Letting Steam Off

Deluxe 3-wheel motorbike

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

I love this new addition to our Julong Garden parking lot. I had never seen anything like it. It’s shiny, fully equipped with radio, a big fan, etc. Real cute. Wish I had one of those to beat the Beijing traffic that is becoming worse by the day. Getting a taxi is also becoming more difficult, the worst regions being Wangfujing and surroundings and CBD. Don’t expect any help from the police nor government, they are basically useless to improve the situation.


I am still considering buying a bike but as parking lots are mostly as rare as fresh air and bikes are stolen in a wink, what’s the point. Riding a bike is also dangerous, either you get hit by a car (Chinese drivers have zero civility and act like cave people driving cars) or get lung cancer, Pollution levels (AQI) were close to 500 in the past days but you won’t learn that from the government.
And, yes I know, that little red beauty pollutes a lot. Nothing is perfect.
So my current solution is to take a pedicab (“sanlunche”, tricycle), most have now an electric motor. Most of the pedicabs know me in the CBD area, so no need to bargain and they already know where I want to go. It’s fast and those people earn a living too.

Shocking scene in Beijing, sex on the balcony

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

It’s a real scandal. Can’t even read my newspaper anymore, looking at my balcony.
I was shocked by the scene. Tried to stop it, in vain. They were too much in it.
As I say, when you really need the police, there are not to be found.

The mother of all squash

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

I had no idea there were so many different squash, gourd, pumpkins etc.
After lots of Google and other search, seem these monster squash are a subgroup of, well guess, squash; called in Chinese “changnanhua” which means long pumpkin or something, the scientific name should be “Cucurbita moschata var. toonas”; it is also sometimes called “long cushaw”.
Wanna get squashed?
Me, Obelix in the kitchen, ready to knock someone down.

China Daily 25 Aug 10 “Foreigner communities”

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

This is my comment sent to China Daily on the following article:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/2010-08/25/content_11201956.htm
First of all I doubt your figure of 20,000 Green Card holders in 2004 is correct. Official figures published in 2009 indicate a grand total of 311 Green Card holders in Beijing. Figures for Shanghai most probably are similar but a bit higher. As a matter of fact China now has stopped giving out the Cards, applications are accepted but rarely if ever granted. One can wonder why the system was even started. A consequence of the near non-existence of Card holders is the humiliating experience when using it. Most airport security people ignore its existence and require to show a passport. I normally refuse; in Beijing Airport I normally have few problems. As the Card is the proof of visa, a passport alone is not enough. The lack of training of security people and others makes Green Card holders feel discriminated while it should be rather an honor.
If some Chinese people start worrying about the impact of foreigners in China and try to draft a new “Immigration Law” to even limit more the influx of foreigners, it will show a bad image for China as being unwelcoming. Reliable figures do not exist about the foreign community in China. Beijing is said to have over 110,000 long-term foreign residents; Shanghai figures are much higher. The latest official China figures (2007) reported 538,892 foreigners lived in China for more than 6 months. I believe real figures are much higher, considering foreign students and many uncounted foreigners. Some estimate that the Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese communities alone by far exceed the official total.
Even if we assume a total of 1.5 million, that is a drop in the ocean compared to a Chinese population of over 1.3 billion. There are probably more Chinese living in the USA than foreigners in China.
If China wants to be an open and international country, part of the world community, some of our Chinese friends should think it over.
Gilbert
Green Card holder

Women caned for premarital sex in Malaysia

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

As reported by the SCMP on 18 February…
Three women have been caned in Malaysia under Islamic law for the first time.
Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the sentences were carried out on February 9 in a women’s prison outside Kuala Lumpur after a religious court found them guilty of having sex out of wedlock. Two of the women were whipped six times.
“It was carried out perfectly,” Hishammuddin said. “Even though the caning did not injure them, they said it caused pain within them.”
His comments signal that the mostly Muslim country is now prepared to flog a mother of two for drinking beer, despite the international criticism that the case has sparked.
The case will fuel a debate over rising “Islamisation” in Malaysia, where religious courts have been clamping down on moral offences as well as a ban on Muslims drinking alcohol that had rarely been enforced.
“I hope this will not be misunderstood so much that it defiles the purity of Islam,” Hishammuddin said. “The punishment is to teach and give a chance to those who have fallen off the path to return and build a better life in future.”
Yeah yeah, bunch of muslim hypocrites. In what century are those people living? Then they are surprised we hate them – no problem, they hate us, the infidels, too.
I am proud to be an “infidel”.
Reason enough to kick those people out of our countries. We have no place for you.
Malaysia is a sad case. In the past I liked that country. Now, add them to the blacklist.
China is bloody right to curtail any of those in Xinjiang. Europe could learn from the Chinese, for once. But then lazy Europeans should also start picking fruit and doing other jobs they look down on and have to leave to immigrants. The USA are not better, just see why they need all those Latinos to do the hard jobs.
Another conclusion: here we have bad stuff too. But at least they don’t cane people for drinking beer of having fun in bed.