China Daily: “Capital to expand public transportation”, article 21 February.
I applaud all the efforts being made to expand the subway and bus networks. The length of subway lines is now 442 Km and at the end of this year will reach 465 Km. It is an important contribution to improve Beijing’s air. However too little attention is paid to bikers (like myself). The city is putting a total of 50,000 rental bikes on the streets but we bikers are considered second class citizens. Cars obstruct bike lanes, pedestrians love to walk in the lanes while they have all the space on the side walks (often they are smoking and talking on their mobiles, paying no attention to our warning). People have a total disregard for others, especially bikers; if we complain we get very angry remarks from car drivers and pedestrians. We can call them “the ugly Chinese” and there are lots of them.
When will police and the authorities act? Unlikely as police is nowhere to be seen and does never help us.
Beijing Life
Domestic violence in China: still a problem
A Beijing district court granted Kim Lee, the American wife of Crazy English founder Li Yang 12 million yuan of her husband’s assets in a divorce triggered by domestic violence. The decision comes after a lot of media attention and also amidst a growing awareness that women are mostly left defenseless in the case of domestic violence.
I just hope this will trigger better treatment of domestic violence in China, not only for a “foreign” spouse. Right now, neither law nor police are of much help for abused women. Domestic violence is regarded an “internal family matter”. It leads to horrible situations and if the wife, in total desperation, fights back or kills the abusive husband, she ends up being blamed; right now a women is on death row in such a case, generating wide condemnation. Big shame on Chinese men, on the law, on the police. It is not as bad as in India but a lot needs to be done.
In Beijing the Rotary Club of Beijing supports an NGO that has a call center to help women in distress. – the demand on the call center is so great it cannot attend to all the calls. For the Maple Counseling Hotline Project (part of the Maple Women’s Psychology Counseling Center), our Rotary Club contributed in its fiscal year 2012/2013 RMB 150,000 for the project.
See more on the court case:
‘Crazy English’ guru’s wife Kim Lee granted 12m yuan in divorce, by Mimi Lau, SCMP, on 4 February 2013
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1142768/crazy-english-gurus-wife-granted-12m-yuan-divorce
Kashin-Beck Disease Foundation
On 31 January, the Belgian ambassador Patrick Nijs organized a dinner at his residence to welcome Mrs. Françoise Mathieu, the Director of Programs for the Foundation. Kashin-Beck disease (KBD), also known as ‘Big Bone Disease’ is a disabling disease of the bones and joints that leads to stunted growth and deformity of the joints. It mainly affects remote, rural populations and is very much a “disease of the poor”.
See their website www.kbdfund.org for more details.
It was the second dinner organized to meet the team that has been involved in research, treatment and prevention of this rare disease. The Foundation is one of the very few NGO with an office in Tibet, where today most of the KBD cases occur.
Among the guests was the Chairman & President of AIGO, Mr. Feng Jun, as well as the leaders of Tianjin Liho I&E Company. Both companies are very active in Belgium.
Françoise gave a presentation on the disease and we then all discussed further over dinner.
Police invades my office
Well, a nice invasion for once. They came over to give me the “official picture”, nicely framed, of the ceremony of 26 May 2012 when I received my new Green Card (see earlier blog entry) from the hands of the director of the Beijing Public Security Bureau . I also got my two first “Year of The Snake” dolls (I admit having a small collection of those in my library…).
As usual, we all had to take a picture of their visit. You can’t say they don’t have good-looking police ladies!
Surviving Beijing? Even surviving more than that!
So, what was the fuss about that Mayan calendar? Some Chinese made some good money out of it. Selling candles, escape pods, etc. So now, people want their money back (thank you SCMP for the cartoon!)
I am also disappointed. Caught one of those vicious Beijing flu and it failed to die. Worst, there goes my Saturday night KTV. Bed instead.
Well, at least I also survived the Mayan Apocalypse! Nothing compared to over 30 years of China tough. Piece of cake. I am looking to buy my T-shirt. For sure Silk Market will have them by tomorrow.
