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webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:14:00 +0800

Missing Virginia teacher's body located in Japan

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 02:30:00 +0800

Missing Virginia teacher's body located in Japan - Yahoo! News

By ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON, Associated Press Zinie Chen Sampson, Associated Press – Mon Mar 21, 9:57 pm ET

RICHMOND, Va. – A Virginia couple is mourning the death of their daughter after learning that her body was found in disaster-ravaged Japan, where she had been teaching English.

Taylor Anderson, 24, could be the first known American victim in the Japan disaster as authorities continue the daunting task of finding and identifying almost 13,000 people believed to be missing.

Anderson's family said in a statement that the U.S. Embassy in Japan called them Monday to tell them she was found in Ishinomaki, a city about 240 miles (390 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

Officials with U.S. Embassy in Japan and the State Department could not immediately confirm whether she was the first known U.S. victim in Japan. Another 25-year-old man is presumed dead after being swept into the ocean March 11 by a swell from the tsunami on the northern California coast.

"We would like to thank all those whose prayers and support have carried us through this crisis," said Andy and Jean Anderson, who live in Chesterfield County south of Richmond. "Please continue to pray for all who remain missing and for the people of Japan. We ask that that you respect our privacy during this hard time."

Jean Anderson said her daughter was last seen after the earthquake riding her bike away from an Ishinomaki elementary school after making sure parents picked up their children. A tsunami struck shortly after the earthquake, completely wiping out homes and other structures.

Friends and relatives used Facebook and other social networks to spread the word about the search for Taylor. Officials first told the family last Tuesday that their daughter had been located, but the Andersons learned that night that the information was incorrect.

Taylor Anderson had a lifelong love of Japan and began studying the language in middle school. She moved overseas after graduating from Randolph-Macon College in 2008 to teach in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme.

She taught in eight schools in Ishinomaki, in the Miyagi prefecture on Japan's northeast coast. During her stay there she developed a love for her students and for the Japanese people, her mother said.

She was scheduled to return to the United States in August.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110322/ap_on_re_us/us_japan_earthquake_us_victim

JOTMAN TRAVEL: Buying electronics in Southeast Asia: Bangkok Vs Singapore

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:38:00 +0800

Source: http://www.jotadventure.com/2007/11/buying-electronics-in-southeast-asia.html

Buying electronics in Southeast Asia: Bangkok Vs Singapore

This post is mainly about Bangkok's electronics mega-shopping mall, Panthip. First off, I compare Panthip to a similar megastore in Singapore called Sim Lim Square.

Singapore Vs Bangkok
- Overall, I've had better experiences shopping for electronics in Bangkok compared to Singapore. I find I am not quite so likely to get ripped off at Bangkok's Panthip. Some of the salesmen you will meet at Sim Lim in Singapore are outrageous scampers -- some will not hesitate to cheat you, often by selling you an old model at a new model price.

- Bargain, but in Thailand be sure to do it nicely (same rule holds for Indonesia and some shops in Malaysia). Thais can get offended if you are harsh -- keep smiling. Generally bid no more than 30-40% lower than the marked price. Expect further discounts for multiple purchases. You can be more theatrical in how you bargain in Singapore. To their credit, they won't don't get offended. Singaporeans are unflappable.

Bangkok's Panthip Plaza
- Cameras, mobile phones at good prices, but do not expect a wide selection of the latest, most expensive models.

- Good place to buy computer memory and hard drives. But I prefer name brand drives like Maxtor -- which are available at Panthip, but you have to hunt for a store that sells them. Singapore is a bit better for finding the latest models.

- Laptops: I could not find a store that would sell me an extended international warranty. Best place to buy your laptops is the US.

- Software and videos, generally pirated: If you go this route I suggest you find someone willing to install it. It doesn't always work, and can stop working. If you are male, you'll know your in the pirate video zone when a guy walks up to you and whispers "sexy movie."

- Beware of fake name-brand hardware products. Scrupulously inspect labels that identify a product as genuine when buying name-brand. This rule applies whether you are in Singapore or Thailand.

- A few stores specialize in Apple, but Panthip's mostly PC.

- Thailand's Panthip, especially is a great place to buy cables, notebook cases, keyboards, mice, LCD monitors, and other accessories.

- Don't spend too long in Panthip. The quality of the air is bad. For a break there's a decent well air conditioned Thai restaurant by the entrance.

- Shipping. You can ship something you buy at Panthip anywhere in Thailand overnight delivery for about $1.00. Ask where to go for the shipping office.

- Panthip's Floor Plan: 1st) mobile phones and phone accessories; 2nd) cameras; memory sticks; software and movies; 3rd) laptops, printers 4th) accessories, hardware, used computers, repair services. Warning: that's a rough outline of the floor plan -- the reality is far more haphazard.

- There's one department store on level 2. Limited selection, but good place to check the 'real' price of an item.

- It pays to shop around. Today I saw that one store was selling my digital camera for 12,000 baht, another has it on sale for 8,000 baht.

- Hard drive recovery services. I highly recommend Joseph on the forth floor. He's rescued me twice and his prices are reasonable. I once met a customer who had flown in from Israel to see Joseph.

Directions
- How to get to Panthip in Thailand: Its a few blocks off the Skytrain line (not far from Siam). Take a taxi. They all know it, and the roads leading to it are too polluted for healthy walking.

- How to get to Sim in Singapore: It's across the big street from the Little India neighborhood, smack between Bugis MRT Station (green line) and Little India MRT (purple line).

JOTMAN TRAVEL: Buying electronics in Southeast Asia: Bangkok Vs Singapore

Where I Come From | iamkoream

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:47:00 +0800

Where I Come From | iamkoream

Author: Elizabeth Eun

Emile Mack, at age 6 or 7, with his father Clarence Mack, in Los Angeles.

Emile Mack may be the highest-ranking Asian American firefighter of a major American city, but what tends to surprise people most about the Los Angeles Deputy Fire Chief is his most unique background: At age 3, he was adopted by an African American couple. His is a story that challenges our notions of race and identity; it’s about the ties that bind and the gift of family.

