China, the land of the one or two dollar DVDs. I regularly get out of nowhere some stacks of DVDs that guarantee adventurous viewing as we have often no clue what they are about. We tried a US movie called “Shriek – If you know what I did last Friday the 13th”. I thought that sounded familiar but we soon found the so-called horror movie with high-school students was nothing as expected. Sun and me just watched in disbelief to the very end, trying to understand what it was about. Well, it was the worst and most stupid collection of silly scenes. For once Sun and me had a 100% agreement: the worst and most stupid movie we have ever watched. Hopefully not too many Chinese will watch that crap and think young Americans really are like that.
Of course silly me. I was thinking SHREK or something.
Consumer & Environment Issues
consumer analysis and impact on environment
Wasting water and electricity: civil servants
Chinese newspapers reported survey results – civil servants in Beijing use 3 to 7 times more water and electricity than ordinary citizens. China Daily concluded that China’s nearly 7 million public servants (servants?) use almost 5% of the country’s annual electricity consumption, enough to meet the demands of 780 million farmers. That’s a strong statement from our serious China Daily. The same “servants” are the ones to preach energy conservation? Oops.
The price of pollution
It’s official: pollution costs equal 10% of China’s GDP, costing the country more than US$ 200 billion a year, according to the State Environmental Protection agency. That’s pretty bad. At least the government is becoming more aware of the cost caused by the enormous industrial development and is honest to come out with the figures. Hopefully its plans to tackle the crisis will bring results.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong a report estimates air pollution costs the city US$ 2.73 billion a year – mainly because of the hospital bills and lost productivity. The level of air pollutants are said to be 3 times higher than the WHO guidelines and would be a cause of foreigners leaving.
I wonder what the situation is in Beijing. Better not to think about. Difficult when one looks out of the window. I often wonder living here is acceptable for my physical (and mental) health.
A room with no view – Capital Club Beijing
I often go to the Capital Club for meetings of various chambers of commerce, a popular place for events with a charming interior design. The Club is located at the 50th floor of Capital Mansion, close to the Sanlitun embassy area, Kunlun Hotel, Huadu Hotel and other landmarks. The area changes continuously with new buildings coming up every year. If the weather is good you can see the new embassy area, next to the German School.
I have been trying many times to take my camera to shoot some pics of the surrounding area, to little avail because I seem mostly to be unlucky – the pollution generally blocks the view.
Friday afternoon and on a nice day in January 2001 (today it already looks very different).
On Friday 26 May, 3 pm I took this picture. Pollution? Humidity? Probably both. Later in the night we were (pleasantly) surprised with an unusual downpour, a blessing for us Beijingers, cleaning up all the dust. Today on Sunday 28 May we are rewarded with a gorgeous blue sky – pity – no meeting in Capital Club. Yesterday I was doing my 10K on the treadmill in the gym (“Powerhouse Gym”), overlooking the 2nd Ring Road – I could even the MOUNTAINS. So, no need to have a mask that day, as recommended by Shanghai Daily:
Expensive brands: worth the money?
Maybe I am unlucky with big brands or I am too much of an engineer.
I just saw an ad that TAG Heuer has a new watch – “Yao Ming” (probably the most famous sportsman here, now playing basketball for the Houston Rockets – 2m26 tall). Looks cute but…
A couple of years ago I bought a cool TAG Heuer watch (model: WE2111 serial ED2513, automatic, sports watch, 200 meters, Swiss made). I thought, no more battery changes, good quality for life, I can use it anywhere (swimming, diving, running, sauna). What I did not expect: those watches are more for showing off but not to get the TIME, at least correctly. Unless you give it like every year for a very expensive maintenance. From the start accuracy was lousy, I gave it several times to an “authorized shop” to adjust the time but it continues to show differences of one minute per week. After some time it got all worse, like 5 minutes difference per week. After lots of calls, e-mails and efforts finally somebody really authorized took it from Beijing to Hong Kong for “maintenance”. Cost: well over RMB 500. Oops. Explanation: it is a precision watch and needs regular maintenance, don’t you understand”? Sorry, I just wanted to know the time….
Less than two years later, there we go again. Every week I had to adjust the time.
I like watches and clocks and have quite some of them. But I wanted to see the TIME.
After due consideration, the TAG is back in the box, in all of its original packing and I bought a SEIKO (model Premier, Kinetic, auto really, 100m). Quite nice, more discreet than the flashy TAG. At least it runs well and normally I can live with it for a long time without maintenance and battery replacement.
I just wonder what are all those people doing with their expensive watches (Rolex etc.). Maybe they just pretend they use them?
So, if anybody is interested, the TAG is for sale for the highest bidder, as good as new, starting price RMB 4,000.
I received as a gift a very nice Waterman pen, “Ideal” MAN 200 fountain pen, Made in France. Problem: even with the official ink cartridges, good cleaning and care it refuses to draw a line longer than 1 or 2 cm – the ink runs dry. After some time, the U-fill convertor gave up. I cannot even complain: it was a gift and I don’t have the data to fill out the guarantee…
Of course, one can wonder why I complain: maybe those fountain pens are to show off only, nobody writes by hand anymore anyway. Those old and whining Flemish people, such an annoyance.