JZ's posterous potpourri

I just had some mooncake last night in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, but I wish I could've sampled this.

The Golden Valley-based foodmaker has deftly turned the Chinese holiday tradition of giving mooncakes - fancy hockey puck-sized pastries - into a golden opportunity. It did so by creating mooncakes with Haagen-Dazs ice cream rather than the traditional bean paste.

The ice-cream version of the mooncake was introduced in China in 1997, and it has generated a big following. This autumn, General Mills said it expects to sell a record 1.5 million boxes of Haagen-Dazs mooncakes - no small feat, considering each box sells for between $30 and $100.

http://www.twincities.com/business/ci_18864435?nclick_check=1#

One of the bad side effects of China's urbanization (importing KFC without importing the consciousness that it's greasy and bad for you):

Figures for Beijing last year published in state media showed that 25.6 per cent of 12-year-old children were obese. There is even a problem among the under fives, 17 per cent of whom are obese and therefore five times as likely to be overweight in later childhood.

"You don't tend to see fat families. You tend to see the fat kid. The little emperor is fat. He's having McDonald's, and no one ever says no to him when he wants his Coca-Cola and biscuits. In the next generation we may see fat mums and dads with their kids," said Paul French, co-author of a book published last year called Fat China, and publishing and marketing director of the Shanghai research agency Access Asia.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/childhood-obesity-on-the-rise-in-chi...

I remember back in 90s my parents and I would make the four-plus-hour drive to D.C. to stock up on Chinese goods like dried mushrooms in the Chinatown stores. Now, the people in D.C.'s Chinatown have to drive elsewhere to get those same goods:

For the residents of Wah Luck House in the District’s Chinatown, a trip to the nearest Chinese market requires a bit of planning.

Once a month, a chartered tour bus pulls up in front of the 153-unit apartment complex at Sixth and H streets NW, and the 56 Chinese immigrants lucky enough to have reserved a seat climb aboard, clutching rolling backpacks. Half an hour later, the bus arrives at the Great Wall Supermarket — 14 miles west in Falls Church.

...

Derided for the past half-decade as “Chinablock,” the city’s Chinatown is increasingly being reduced to “Chinacorner.” The 243 residents of Wah Luck House make up about half of the estimated 400 to 500 Chinese immigrants who remain in the neighborhood. With most elderly and able to speak only Mandarin or Cantonese, the apartment residents lend Chinatown its last bit of authenticity, even if they rarely venture west of Seventh Street, where crowds of teens and tourists gather outside Fuddruckers and Starbucks.

In some ways, the teeming streets and bustling businesses around Chinatown were just what city officials envisioned when they built Verizon Center in 1997. But change came at a high cost: As crime dropped in the once-neglected and dangerous neighborhood and property values rose, Chinese-owned businesses were replaced by national chains.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/wah-luck-house-maintains-culture-in-dying...

I have mixed feelings about this change. On one hand, it's a bit sad to see a Chinatown slowly shrink and vanish (and god help me if my favorite dimsum place and noodle shop in D.C.'s Chinatown ever close). On the other hand, Chinatowns strike me as a kind of relic -- creations from an earlier time when Chinese immigrants were unable to truly become an integrated part of American society and were thus relegated to enclaves in bad neighborhoods. From my experience, it seems like skilled Chinese immigrants -- people who have a choice -- don't want to live in Chinatowns. It'd be a shame to see Chinese culture become lost, but the preservation of culture is also not predicated on the physical preservation of buildings or blocks.

This is what students in China do for stress relief after taking the gaokao, the university entrance exam that can make or break your future career/life:

It is almost time for the “gaokao” [university entrance exam] and yesterday morning and the third years [final year of high school in China] at our school had a pledge ceremony. Afterward, the third year students began to throw their exam papers, their books. At first people tore them into pieces, later they were throwing entire sheets and sheets, and even later they were throwing bundles and bundles. It was spectacular. It was a release from the stress of the third year.

More pictures, a video, and comments at
http://www.chinasmack.com/2009/pictures/gaokao-university-entrance-exam-stres...

As much as I love my homeland, stuff like this invariably incurs a facepalm. And the story being reported (see video above) is pretty horrible, too.

Sometimes men show up but don't do anything to stop us. It is against the law in China to obstruct foreign journalists from reporting freely. This was set out in a directive signed by Premier Wen Jiabao. Government officials therefore have come up with creative ways to make reporting difficult and circumvent the central government's rules without technically breaking the law. They might hire local boys to intimidate our team. By sub-contracting out intimidation to non-uniformed groups, there's no proof the government is behind any reporting interference.

...

Intimidating sources and not reporters has become a more common practice by the Chinese government to block information. Often we speak to incredibly vulnerable people at the lowest socio-economic rung. It is easy to bully them into submission.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/asia/2011/05/25/reporting-china

... it’s in Vidalia, Georgia of course. We’re pretty sure that there’s got to be some kind of tasty free sample when you’re all done learning and exploring, as well as plenty of onion-themed swag in the gift shop.

http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/5/4/22941/50799/travel/There%27s+More+Than+...

Hopefully to hit the screen this year, "Xmas Without China" follows the Joneses, a family from the suburbs of Arcadia, California, as they attempt to make it through the month of December, holidays included, without using or gifting any product that is made in China.

Xia, who was eight when he immigrated to the United States from China in 1992, began contemplating the idea for his documentary a few years ago, when he took notice of the infamous Chinese-made toy recall.

"I thought it was unfairly portraying China. It was my reaction to the news media at the time," Xia recalled. "And I decided to challenge an American family. That's when I started talking to Alicia about this project."

Dwyer took on the role of director only after she had coaxed Xia into including himself and his family in the film, thus bringing a Chinese perspective to the challenge.

"I thought comparing Tom's whole experience would be fascinating," Dwyer said. "Tom's family comes from the coldest part of China with their own stories. When we meet the Joneses, we learn their stories like Tim Joneses' dad being a fighter pilot during the Cold War. These two families are coming from completely different places, and now living next to each other in a sunny California town."

http://flyergoodness.blogspot.com/2011/04/vintage-japanese-matchbox-art-1920-...