By Elizabeth Eun
Photos courtesy of Emile Mack/By Eric Sueyoshi.

• • •

From Emile Mack’s corner office on the top floor of Los Angeles City Hall, one can see the vast downtown skyline. It seems an appropriate view for the second-in-command of the city’s 3,500-person fire department—perhaps a reminder of the daunting responsibility of protecting this sprawling metropolis. As deputy chief of operations, Mack in fact is the highest-ranking Asian American firefighter of a major American city.

That’s an especially impressive fact, given the reputation of fire departments as traditional bastions of white males. After implementation of a 1974 consent decree, the Los Angeles Fire Department has certainly come a long way in diversifying its force, with roughly 49 percent now comprised of racial minorities (Asians are 6 percent of that figure), according to the department. Still, the image of Mack’s Asian face standing shoulder to shoulder with high-ranking local and state officials at the scenes of major Southland fires is quite stunning.

But Mack, 53, is quite used to standing out—and not just because he’s been a firefighter for 32 years. Rather, the high cheek bones and almond-shaped eyes may signal a Korean background, but his identity, his culture and the place he called home throughout his childhood were intimately tied to the parents who raised him. That is to say, he long identified with the African American culture, and shades of brown were the faces with whom he felt the closest.

After being abandoned at a South Korean police station as a baby, he was adopted in 1960 by Undine and Clarence Mack, an African American couple. That statement alone is enough to floor people unfamiliar with his backstory. Yet, as Emile tells it, it’s really a simple tale: The Children’s Christian Society brought photographs of children from a South Korean orphanage to his parents’ Los Angeles church. And Undine and Clarence decided to make the 3-year-old boy with the big button cheeks their son.

And all the queries that naturally arise upon learning that his parents are black—Did you struggle with your identity? Did you ever feel like you didn’t belong? Do you consider yourself black or Asian?—are quietly shut down with answers that make the questioner feel slightly foolish for the asking.

“I grew up not trying to identify, but naturally identifying with the people around me, the African American culture,” says Mack. “From before I can remember, I was surrounded by African American people. They were the ones I saw every day, they were my family, the people I lived with, who loved me, took care of me and played with me.”

Certainly, he acknowledges most people are surprised when they find out he was raised by African American parents. When one talks about transnational adoption or even cross-racial adoption, it usually involves white parents and ethnic adoptees. In essence, Mack’s story can be interpreted as an testament to the strengths and beauty of adoption, period. It’s a story that is coming full-circle, now that Mack and his wife Jenny have recently adopted a baby girl, Miya, from South Korea.

“My family always made me feel part of the family, and I never experienced from any of them, ‘Oh, you’re different.’ They loved me and took very good care of me,” says Mack. “I knew where I came from.”

And that’s the same kind of love and grounding he plans to pass on to his daughter. It’s a gift, a legacy, from his parents that has served this Korean adoptee well for five decades—all the way to the top of an agency appropriately charged with serving residents of one of the nation’s most ethnically diverse cities.

• • •

AN INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY

Mack playing with family friends.

There wasn’t necessarily an adoption talk with his parents per se that Mack can point to, but he does recall a moment around age 4 or 5 when he started recognizing he didn’t look like Mom and Dad. “[I remember] looking at myself and my parents, and thinking, ‘This must be what ‘adopted’ means,’” says Mack. “It was like… now I see it, and now I can comprehend what it means.’ ”

Still, Mack, who grew up in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, doesn’t recall ever struggling with his racial identity as a child, even when outsiders teased him.

“There were people who didn’t know me or my family, and they didn’t tease me because I had black parents, but they teased me because I looked Asian. So it was the typical thing, ‘Hey Chinese, hey this, hey that.’ And then my friends would respond, ‘He’s black!! His parents are black, leave him alone!!’” said Mack, his face lighting up at the memory.

“In fact, that still happens today. There are times when I walk into a room with black friends, and they’ll walk up to someone I don’t know, and say, ‘Hey man, he’s cool. He’s a brother.’ And they’ll immediately accept me just because my friend says, ‘Oh, he’s one of us.’”

Friends from Mack’s childhood affectionately remember him as the “little Asian kid who ran with the black kids.”

“Way back at that young age, you didn’t differentiate between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, you just knew they were of Orient descent,” says longtime friend Dwayne Golden, who attended the same elementary and junior high schools as Mack. “It was just black versus white, and everyone else just fell in the middle. But I remember [Mack] was different, because all the Japanese friends I had at the time, they were very disciplined and studied a lot, but he was always hanging out with the other black kids.”

Still, Mack’s upbringing perhaps challenges people’s expectations of what growing up in a black home means. Sure, Mack recalls a home filled with his “parents’ music,” which included Aretha Franklin and Nat King Cole, and while other ethnic Korean children may have had bap and kimchi for dinner, he was eating “what some people call soul food.” However, he also points out, like many parents across color lines, his emphasized studying hard and doing his best. He also notes that because his father had worked as a chef, the family enjoyed a more international offering at the dinner table, with Chinese, Mexican and Italian cuisine on any given night.

Mack with his mother Undine at an Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month event.

His parents were also international in their lifestyle. Their wide circle of friends included people of every nationality.

“My father was a strong believer in the rights of everyone,” says Loretta Cooper, Mack’s half-sister, speaking of their late father who died in 1983. (Clarence and Undine Mack’s union was the second marriage for both.) “It wasn’t just a black-white issue, so you have this environment of people who believe that everyone should have the same rights and equal access. And that speaks to the fact that [my father and Undine] were able to adopt and raise a child who wasn’t in their own ethnic group. It shares what their belief system is about and that love doesn’t have anything to do with what a person looks like.”

Mack may have “run with the black kids,” but he also had playtime and dinners with his Caucasian, Hispanic and Asian friends. The latter gave him some early exposure to Asian culture, though his first taste of a certain perennial Korean dish would come from an unusual source.

While visiting a desert vacation home in 29 Palms, the Mack family would often stop by a small store owned by a Caucasian woman and her Hawaiian husband. The store catered to the Asian wives who lived on the nearby Marine Corps base, and stocked all kinds of Asian food.

