at every one of their 100’s of locations. And the worst part is its not just mega chains that have taken up this practice but even local foreign owned restaurants and cafes like Silver Spoon* have made this common practice and run on the reputation of abusing Chinese workers simply because its cheaper and easier. I understand that Chinese companies do this as well and they should be called to the same standards as well, but it is disgusting to see foreign businesses doing it without any concern or respect for the Chinese people.

I am not perfect in what I do by any means, and I can’t guarantee that those that work for my company will leave thinking it was the best job they have ever had. But I can guarantee they will be paid a fair wage of at least the minimum wage (nearly double the city average wage) and that they will be shown the respect and concern they deserve as fellow human beings. The Chinese are not just cheap labor and those that treat them as such will surely be held accountable at some point.

* Changes in management have been made recently at Silver Spoon so I am unaware if other changes to their practices have been made as well

The little things

Sometimes there isn't much to say or post that is not of the frustrating nature, business wise at least. So as thanksgiving has come and gone I am thankful for some of the little things.

1) The remaining people out there that are friendly and allow you to build rapport quickly. Seems like it happens more in the small cities than places like Kunming even though that was not usually the case a few years ago.

2) Ms Chen at the police station. I have had enough dealings with the police over the past few years and Ms Chen is one of the few officers that is cheerful and always willing to help.

3) Taxation with representation. Hard to be thankful for taxes but when a government mysteriously implements a new tax without explanation on small businesses right before Christmas and Chinese New Year wiping out any cash reserves and applies it retro-actively, it is easier to have fondness for taxation the just way.

4) Coffee's addictive nature. It's great that coffee has spurned endless possibilities on how it can be consumed and that I never grow tired of a simple black hot cup of Joe.

- Posted via iPhone

Enjoy the Holidays @ Chicago Coffee

Eggnog Latte, Gingerbread Latte, Toffee Nut Latte, & Peppermint Mocha

available now through the holidays

Humiliated and Insulted

"But I can tell you this. If it were only possible (which, however, from the laws of human nature never can be possible), if it were possible for every one of us to describe all his secret thoughts, without hesitating to disclose what he is afraid to tell and would not on any account tell other people, what he is afraid to tell his best friends, what, indeed, he is even at times afraid to confess to himself, the world would be filled with such a stench that we should all be suffocated." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

"Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I do not like being insulted by rich people. Of course I do not like being insulted by anyone but the way the "haves" treat the "have-nots" is nothing short of deplorable. The debate that rages inside of me is whether describing my true and secret thoughts would truly be a suffocating stench or if leaving the truth unsaid would be a much greater travesty. Do I ignore a cultural custom by being direct with my innermost feelings or do I let someone violate a universal custom in allowing them to treat the rest of the world like their personal trash can?

Why does money so often become a license for disrespect?

Breaking News- THINK UK under new management

Maybe its not breaking and maybe its not news but for those of us that live and work in the massive apartment complex THINK UK the idea of the management being booted at midnight and a new regime taking over immediately it is at least noteworthy. And yes I do mean that a new regime is here. In place of the old gatekeepers and guards there are masses of military police looking guards. These new super patrols give off the aura of storm troopers in the "I feel like this is going to be a lot worse for everyone involved" sort of way.

I returned home tonight at 12:30 to what looked like a bomb scare. 20 storm troopers at every entrance and hundreds of fellow THINK UK'ers all meandering about trying to figure out what was happening. Now as many know the management and I have never really got along for numerous of reasons. In fact, when asked to vote for which new management company I wanted I infamously used my 3 votes to vote for life without any management company. No one to nitpick every coffee shop decision we make and no one to keep me from ridding our neighborhood from our teeming mangy cat population once and for all. But alas, I am a bit worried that the few problems we had with the old management may grow into some serious problems with any new management company. Especially one that seems to favor a little too heavily in the 厉害 (li hai- shrewd) department.