“When the Caucasian store owner found out I was Korean, she went back into the cold storage, brought out this little bottle, and said, ‘This is kimchi! This is one of the things Koreans like to eat!’” recalls Mack, who was 12 or 13 at the time. “So I ate it, and I remember that I immediately liked it. So my first exposure to kimchi was in the middle of the desert, at this little store owned by a Caucasian woman.”

It wasn’t until Mack entered high school that he started hanging out with more Asians and exploring his Asian identity, but this wasn’t to the exclusion of his black identity. In fact, he cites high school as a period when he was “talking black” and “acting black,” ironically as a way to fit in with the Asians at his school who were “trying to be cool.”

“I can’t really assign my personal traits and characteristics to being Asian or black,” says Mack. “We can be stereotypical—Asians work hard. Well, my black parents worked hard. Asians are quiet. Well, I can be quiet, but I don’t know if I’m quiet because of [my] Asian [background]. ”

What Mack does know for sure is this: “The person you are is the person you are within, and to look different from your parents, you have to have a certain level of strength to deal with people who look at you and say, ‘Why are you different from your parents?’ But it truly is about who you are inside, and not about whether you look like [your parents] or if you don’t look like [your parents].”

Indeed, while talking to Mack, what is almost immediately apparent is the sense that he isn’t trying to be something he’s not.

“Emile was always an individual,” says Golden, who also works for the fire department with Mack. “There are some people, who, whether you’re black and work in a Korean environment, or if you’re Korean and work in a black environment, you just take on that culture and try to sound like the people you’re around. But Emile, even though he had a lot of black affiliation, he was just himself. He wasn’t trying to fit in with one group or the other; he didn’t act black, or act Korean. He was just acting like Emile.”

And to be Emile Mack today means embracing both the African and Asian cultures that are part of him. He has long been involved with various black organizations, but he admits he is currently more active with Korean American organizations, recognizing the influence his Korean American friends have had in his life. He is a frequent guest speaker at Asian American events in Los Angeles, and enjoys talking about his role in the fire department especially to Korean American youth.

“He’s very proud of his Korean heritage,” says friend Alexander Kim, who formerly worked for ex-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “[That] really means a lot and gives courage to other Korean adoptees.”

• • •

FIGHTING FIRES

Mack, with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other local officials at the scene of a 2008 brush fire in Sylmar.

Mack may hold the distinction of being the highest-ranking Asian firefighter in a major American city, but he says his foray into firefighting happened on a whim—one that wasn’t even his own.

“My best friend from high school came to me one day, and he said, ‘Come take the firefighter’s exam with me!’” says Mack, who was in his junior year at the University of California, Los Angeles, at the time. Mack and his friend both passed the written exam, and after training for the physical abilities test, passed that as well. “So it gets to the point where I’m pretty invested in the process, and after we pass the interview and the medical and background check, we were offered jobs.”

Mack, who had been a pre-psychology major and had planned on going into optometry, dropped out of UCLA and joined the fire department, to the elation of his father and the concern of his mother, who worried for his safety.

Giving her more cause for concern, no doubt, were the events unleashed on April 29, 1992, when the city of angels exploded into fires and violence in what scholars would later deem the nation’s first multiethnic riots. As a firefighter then based at a South Los Angeles station, Mack was literally at the center of the chaos.

“We were just going from fire to fire, and it was just devastating to see everything that was happening. Things just started not making sense,” says Mack. “We were at the first fire, which started on Vermont and 8th [streets], and as we’re getting out of the truck and starting to hook our hose up to the hydrant, two carloads of people pull up to the store and begin shooting into the stores. We ducked behind this little stone wall, and then the Korean shop owners came out of their stores and start shooting back.

“Then we’re crawling to get back to the fire truck so we can move out of the area, but after about five minutes had passed, we looked around and we could see the next block and the next block going up in flames. And within the next few hours, there were fires as far as you could see down Vermont.”

Mack recalls running into his firefighter friends throughout those three days, all of whom were constantly calling their wives and girlfriends to let them know that they were alive. His then-fiancé-now-wife Jenny was also anxiously waiting, not only to see if Mack was safe, but also if they were going to be able to get married on their planned wedding date that weekend.

“We thought and thought, and that morning, we just said, ‘Let’s do it.’” says Mack. The two married in Malaga Cove in Palos Verdes Estates, with a reception in Redondo Beach at the Blue Water, which meant the guests, half of whom were firefighters, had to go through roadblocks to get there. All 120 guests made it.

“We had a young Caucasian DJ, and as the couples were dancing, he was crying, and he said to us, ‘This is so beautiful; that there are Asians and blacks and whites and Hispanics, and every race is here enjoying themselves together after such a horrific time during the riots.’” recalls Mack. “It wasn’t until this young DJ said this that it really struck my wife and me how really marvelous this is, and that our lives are so rich with friends of so many different cultures and backgrounds, able to celebrate together.”

A few years after the riots, Mack attended a conference with religious leaders from both the Korean and the African American communities—two groups pitted against each in the period prior to, as well as during, the 1992 crisis. The mainstream media was accused of fanning the flames with the frequent “black-Korean conflict” headline, after a Korean immigrant merchant shot and killed an African American teenager after a scuffle in a South Los Angeles store in 1991.

When asked to comment about the riots at the conference, Mack said, “It hurt me very deeply that the two cultures that are me were in conflict and were at odds.”

But he also saw hope in the efforts by leaders from both communities trying to understand each other. “That took me through the pain of seeing my two heritages at odds, seeing the hope and future that they could build an understanding, and build better relations with each other.”

And given his unique identity and prominent position, Mack recognizes his own role in bridge-building.

“Because I do come from a very diverse background, I’m very comfortable in any form or setting, with any group of people I have to work or interact with in my job,” says Mack.“That definitely has made me more capable and makes me more understanding of differences of cultures.”

It’s a leadership role not just restricted to cross-cultural issues. Although Mack likes to paint his rise through the fire department ranks as merely a series of promotional exams that led to more promotions, his friends and colleagues acknowledge what Mack humbly won’t.

“He looks like a big teddy bear, but the man commands a very strong presence, and he’s a very strong leader and commander,” says Derek Tran, a Los Angeles consultant who met Mack in 2004 while Tran was working for then-Mayor Jim Hahn. He considers Mack a father figure and mentor. “You just sense leadership when you’re around him, and it obviously shows, because he’s No. 2 in the fire department now. You don’t get there by being wimpy.”

Tran says Mack, who was promoted to his current position in April of 2007, brings to the table a unique vantage point. “I think he identifies with the African American race, the Asian race, the American race,” says Tran.

Perhaps, quite appropriately, Mack, while working in the fire department’s Bureau of Training and Risk Management in 2007, helped revamp the recruiting process, in an attempt to further grow a force that reflects the city’s multiethnic makeup. White males have historically tended to dominate the applicant pool. The recruiting initiative paired prospective candidates with firefighters who advise the former through each step of the application process.

“We have to show women and people of color that we want you, and we’re willing to do everything possible to show and help you through the process to show you that we want you on LAFD,” Mack told the Los Angeles Daily News in 2007.

The mentorship, now institutionalized, also occurs with non-minority candidates, and all recruits are taught, among other things, how to work in an environment with zero tolerance for discrimination and harassment.

• • •

‘WHAT MY PARENTS HAD DONE FOR ME’

Mack with wife Jenny and daughter Miya at their Redondo Beach home.

A grand “Certificate of Appreciation” from the city of Los Angeles figures prominently in the center of Mack’s office wall, but it is notably covered with photos of his baby daughter, Miya, and Jenny, his wife of nearly 20 years. And while his stack of books includes titles like On Mission & Leadership, the book that tops it is a book of Korean recipes, translated into English.

For Mack, now more than ever, learning more about Korean culture is a priority, since it is the country that his adopted daughter has so recently come from—and is the country from which he himself came 50 years ago.

Mack has attempted to uncover more details about his own roots. But despite the help of Korean friends and his original adoption papers, he’s learned very little. The orphanage he was adopted from no longer exists, and the Children’s Christian Society that arranged his adoption has since been taken over by the Social Welfare Society, which does not have any records on Mack.

But at this point in his life, Mack seems, if not fine with the situation, resigned to it. And while the Social Welfare Society doesn’t have his own adoption records, it does have his daughter’s.

“When I was younger, I always said, ‘I’m going to adopt,’” says Mack. “As I got older, I started understanding what my life could have been like had I not been adopted, and appreciating what my parents gave me; it went from wanting to adopt just because I had been adopted, to wanting to do what my parents had done for me for a child in Korea.”

Mack, who has a 24-year-old son from a previous relationship, and Jenny began the lengthy adoption process over three years ago, which was made more arduous since both were over 45, the age limit set for international couples seeking to adopt from South Korea. After receiving help from fellow Korean adoptee Steve Morrison of the nonprofit Mission to Promote Adoption in Korea, the couple was granted special permission from the South Korean government. With their case, the Macks, in fact, helped eliminate the age limit policy.

In October of last year, Emile and Jenny flew to Seoul to meet their daughter. “When we arrived at the home, Miya and her foster mother were out front, and I saw Miya from the car and she smiled at me, and I said to Emile, ‘I think she recognizes us!’” says Jenny, who later learned that the foster mother had been showing Miya photos of the couple.

“That was one of the first big reliefs,” said Emile, “that there was already some beginning of a connection.”

Mack with daughter Miya.

Miya Miyoung Mack, who already seems situated in the Macks’ bright family home (she has an entire corner of the living room dedicated to her, complete with plush pink pillows and stuffed animals), turned 1 in January, and the Macks have already begun the process of ensuring that she is able to experience her heritage in a tangible way. With the help of Korean friends and a party planner, Emile and Jenny, who is Japanese American, last month planned a traditional Korean dol party for her first birthday.

“We want Miya to be connected to her culture so she understands our shared Korean culture,” says Emile, speaking of the bond between father and daughter. “One of my friends is helping me learn to make Korean food, and I just ordered Rosetta Stone for Korean, so she and I will be learning together, you know, the gamsahamnida and the annyeonghaseyo. Hopefully, I’m just a little more advanced!”

It’s unmistakable that Mack wants his daughter to know where she came from, but he also doesn’t want her to forget where he came from. He wants Miya to know that, despite what outsiders may think, he isn’t different from his parents— at least not where it counts. “I don’t have prejudice because [my parents] didn’t have prejudice,” says Mack. “Because they lived that way, I lived that way, accepting every type of person. I learned from the way they lived.”

Source : http://iamkoream.com/where-i-come-from/

Japan unearths site linked to human experiments | World news | The Guardian

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:09:00 +0800

Japan unearths site linked to human experiments | World news | The Guardian

Kids banned at Singapore restaurants

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Sun, 9 Jan 2011 18:18:00 +0800

Kids banned at Singapore restaurants | CNNGo.com

China eyes stake in California's high-speed rail system | McClatchy

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Sat, 8 Jan 2011 22:48:00 +0800

China eyes stake in California's high-speed rail system | McClatchy

Bangkok Post : Hacked iTunes accounts for sale online in China

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Sat, 8 Jan 2011 11:16:00 +0800

Bangkok Post : Hacked iTunes accounts for sale online in China

Battery factory poisons 24 children in China | World news

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Sat, 8 Jan 2011 00:15:00 +0800

Battery factory poisons 24 children in China | World news | guardian.co.uk

Chinese businessman bids £5m for HMS Invincible

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Fri, 7 Jan 2011 21:26:00 +0800

Chinese businessman bids £5m for HMS Invincible | World news | The Guardian

"Planned-opolis" Cities Already Being Tested in South Korea

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Fri, 7 Jan 2011 21:10:00 +0800

"Planned-opolis" Cities Already Being Tested in South Korea | Old-Thinker News

My Way News - World Bank issues its 1st yuan bonds in Hong Kong

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Wed, 5 Jan 2011 21:29:00 +0800