Lose the Way- Chicago Coffee TV Part 1

The TV show filmed in Chicago Coffee that was mentioned in an earlier post has finally hit the small screen. The title of the show is 迷路 Lose the Way. What I have previewed so far seems to be a show focused on the every day lives of a handful of Chinese young professionals in their 20's and 30's with spicy intrusions of guys with knives and cops with guns. Oh and at some point they sit down to enjoy some pizza and coffee. I am sure I will give a full review of the show once I watched the first episode in its entirety but for now I have included a short clip.

Raspberries @ Chicago Coffee

Fresh Raspberries now available at Chicago Coffee for only ¥19/box

Dust to Dust

Boom, Crack, Pow

Sunrise is awaken with noise abound

Wails and cries nothing in tune

Louder the wails larger the fortune

Empty

Empty

Empty

A Life Lived in Darkness

Smoke, Toxins... Honghe's Gold

Faced with mortality they still have their hold

Smirk, Laugh, Smoke

How can some not care but others death chokes?

Empty

Empty

Empty

A Life Lived in Darkness

Hush, Shh, Silence and Stares

The girl, a daughter, still unaware

Oh my how many can stare?

Amazing that I instead of the girl was standing there

Some cry

Some covet

Some ache

Some love it

The battle of emotions divides even those that are closest

East meets West

Nothing better symbolizes to me "East meets West" then what this picture represents. Part of my journey included a dual coffee- tea tasting. Green tea from the mountains surrounding Lijiang and coffee peaberries from the mountains of Tanzania. We have been talking coffee for 14 hours a day for 5 days straight but this was definitely one of the moments that stood out. Amazing that two beverages so distinct and varied come from this earth in the form of leaves and cherries.

Old Faithfuls

Living in China has its ups and downs as one can imagine. And there are times when Montezuma's revenge can cripple even the most versatile traveler. And there are even times when you need a quick fix from home and our comforting pick me up. It is during these times that those hailing from-a-far rely on our "old faithfuls" aka Dove chocolates, Oreos, saltines, Sprite, Coke, banana chips, and Snickers. I am not going out on limb by saying that I am pretty confident that 100% of foreigners that have spent at least 72 hours in the great mecca of fried rice, holes-in-the-wall, and stinky tofu have at least once relied on these old faithfuls for a pick me up or it was the only thing an American (insert any country) bred stomach can handle at that given moment.

Well I am afraid to say that today may be the day we have to be a little more careful. We have all seen foreign establishments take that dangerous road to corn flavored ice cream, shrimp burgers, and taro pies but now even the very fundamentals of our old faithfuls are being challenged.

Exhibit A- Oreo.

Usually you can count on this blue and white wrapper for a sweet dessert of chocolate and frosting. I narrowly grabbed this package when I realized that "lightly sweet" is not what I am looking for when grabbing this snack. Oreo what have you done? Please don't play these games with the staples of our sugary solace. Fortunately there were other choices so I grabbed another and moved on.

But food purgatory could not be avoided. I opened my oddly shaped Oreo to discover that someone had already consumed all but a small smackerel of my frosting. After opening a few more I realized that the 新 on the package indicating a new kind of Oreo is what I mistakenly purchased. The package indicated a strong vanilla flavored Oreo but I only tasted a strong taste of disappointment. Perhaps the frosting is sold separately but I could not have been more unhappy with one of my old faithfuls.

The Coffee Quest

Today I have left for a whirl wind tour of a 100 plus coffee establishments of all kinds that are scattered around this massive province known as Yunnan. My goal is to help alleviate what is known as crapcoffeeitis. I am no lover of Starbucks but when I travel in China it is one of a few places where real coffee is actually served. Multitudes of coffee shops, cafes, and restaurants offer "coffee" but only a few really serve COFFEE. I will be detailing this expedition and hope to offer a online hub for coffee in China for those of us that never want to be a few feet from the nearest cup of joe.

Maybe most have not experienced what I have in the coffee world but I cannot tell you how many times I have been to a coffee establishment like the one pictured to find bad coffee going for ¥38 ($5.56 USD) for a mere 4 oz. Thats nearly over $16 USD for what I consider an average cup of coffee (12 oz.)