My Way News - World Bank issues its 1st yuan bonds in Hong Kong

By KELVIN CHAN

HONG KONG (AP) - The World Bank is issuing its first bonds denominated in China's yuan in Hong Kong, joining a growing number of borrowers tapping the new debt market as Beijing gradually promotes of its tightly controlled currency abroad.
The World Bank said buyers of its 500 million yuan ($76 million), two-year bond were mainly Hong Kong-based financial institutions, companies and wealthy individuals. It said the money will go into its general fund, rather than being raised for a specific purpose.
The yuan is not traded on global currency markets but Beijing has loosened controls and allows Hong Kong banks to use it. Hong Kong is Chinese territory but has its own currency and a Western-style legal system and often is used as a site for mainland companies to interact with foreign investors.
Beijing began allowing foreign companies to issue yuan debt last year. The Asian Development Bank, Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) and McDonald's Corp. have sold yuan-denominated debt to finance activities in China.
Buyers of such bonds hope to gain from both interest payments and the growing strength of the yuan, which is rising against the U.S. dollar.
China is set to gain a bigger say in the World Bank after a restructuring last year to boost the voting power of developing countries. If approved, China will be the third-biggest voting power after the United States and Japan.The World Bank provides low-interest loans and technical assistance to developing countries.
Beijing is promoting Hong Kong as a platform for yuan-based international banking. Hong Kong banks started handling yuan in 2004 and now offer services ranging from deposits to credit cards to trade financing that allows foreign companies to pay Chinese business partners in yuan.
Analysts say Beijing wants to see the yuan, also known as the renminbi, or people's money, become a global currency like the dollar or euro, though that could take years or decades.
Increased use of the yuan abroad could help China by reducing the exchange-rate risks faced by its exporters, who now are paid mostly in dollars.
"There are so many benefits that China can achieve from shifting trade to the local currency," said Credit Agricole economist Darius Kowalczyk.
Borrowing costs for China's government and companies also would decline if foreign investors were willing to buy more yuan-denominated bonds.
In August, McDonald's Corp. sold nearly $30 million in yuan bonds to pay to build new restaurants in China. Caterpillar sold $150 million in yuan bonds to provide financing for buyers of its heavy equipment.
Also last year, the Asian Development Bank sold $181 million in bonds to raise money to provide development projects in China.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110105/D9KI6Q3O0.html

Pigs burial raises concerns over water contamination

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Wed, 5 Jan 2011 16:25:00 +0800

Pigs burial raises concerns over water contamination

By Park Si-soo

Is it a curse if animals get buried alive?

Residents of a village hit by foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, have seen their faucets start to deliver water mixed with blood since the beginning of the New Year.

This eerie situation, first reported last Saturday, came just one day after some of nearly 1,000 pigs within a 500-meter radius of an FMD-hit livestock farm were buried alive in the village’s vicinity to prevent further spread of the deadly animal disease.

Quarantine officers claim the situation is temporary and things will soon return to normal, while many experts are skeptical, insisting that blood from the buried animals will gradually soak into the ground to eventually contaminate underground water reservoirs, a major source of drinking water for the villagers.

The authorities said the slaughtered animals were buried in a 4-5 meter-deep hole covered by two-fold vinyl to keep anything from their bodies from leaking out.

But it’s uncertain whether the vinyl would remain intact if they had been buried alive.

“It’s possible that the vinyl could be torn by animals struggling to survive,” a quarantine officer said.

In principle, animals are killed before burial. But the rule has frequently been violated with the spread of the disease, outpacing the authorities’ slaughter capacity.

More than 660,000 cows and pigs have been culled and buried across the country since the first outbreak of the disease in Andong on Nov. 29. The toll of affected livestock is at the country’s highest level since 2002, when 160,000 were slaughtered, according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries.

In October, Rep. Hong Young-pyo of the main opposition Democratic Party said, “Underground water near burial sites for animals slaughtered between 2008 and 2010 showed higher contamination with colon bacillus and other bacteria than that of remote areas,” citing a report from the Ministry of Environment.

The report said some underground water in Incheon, and Gyeonggi and South Chungcheong provinces had been designated “undrinkable” due to contamination levels higher than the legal minimum.

“If an infant drinks the water, he or she could die, in the worst case scenario,” the report said.

The ministry admits the buried animals could become a major culprit leading to serious contamination of water resources and the soil around burial sites. But it said this is not the case — as yet.

“Still, underground water near affected areas remains clean enough to drink,” said an official from the water quality management division of the Environment Ministry.

Many environmentalists have lashed out at the burial operation, labeling it as an “inhumane” and “obsolete” countermeasure against the disease.

Last Tuesday, a group of environmentalists and animal lovers staged a rally in Seoul, calling for a halt to the “brutal” burial alive of animals and the wider use of vaccination.

(땅구덩이 안에 비닐을 깔고 있는 모습)

(돼지 한마리가 아무것도 모른채, 땅구덩이 비닐안에 빠져 있음)

(포크레인으로 땅구덩이에 파묻기 위해, 돼지들을 몰아가고 있음)

(포크레인으로 돼지들을 땅구덩이에 밀어넣고 있음)

(포크레인으로 돼지들을 땅구덩이안에 밀고 떨어뜨리고....)

(만삭의 어미돼지들의 모습)

(만삭의 어미돼지와 새끼돼지들이 땅구덩이안에서 매몰되기 직전의 모습)

(차마 보낼 수 없어 품에 안았던 어린 새끼돼지도 산채로 땅속에 묻혔음)

Sources:

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/01/117_79094.html

http://happylog.naver.com/care/post/PostView.nhn?bbs_seq=15402&artcl_no=123461127991&scrapYn=N

YouTube - John Lennon rare interview

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Tue, 4 Jan 2011 21:07:00 +0800

YouTube - John Lennon rare interview

China makes Skype illegal - Telegraph

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Mon, 3 Jan 2011 01:04:00 +0800

China makes Skype illegal - Telegraph

Feds detail new plan of attack against Asian carp

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 23:30:00 +0800

Feds detail new plan of attack against Asian carp - Chicago Breaking News

The Cave - How man is controlled

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:18:00 +0800

Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

The son of a wealthy and noble family, Plato (427-347 B.C.) was preparing for a career in politics when the trial and eventual execution of Socrates (399 B.C.) changed the course of his life. He abandoned his political career and turned to philosophy, opening a school on the outskirts of Athens dedicated to the Socratic search for wisdom. Plato's school, then known as the Academy, was the first university in western history and operated from 387 B.C. until A.D. 529, when it was closed by Justinian.

Unlike his mentor Socrates, Plato was both a writer and a teacher. His writings are in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers.

The Allegory of the Cave can be found in Book VII of Plato's best-known work, The Republic, a lengthy dialogue on the nature of justice. Often regarded as a utopian blueprint, The Republic is dedicated toward a discussion of the education required of a Philosopher-King.

The following selection is taken from the Benjamin Jowett translation (Vintage, 1991), pp. 253-261. As you read the Allegory, try to make a mental picture of the cave Plato describes. Better yet, why not draw a picture of it and refer to it as you read the selection. In many ways, understanding Plato's Allegory of the Cave will make your foray into the world of philosophical thought much less burdensome.

* * * * * *

[Socrates] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
[Glaucon] I see.
[Socrates] And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
[Glaucon] You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
[Socrates] Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
[Glaucon] True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?
[Socrates] And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said.
[Socrates] And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
[Glaucon] Very true.
[Socrates] And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
[Glaucon] No question, he replied.
[Socrates] To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
[Glaucon] That is certain.
[Socrates] And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
[Glaucon] Far truer.
[Socrates] And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?
[Glaucon] True, he now.
[Socrates] And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
[Glaucon] Not all in a moment, he said.
[Socrates] He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
[Glaucon] Certainly.
[Socrates] Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
[Glaucon] Certainly.
[Socrates] He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?
[Glaucon] Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.
[Socrates] And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
[Glaucon] Certainly, he would.
[Socrates] And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,

and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
[Socrates] Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
[Glaucon] To be sure, he said.
[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
[Glaucon] No question, he said.
[Socrates] This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.
[Glaucon] I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
[Socrates] Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.
[Glaucon] Yes, very natural.
[Socrates] And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
[Glaucon] Anything but surprising, he replied.
[Socrates] Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the cave.
[Glaucon] That, he said, is a very just distinction.
[Socrates] But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.
[Glaucon] They undoubtedly say this, he replied.
[Socrates] Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good.
[Glaucon] Very true.
[Socrates] And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.
[Socrates] And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue --how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness.
[Glaucon] Very true, he said.
[Socrates] But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below --if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now.
[Glaucon] Very likely.
[Socrates] Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely. or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.
[Glaucon] Very true, he replied.
[Socrates] Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all-they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.
[Glaucon] What do you mean?
[Socrates] I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the cave, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not.
[Glaucon] But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better?
[Socrates] You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.
[Glaucon] True, he said, I had forgotten.
[Socrates] Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the cave, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State which is also yours will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.
[Glaucon] Quite true, he replied.
[Socrates] And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light?
[Glaucon] Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State.
[Socrates] Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after the' own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.
[Glaucon] Most true, he replied.
[Socrates] And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
[Glaucon] Indeed, I do not, he said.
[Socrates] And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.
[Glaucon] No question.
[Socrates] Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honors and another and a better life than that of politics?
[Glaucon] They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
[Socrates] And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light, -- as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods?
[Glaucon] By all means, he replied.
[Socrates] The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm to be true philosophy?
[Glaucon] Quite so.

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html

LiveLeak.com - Body scanner, with detailed genitalia reporting

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 09:11:00 +0800

LiveLeak.com - Body scanner, with detailed genitalia reporting

YouTube - The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 15:50:00 +0800

YouTube - The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

This video was originally created to be part of an art exhibit for Exposed the Art Project http://www.exposedtheartproject.org , a multimedia collaboration raising awareness of social issues. The group decided that the message in the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America shouldn't be put on hold. So here it is. The other artists of Exposed the Art Project are: painters Barry Gross and Viktor Safonkin, and photographers Adela Holmes and Presscott McDonald. We picked four themes for our premier—Social Commentary, Spirituality, Metamorphosis and Time and Chance. This is my contribution for Social Commentary.

NealF: http://www.youtube.com/user/NealF

YouTube - LCD Soundsystem - Pow Pow

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:30:00 +0800

YouTube - LCD Soundsystem - Pow Pow

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU'LL EVER READ ABOUT CHINA

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 02:16:00 +0800

ERINGER: WATER WORKS: 28. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU'LL EVER READ ABOUT CHINA

Fact or Fiction?????????????

"Doctor Baumgartner." This female voice--one-part nasal, two parts whine--grated my left eardrum.

"Is Joy Baumgartner there?" I inquired.

"This is Joy." Her voice sounded anything but joy.

"Emil Rubitski suggested I phone you to..."

"You want to talk about China, right?"

"Yeah, I..."

"My consulting rates are two hundred and fifty dollars per hour."

"I thought we might have lunch," I said, "and..."

"It's the same."

"I see. How about if I take you to lunch to figure out what it is you know that's worth two hundred and fifty dollars an hour?"

"How long a lunch?"

"A couple hours.'

"It'll be five hundred dollars."

"Whoa. What if we only talk about China for an hour?"

"What else would we have to talk about?"

"The weather?"

"Read it in the paper," said the un-playful Baumgartner.

"All right, I'm in for one hour. Can you come to my office?"

"Where is it?"

"Near Mexico Ave. Near AU."

"Fine, but it'll cost you an hour travel time."

"Jesus, what are you, a lawyer?"

"That's exactly the point," whined Baumgartner. "Lawyers charge for their expertise. They run a meter. I'm an expert on China. You want to learn what I know about China. Why shouldn't I run a meter?"

"Don't you folks at CSS generally like to share your expertise?"

"For the purpose of promoting CSS, yes. In general, no. Are you a potential contributor to our programs?"