All will not see the light but those that do will be detailed here.

(Note to reader: No need to worry I am still traveling with what they call a parachute. I have some fresh roasted Tanzania Peaberry and french press along with me if all else fails)

Sign #457 - How to know you have been in China too long

When you are willing to take 3 unmarked green medicinal pills to combat the hot wind building up inside of you and you actually look forward to seeing what will happen.

(Note: After taking these pills and writing this I wiki'd the ingredients and one of them is "used to regulate the menstrual cycle and to treat menopausal symptoms caused by hormonal changes.” Not sure why I did research after the fact but it did lead to

Sign #458- How you know you have been China too long.

The hospitals and doctors are so untrustworthy that I am relying on unmarked pills and wikipedia to diagnosis and treat my health problems.)

2 hours & 20 cups

Yesterday I spent 2 hours tasting 20 cups of coffee/espresso and was not even the least bit affected by the caffeine. I dont know whether to consider that a good or a bad thing.

Coffee and Smoking?

I just wanted to refute what I was told today that smoking actually helps distinguish the flavors of coffee and that I should smoke more so I would be better at coffee tasting. I believe the idea is to cleanse the palate before tasting not destroy it.

Mooncake Fever

Two holidays have arrived together this year: Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. National Day celebrating the establishment of the People's Republic of China now for its 60th year and Mid-Autumn Festival marking the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar.

At some point in history mooncakes became an integral part of the Mid-Autum Festival probably stemming from a tale dating back to the Yuan Dynasty.

"According to popular belief, the custom of eating mooncakes began in the late Yuan dynasty. As the story goes, the Han people of that time resented the Mongol rule of the Yuan Dynasty and revolutionaries, led by Chu Yuan-chang, plotted to usurp the throne. Chu needed to find a way of uniting the people to revolt on the same day without letting the Mongol rulers learn of the plan. Chu's close advisor, Liu Po-wen, finally came up with a brilliant idea. A rumor was spread that a plague was ravaging the land and that only by eating a special mooncake distributed by the revolutionaries could the disaster be prevented. The mooncakes were then distributed only to the Han people, who found, upon cutting the cakes open, the message "Revolt on the fifteenth of the eighth moon." Thus informed, the people rose together on the designated day to overthrow the Yuan, and since that time mooncakes have become an integral part of the Mid-Autumn Festival."

I am convinced that they intentionally made the mooncakes heavy as a brick, thick as tar, and tasty as concrete to keep the Mongols from ever eating one and thus deciphering the code. How the tradition has survived so long when 90% of Chinese don't seem to enjoy eating them is something that is beyond my comprehension. Most people re-gift the mooncakes after receiving them so they can just pass them off to someone else. Most people receive 100's of these little things which is definitely more than one person can or ever should eat. Consider that most mooncakes can have upwards of 700 calories and 40 grams of fat. To put that in prospective consider that a Big Mac has "only" 485 calories and 22 grams of fat. I never thought that there would be a scenario in history where a 100 individually wrapped Big Mac's would actually be the diet option.

On top of that this holiday is not exactly in line with the new go green trend. For a country trying to do more recycling and in many cities banning the complete use of plastic bags, the packaging for each batch of moon cakes is nothing short of a colossal waste. Here is a description from the image thief :

"a heavy, embossed and foil stamped bag with rope handles. In the bag was a heavy cardboard box with a tri-fold faux-embroidery lid with faux-embroidery dragon applique. Within the box was a cardboard frame wrapped in a faux-silk shroud and lovingly cradling eight mooncakes. Each mooncake was in an individual cardboard box, a sealed plastic wrap and a plastic cup. Two pairs of wooden chopsticks in a fabric envelope were included for good measure. The theme throughout was tasteful and subdued imperial yellow garnished with dragons."

I used to think the mooncakes were a cool little Chinese tradition to be a part of. But five years in I am as anti-mooncake as they come.

Veggie Scam (Solved)

Yesterday, the culprits of the veggie scam returned. The details are unclear but apparently they didnt make it to their condo on Sanya beach. Ironically those that returned claimed to have nothing to do with the company but then proceeded to refund everyone's money. It seems that the news report we were in helped raise awareness and must of put enough pressure on the police to figure out who was responsible. I hope these culprits understood our double checking of each 100 RMB bill to make sure they weren't fake. You can fool us once with your elaborate vegetable scheme but don't plan on us falling for it twice.

Yunnan Coffee Producer in violation of Nestle trademark

From GoKunming

Yunnan-based coffee producer Hogood Coffee (云南德宏后谷咖啡有限公司) is playing the victim after government employees confiscated Hogood non-dairy creamer which was illegally using the "Coffee-Mate" (咖啡伴侣) name, which in China is a registered trademark of multinational food and beverage giant Nestlé.

On September 3, around 12,000 bags of Hogood-produced non-dairy creamer packaged under the name "Coffee-Mate" were seized by Industrial and Commercial Bureau employees in the Panlong district. Panlong officials confirmed the next day that the confiscation was a response to a complaint filed by Nestlé.

However, on September 15 a Nestlé China public relations manager reportedly claimed that Nestlé had filed no such complaint. The source of the complaint is currently under investigation by the Panlong government.

Hogood CEO Xiong Xiangru (熊相入) told reporters after the confiscation that the company had no idea that Coffee-Mate was a trademark – despite it being clearly marked as such on all Nestlé Coffee-Mate products.

Xiong's denial seems more implausible considering that Hogood has been a supplier of beans to Nestlé, which it grows on farms in Dehong in southern Yunnan.

...

Acknowledging that Nestlé was one of the main driving forces behind the development of China's coffee market, Hogood CEO Xiong pleaded to "big brother" Nestlé to rescind its Coffee-Mate trademark in order to bring "fair competition" to the Chinese coffee market.

This is right in my wheelhouse. We are very active in the Yunnan coffee market and deal with both of these companies from time to time. It is stuff like this that helps us make a name for ourselves. It happens far to often in the coffee industry where copying and half-truths are status quo and most business is shady business. Maybe Hogood really didnt know about the trademark but my money is on them lying about it to save their business partnership with Nestle. Its really hard to believe that they unknowingly violated the trademark considering they do business directly with Nestle.

I find it silly that they also are asking Nestle to give up their trademark to make business more fair in the Chinese market. Ironic for a business to ask for that considering the favors they probably accept from the government and the corners they probably cut by doing anything necessary to make money. I have seen it too often with my own eyes to pass along the benefit of the doubt to Hogood.

Fall Drinks @ Chicago Coffee

Pumpkin Spice Coffee, Pumpkin Spice Latte, Cinnamon Apple Latte, Caramel Apple Latte, Caramel Apple Frappe, and Apple Cider are all available starting today.

China News Update- Lead Poisioning

From the TimesOnline:

Picture: TimesOnline

At first the villagers could not understand why their bouncing babies turned into small children who refused their food and complained of feeling ill all the time, agitated one moment but listless the next.

Then, early this summer, so many of the youngsters began to sicken after playing in fields of corn around a giant lead smelter, that the puzzlement turned to foreboding.

“We took the children to local hospitals but every time the doctors told us there was no problem,” said one mother.

Eventually, one father became so worried by his son’s convulsions that he telephoned a relative in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province in the centre of China, which has first-class medical facilities.

The family boarded a bus and made the 100-mile journey to Xijing hospital, where tests established that their baby had severe lead poisoning. When they returned, panic spread through the villages.

It was the start of a scandal that would explode onto the front pages of Chinese newspapers, only to vanish because of censorship, intimidation and a local cover-up that has now extended to restricting tests for the children.

The affair highlights the environmental price paid by many ordinary people for economic growth in a state that often ignores their interests.

A total of 851 children in seven villages were found to have excessive levels of lead in their blood. Some had 10 times the limit that China considers safe for children — 100mg per litre of blood. More than 170 were so seriously ill they had to be kept in hospital.

Lead poisoning damages the nervous and reproductive systems. It leads to high blood pressure, anaemia and memory loss. It is especially dangerous to toddlers, pregnant women and unborn children. The damage is usually irreversible.

On August 15, hundreds of farmers went to Fengxiang, the seat of local government, to ask for help. They sat outside its offices for two days but officials took no notice.

The Chinese countryside is supposed to be a place of placid toil but there have been occasions down the ages when it has exploded into violent revolt — and this was one of them.

On August 17, the farmers massed in their hundreds around the walls of the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Company, a huge industrial complex looming above the rolling Shaanxi wheatfields.

They tore down part of a wall, broke into offices, wrecked computers, smashed cars, stoned the coal delivery lorries, blocked the factory’s railway tracks and sabotaged machinery. The managers fled.

The authorities sent thousands of police and plain-clothes security men to cordon off the villages. Running battles broke out along the rural roads and in muddy yards. “Hundreds of young men ran away to escape arrest,” said a villager.

The next day Dai Zhengshe, the mayor of Baoji, the nearest city, came to plead for calm.

China’s rulers were on the alert for trouble ahead of a grand celebration of 60 years of Communist party rule on October 1, so they did not want to take chances. Dai ordered the closure of the smelter.

That was the end of the story, as far as the Chinese media were concerned. It became an example of benevolent government intervention. As for the international media, police and plain-clothes toughs harassed reporters and threatened local people with dire consequences if they talked.

Then similar protests broke out in three other provinces, where horrified parents living near smelters of lead, copper and aluminium also learnt that their children had been poisoned — 1,300 of them in one city alone.

The spotlight moved on, local officials breathed sighs of relief and the young fathers stayed in hiding, all too aware of the state’s sly habit of concession followed by revenge.

The air still reeks in Changqing, the township that includes the plant and the tiny villages clustered around it. The corn has wilted and green vegetables planted in rows up to the smelter’s walls look pallid. The police cars and unmarked SUVs that kept reporters out are still there but in the soft rain of a central Chinese summer, the functionaries of the law prefer to stay dry.

By hiding in the back seat of a rural taxi, it was possible to slip past the roadblocks and enter the villages, where families eyed strange vehicles with suspicion. A few children played in the farmyards.

“You can see my house is only 50 metres from the lead factory,” said Zhang Mintian, a farmer. “On sunny days I couldn’t see the sun. On summer evenings I couldn’t open the windows, even though it was terribly hot. My nose and my ears were full of lead dust and smoke.”

Most of the 3,000 inhabitants of Madaokou, previously a thriving market crossroads, have gone. Of the seven villages that rose in revolt, this is the closest to the plant, right next to the walls.

“Why did our young people run away? They’re afraid of being arrested because it was they who tore down the wall,” said a man in his sixties.

“Who’d stay here?” asked an old lady, Bai Xiuying. “If you’re a man, how will you find a wife who wants to come and live in a poisoned village? If you’re a girl, who’s going to marry you if you come from here?”

Bai Xiyun, the oldest villager, added: “As an old man of 82 I feel guilty that I’m still living in this world when 800 babies have got lead poisoning. I know children mean the future. I wish I could change places with them.”

...

Inquiries made last week have revealed that officials have now ordered doctors to restrict the blood tests for lead poisoning as part of a campaign to stanch the protests.

“Every day farmers bring in their babies for examination and we can’t accept them,” a local doctor said. “We can only accept babies brought in by officials. And it’s policy that we’re not even allowed to perform examinations on children older than 13.”

An even more damning revelation came from a doctor at a general hospital in Baoji who, like the first doctor, cannot be named. In the past, said the doctor, blood samples used to be sent for high-grade heavy metals testing at an institute in Xi’an which has a national reputation.

“Suddenly the local government ordered this to stop. None of the staff could understand it. Our duty is to save lives. We were told that if anyone must be tested they should be sent for a less reliable test at a local health centre.”

The order left a bitter taste in the mouths of the staff. The doctor opened a drawer and pulled out two sheets of results showing grave levels of lead poisoning in 35 small children who were tested last month. The doctor wondered how many more there might be now and added, in a rare burst of frankness: “There’s a rich political hue to all this.”

Chinese journalists, who had at first conducted energetic investigations, found out that local officials had done a deal with the smelter company because they were desperate to meet their targets for economic growth.

Some of the villagers still have a yellow brochure that was handed out by the local government six years ago describing the plant as “a garden-like factory”.

The farmers nevertheless stood in their fields to block the construction machines. In October 2003, local officials organised 3,000 young thugs to cow them into submission.

“I was one of them,” confessed Zhao Xinping, now a driver. “We cut down their corn stalks and beat them up but now, frankly, I’m ashamed of it. Farmers in China are the poorest and the most honest of us all.”

Promises that the villagers would move to new homes more than 1½ miles from the smelter were never kept.

A source close to the company said that it had paid £18m for resettlement to the local authorities but the funds were never spent for that purpose. “Officials believed the farmers would never dare to rebel,” he said.

Soon Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting was producing 100,000 tons of lead and zinc a year and 700,000 tons of coke. Last year it paid more than £10m in taxes, a sixth of the local government’s revenue.

Today the smelter is cold and silent. The government has promised a nationwide clean-up and says new pollutant controls must be installed.

The farmers have once again been promised new homes or a buyout of their land in cash and crops. Their children play on with an insidious poison in their blood. The police still stalk the villages. The officials brood and wait. Doubts and suspicions plague all sides.

The company is set to lose millions. And as a result, on the London Metal Exchange the price of lead has reached its highest level this year.

Pollution protests

- Ten thousand demonstrators took hostages and fought police at a $5 billion petrochemical project in Fujian on the east coast. The battles forced the local government to promise strict anti-pollution measures at the plant.

- Authorities closed a chemical plant in central China after two locals died of cadmium poisoning. Chinese newspapers exposed a long-running scandal of political collusion that had allowed the plant to flout environmental standards.

- Mass protests broke out over “cancer villages” near polluted waterways in eastern China. A series of campaigns followed to win compensation for villagers who became ill living next to filthy canals and rivers full of factory discharge and effluent.

I wish these were the exception to the rule but these problems are way too common for that to be the case.

The Veggie Scam

Vegetables are supposed to be good for you but beware of those that try to sell them to you. Across from the coffee shop there was a vegetable store that open a few months back. Apparently, they sell prepaid cards and after a few months they run away with a fist full of cash leaving a wake of angry customers, perplexed suppliers, and confused employees. I say apparently since when they left they didn't leave a note on the door as to how their scam operates. We were interviewed by the local news and they informed us that this company had a few branches around the city and that all of them were abandoned. Just to be safe we added some extra locks to their doors to prevent any late night return for goods and products. The reporter was amused that a foreigner was playing such an active role in this.

Its no wonder you can never trust anyone... vegetables included.

Justice better served late than never

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ~MLK Jr.

Injustice is something that keeps me up at night. Injustice is something that is infuriating in every instance. There is no such thing as light injustice or injustice of the 2nd degree.

And this is what injustice on a motorcycle looks like. A few days ago, I and one of the Chicago Coffee staff were on our scooters riding in the complex where my home and coffee shop are. Mr. Chen was riding the opposite direction on his motorcycle on the wrong side of the road forcing me off the road and running straight into my staff and her bike. He paused for 5 seconds until we told him that her bike had been damaged and that something needed to be done about it. Thats when he bolted. No concern for her property or even to check if she was injured. No concern for owning up to his mistake. He lives in a world of one and there is no respect for anyone outside of his world.

Well I have reached a point now where I am not going to allow injustice to happen without standing up. I have reached a point now where I am not going to take this kind of disregard for human life. So I chased him.