"Absolutely. Me and Morton Levi."

Silence.

"You work for Morton Levi?" asked Baumgartner.

"With Morton Levi."

"Hmm. I suppose that qualifies. Okay, lunch tomorrow. The Palm. One o'clock. I have another call waiting." She disconnected me.

I utilized the dial tone to phone Emil Rubitski.

"This Baumgartner, Emil. Is she a ball-buster or what?"

"You think I don't know this?" said Rubitski. "The first rule new fellows learn when they arrive at this Center is, Don't Turn Your Back On Joy."

I chuckled.

"No joke," snapped Emil. "It's a known fact that she keeps a loaded pistol in her purse."

Baumgartner wasn't at the Palm at one o'clock. I stooled myself at the bar, Beefeater, olives.

Eight minutes later, the maitre d' pointed me out to a short rotund woman with tussled blonde hair, betrayed by dark-brown eyebrows.

"Hi, doc," I said. "I'm Jay."

Baumgartner sized me up. "Let's sit at a table," she said before turning on the maitre d'. "A good table at the front."

"Of course."

I followed the brazen Baumgartner to a good table.

"I'd like to meet Morton," Baumgartner announced, rearing her rump. "If you're working for him, and it involves China, and you want my knowledge and expertise, I should meet directly with him. I only operate at the highest level."

A waiter passed.

"Vodka tonic," snapped Baumgartner. "Slice of lime, not lemon." She turned to me. "When will you introduce me to Morton?"

"I didn't know we'd graduated from if to when."

"Without him," said Baumgartner, "we're back to two hundred and fifty dollars an hour."

"Plus lunch?" The Palm wasn't cheap.

She didn't even smile. "We're already here."

"So we are. Tell you what, if I don't get you in to see Morton, I'll pay your fee."

Baumgartner shook her head. "You pay. If I meet Morton, I refund you."

"Will you take American Express?"

"No. But I'll take a personal check." This was supposed to be a compromise.

"I don't have my checkbook here. Will you invoice me?"

Baumgartner glanced at the menu and pushed it aside. "What exactly is it Morton wants to know about China?"

"I'm interested in princelings," I said. "Specifically, Yao Li."

"Yao Li has no testicles." Baumgartner spat this with matter-of-fact delight.

"Do you mean that metaphorically?"

"No, I mean it physically. When Yao Li was at Shanghai Textile University during the Cultural Revolution, he got beaten up by his classmates. They pounded on his testicles. The Doctors had to remove them to prevent hemorrhaging. Surgical castration." Baumgartner smiled for the first time, as if castration was her prescription for men in general. "I have it on high authority that Yao Li drinks a daily brew of cow dung and lizard skin to compensate for lost masculinity. He carries a steel ball--the size of a golf-ball--wherever he goes. He grips it to strengthen his fingers. When he gets into brawls, he smashes his steel ball against the skulls of his opponents." Baumgartner sipped a vodka tonic, set before her by the waiter, who now hovered for an order. Baumgartner waved him away. "We're not ready." She returned to me. "Yao Li has a vengeful streak, a characteristic he got from his father, Yao Lo, China's intelligence chief. You did know that, didn't you?"

I nodded.

"His father's nickname within the inner Council of Leaders is Trickman."

"Does the son, Yao Li, have a nickname?"

Baumgartner regarded me with a school-marmish contempt. "Are you interested in substance or gossip?"

"You're the one who brought up nicknames."

"Dickhead," snapped Baumgartner.

"Excuse me?"

"That's Yao Li's nickname: Dickhead. As I was saying before you interrupted, Yao Li has a vengeful personality. When he became powerful, he used his influence to confiscate Shanghai Textile University's campus and relegate them to several ramshackle buildings near the airport."

The waiter tiptoed back for an order.

"I want the two-pound lobster," said Baumgartner.

"Crab cakes," said I.

The waiter beat it.

"Trickman and Dickhead have their own private security force of Kazaks, a mountain tribe of Turko-Mongol origin. They are warriors, descended from the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan. It was the Kazaks who--with fixed bayonets--put down the student rebellions. Trickman takes the view that his generation sacrificed the lives of twenty million comrades to conquer China. Anyone who wants to take it from them--or their children, or their children's children--has to lay down twenty million lives. Trickman has devised a new strategy for Chinese domination of the world."

I waited for Baumgartner to say water.

"Money," said Baumgartner. "Trickman's favorite saying is Money oils civil society. Trickman spent a whole career in intelligence, posing as a banker in Britain, Germany, and Switzerland. He decided that money is the route to power, not tanks. Trickman concluded that if Hitler had had Wall Street, the Nazis would have won World War II." Baumgartner paused. "The Chinese secretly admire Hitler's sense of destiny. Trickman's new strategy is to connect to high finance. That's why Hong Kong--just the way it is, a capitalist financial center--is so important to them. But the real key to Trickman's financial strategy is people. Think about it: China possesses the cheapest, largest labor pool in the world. One billion workers. A quarter of this planet's population! Have you noticed that more than half of almost everything you see in the malls these days is made in China? China has become an economic force simply because it has turned five-sixths of its one-point-two billion population into a slave labor force. Foreign capital is flowing into China to exploit labor, encouraged by China's two hundred million-member elite. Our media would have us believe that because of this new connection to the West, China will evolve into a free market economy. Dumb bastards. It won't. What we're looking at is national socialism, Chinese-style. It was the late Deng Xiaoping who originally conceived China's economic reform. He shrewdly forged an alliance between the Chinese Communist Party and sixty million Chinese who reside outside of China, mostly throughout Asia--the lords of the Pacific Rim, as they are known. It is the money-management skill of these Chinese expatriates, these Pacific lords, that perpetuates oppression in China. Human rights? They don't exist--except for fifty million Communist party members and their one hundred and fifty million relatives. It is in China's national economic interest to oppress its dissidents and peasants and keep a billion people confined to laboring for the world while the pay-offs go to the oppressors."

Anger flashed in Baumgartner's eyes. She took this whole situation personally.