I am a self-acclaimed scooter driving expert. (It seems like nothing but living in Asia driving with anything less than perfection can mean an accident and/or bodily harm. I would love to see the list of people that have used a scooter every day for 5 years in cities like Shanghai and Kunming without a single accident, brush-up, or fender-bender.) You can add "chased down a gas motorcycle" to my resume even though I still not sure how it was possible.

Head starts are never good for someone with the slower mode of transportation. Of course, not knowing you are going to be chased down by a crazy foreigner is never good for those who hit-and-run. A few blocks away I caught up with him and told him to pull over.

He kept going.

So I swerved in front of him forcing him off the road. I explained that he was going to wait because I was calling the police and he wasn't going anywhere until they arrived.

He went to restart his engine to back up and drive off.

So I did what anyone bordering insanity would do. I went for his keys. He took a swipe at me but not before I ripped his keychain from his bike. Lets just say he didn't appreciate that very much.

The police finally arrived and tried to get everyone's take on the situation. Here's a few highlights for time sake.

Mr Chen claimed we had in fact hit him on his side of the road. Airtight case if only he had not fled the scene and other witnesses didn't recall the opposite happening.

Note to criminals: If you want to appear innocent do not flee the scene. If you do end up fleeing, do not get caught because your are going to look guilty as hell.

Mr Chen claimed that the dirt on his pant's leg was proof that we hit him and now 1 hour after the fact he was worried he might of some broken bones in his ankle.

We didn't have to convince the police of too much since Mr Chen was doing a dandy fine job of establishing his guiltiness.

When Mr Chen began realizing that it was looking worse and worse for him, he switched to trying to use his "关系 guanxi" (relationships) to free him of this mess. He began dropping hints to the police of who his friends were and also inquired what department they were in and if they knew this guy or that guy. Thankfully it didn't work otherwise we would be talking a lot more about how corruption is still plays a large role in everyday life. Its sickening but at least in one instance justice prevailed.

After 3 hours of this nonsense, the police finally forced Mr Chen to pay for the repairs to the scooter. It wasn't much but in cosmic terms it was huge. Thank goodness for some justice that day. At least one person has learned a lesson regardless of how long it will last.

A Nebraskan Birthright

Some are born to be doctors, lawyers, physicists and the like. Those that hail from the great state of Nebraska are born to make a world renown steak, baste a fantastic set of BBQ wings, roast a sumptuous earn of corn, and uphold the greatest tradition in college football. Does your state's 3rd largest city only exist on Gameday Saturdays when the football stadium is packed to capacity?

I bring this up after I adapted my normal BBQ skills to fit my life in China. Instead of the usual BBQing of chicken wings for my staff meeting last week, I decided why not BBQ whole chickens. Of course BBQing 8 whole chickens does require the use of a commercial oven since normal home appliances are not designed for the cooking of an entire chicken farm.

China & Suicide

From the China Daily:

Suicide has become the primary death cause among people 15-34 years old in China, Deng Xiaohong, vice director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health, said on Thursday, the Chongqing Evening News reported Friday.

Deng announced the finding a few days before World Suicide Prevention Day which falls on September 10.

Deng said suicide has become the fifth cause of death for Chinese people, with a suicide rate of 22.2 per 100,000 people. Roughly 2.25 million people attempt suicide in China each year, while 250,000 die from their attempts.

A recent global medical research study shows that 1 million people die from suicides worldwide each year, and 30 percent of those are from China.

Mind blowing numbers on the China front. I have spent years researching suicide and specifically suicide in China and it was only a few years ago that I tried to raised awareness about this issue. It gets very little attention for a problem that is so massive. To put this in prospective I spent 99% of my day interacting with high school students, college students, and young adults and professionals and among these fellow young people I am more likely to hear that one committed suicide then any other cause of death. Despite this why is this issue more than other more likely to fall on deaf ears? Why is this problem the one that is always ignored? Is it that more and more people have no idea what to do or how to help or relate to someone that is depressed or dealing with suicidal ideation? My pleas for change were ignored when I was enrolled in college. How will it be any different this time around? I would love for the opportunity to ensure a different outcome this time around.