"Through its billion-person labor force," she continued, "and now through Hong Kong, China intends to manipulate world money. In so doing, it has embarked on a policy to make corporate America--who they perceive as the real government of the United States--to become dependent on cheap Chinese labor. Meanwhile, the expatriate Chinese, with their liquid cash, are strategizing corporate takeovers in the US."

"If what you say is true..." I started.

"It's true." Baumgartner narrowed her plucked eyebrows at me.

"Why isn't our government doing anything to counter this policy?"

"Counter this policy?" Baumgartner rolled her eyes. "Our elected government loves this policy!"

"Why?"

"Why indeed." Joy snorted contemptuously. "A few reporters are onto this, but the mainstream media continues to stick to press releases, or they're turning a blind eye. The reason why is this: old-fashioned deal-making. The president's financial supporters are cutting amazing business deals with the Chinese. You see what's happening here? The Chinese are playing our own so-called revolving door system against us. And, to this end, they're using their corrupt underground to help them."

"Oh?"

Baumgartner nodded vehemently. "Remember how our CIA teamed up with the mafia to try to overthrow Castro? Trickman is doing the same thing. He has recruited the Triad, China's notorious criminal underground."

"To do what?"

"Export contraband into the United States. Drugs and guns."

I'd forgotten, until this movement, what Samantha Wakefield of SIS had told me about Chinese gunrunning through Scrogg Island. I filed a mental note to nudge Pikestaff about that. Then I remembered Johnny Wang. "Do you know the name Johnny Wang?" I posed.

"Do I," spat Baumgartner, obviously disgusted by all she knew--or her inability to do anything about it. "Johnny Wang is a mobster. And he's also Yao Li's constant companion. Johnny Wang is homosexual. He and the castrated Yao Li are lovers."

My appetite departed as crab cakes arrived.

Baumgartner dug into her lobster, cracking and crunching and sucking each appendage. "Money, not gunpowder. That's the new Chinese weapon of choice." She pushed her plate aside. All that was left of the lobster was a shell and two beady eyes. "Our country is for sale," hissed Baumgartner. "Literally. US soil. Do you have any idea how fast Chinese communities proliferate?"

I shrugged. "Not really."

"Ha! Check out San Francisco. No, fly up to Manhattan and see how Chinatown has expanded into Little Italy. Pretty soon, Little Italy won't exist. The Italians can't afford the new rents, so the Chinese scoop up everything. They multiply and spread out. If anyone brings this to the surface, they're categorized as bigots. So in the interest of political correctness, no one says a word. But don't think because they're achieving their objectives with financial clout that they've renounced military might. Sure, they're smuggling their surplus guns into the US for baoli..."

"Baoli?"

"Chinese for keep the profit. They're lining their own pockets and promoting gangland violence and moral decline in our cities. Back to my point: they've embarked on a major hi-tech military build-up. For the first time, China is building aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers! These are offensive, not defensive weaponry. They're buying fighter planes from Russia. They're designing a new class of nuclear ballistic submarine. And they're building intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. Why doesn't anybody in this town ask why? Because they're all cashing in, one way or another, that's why. Even the people in government. Once they see how much the private sector is making off China, they quit government and go into business as brokers--the revolving door at high speed. The Chinese are building a war machine that will soon equal our own, with money they're getting from us. Money they get from forcing their fourteen-dollar-a-month labor pool to mass produce GI Joe and Barbie dolls. I'm not kidding. GI Joe is now made in China. Barbie, too. Our toy industry has moved to China. Ninety-five percent of everything you find in Toys-R-Us is manufactured by the Chinese, paid for in dollars. And they're using those revenues--our dollars--not to enrich their workers, but to build long-range nuclear missiles."

"What about the princelings?" I asked.

"Ah, the new generation of spoiled brats, born with silver chop sticks up their ass?" Baumgartner belched. "They've never had to fight or sacrifice for anything. They haven't had to suffer like their parents or grandparents. And they're all educated in the West. Do you see the irony here? We teach these princelings everything we know about stocks and bonds and securities and big money. Then they take what they learn back to China and use it against us! Not only do we encourage them to study here, we give them scholarships!"

"Yao Li went to Harvard, right?"

"Ha! That's what he wants the world to believe. Yao Li did a summer session at Harvard. That's another trick. Summer sessions at Ivy League colleges are easy to gain admission into--you just sign up and write a check. So they come over for a summer, take a couple of classes and claim they went to Harvard or Yale or Princeton. They use this to open doors throughout Asia--and even here in the United States. Yao Li tells everyone he went to Harvard on the basis of one summer-session course in business law, which he didn't even complete. He spent most of the time getting drunk in Cambridge. But don't believe me. Ask the woman confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life because Yao Li crashed his BMW convertible into her Honda. He was drunk. She was seventeen, very talented, and had her whole life ahead of her..." Baumgartner trailed off, clenching her teeth. "The State Department covered it up and the Chinese Embassy shanghaied Yao Li back to China. That's the reason he didn't finish summer-school." She paused. "I'd kill him with my bare hands."

"Why do you take this so personally?" I asked.

"It is personal." Baumgartner's eyes darkened, nostrils flaring. "The young girl Yao Li crippled is my sister."
Posted by Robert Eringe

http://jaysandak.blogspot.com/2010/11/28-most-important-thing-youll-ever-read.html

Chinese dissident awarded Nobel Peace Prize

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:31:00 +0800

Chinese dissident awarded Nobel Peace Prize - CNN.com

US: China lacks 'morals' in Africa - Africa

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Thu, 9 Dec 2010 17:57:00 +0800

US: China lacks 'morals' in Africa - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Down From The Pedestal

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Thu, 9 Dec 2010 13:08:00 +0800

NationalJournal.com - Down From The Pedestal

Koreaceratops fossil discovered on Korean peninsula

webmaster@curtisinasia.com (Webmaster@Curtis In Asia.com) — Thu, 9 Dec 2010 12:39:00 +0800

Koreaceratops fossil discovered on Korean peninsula - CSMonitor.com

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/1208/Koreaceratops-fossil-discovered-on-Korean-peninsula
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreaceratops