User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

The latest UN report on AIDS says that the whole of East Asia has less than one million people living with AIDS or HIV. In fact, East Asia has the lowest incidence of any region of the world, lower even than Oceania including Australia. Lower than Western Europe.

What do we take away from this discussion? Horror stories, official denials, Chinese superstition, inept administration, immoral behaviour around the sale of blood. Or a more sober consideration of the facts?

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Barbs

我不明白。。

Posted on: Finishing Work for the Weekend

哈哈， 谢谢， 听说又好吃又方便，对吧？ 可是我不喜欢吃！ 在澳大利亚多半人觉得‘processed cheese'的味道很差。 除了孩子的中餐以外多数人不喜爱的。

三八妇女节的时候老板送给我太太一些特百惠 (Tupperware). 使用说明书里他说： 菜果醋，肉松，包菜。。都能为您加工，先来专卖店常常看！ 原料自购， 加工安全，美味放心！

Posted on: Asking for a Raise

I too think that this is one of the best lessons in a long time, love it! (Vote 5 stars guys!)

Working in China this is relevant stuff - 我也要加薪。 but I don't have a dog to practice with.

Apparently a lot of people with jobs in tertiary education institutions in my province got big pay rises this year; I am guessing part of the financial stimulus. A bit late you could say but I guess these things take a while to get through the system. Unfortunately the rises did not flow on to foreign staff, and we don't have a union. :-)

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

ChinesePod has just given me a lesson plan - after my last post here I opened it up. Week 1, Day 1 - the suggested lesson is 'Applying for a Visa'. How weird is that? WooOOOoooOO.

You could check it out - there is some discussion about how hard/easy it is to get a visa to visit China.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

'If they can find a reason to bar you, in general they will'

I hope you don't think that I am harping, but what evidence do you have for this kind of statement? What range of restrictions do you have in mind? Compared to what?

This statement creates an impression that I find a bit hard to swallow. If someone said it about North Korea I would not be surprised but even there I think that just about anyone can go for a visit if they want to (except citizens of the United States.)

Do you mean that compared to Western countries China has a particularly restrictive policy on admitting both short term travellers and longer term stays?

I'm interested in human motivations - what reason do you think the Chinese authorities would have for finding every kind of reason for 'barring' people from visiting China? I am not saying that they do not have restrictions but it is the 'in general' part of your statement that does not seem to be borne out by the facts.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Catherine

Thanks for the Shanghaiist link - that shed more light than heat. Interesting that the United States have only just lifted their two decade long ban and that New Zealand still impose a ban on HIV-infected short-term travellers. It helps to have a few facts on debates like this. I think that in general China has a fairly pragmatic approach to the spread of HIV domestically, not unlike the public health measures in the West. This travel ban will no doubt change, falling in line with what is known from scientific evidence - it helps to provide some balance to the story to realise that some Western countries have only recently taken these steps.

BTW there was a similar discussion not too long ago here about the blood donation service after I posted a photo of a 'Red Cross' bus in a shopping centre.

Posted on: Designing the New Apartment 3

现在我养一条鱼。 原来有五条可是四条死了。 啊呀！ 

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Nice to hear from you on this topic I'm not sure I get your meaning (I'm a little slow), can you spell it out a little?

Customs is a central government function; what do you mean 'they have their own rules'? Do you mean that policies are enforced randomly all round the country? Because of what, corruption? How would you know this?

In my experience Chinese customs are incredibly lax compared to Australia. They are less restrictive than what most foreigners would imagine. Chinese borders leak like a sieve - for good reason. They simply do not have the resources to police it. (But I am not sure what this has to do specifically with the issuing of visas in Australia - probably nothing.)

The 'villages in central China' do not seem to have much to do with an Australian writer visiting Shanghai. If you are saying that China has begun strictly policing its borders because of a large number of infections in central China - I don't see the connection you are making. Do you mean that he is a risk to China because he may spread infection?

'But China is very very sensitive when it comes to HIV' - do you just mean in relation to the 'botched blood donation programme', that is, sensitive to criticism from the West? Do you mean that their rules are stricter than other countries? Do you mean that the Chinese Government empathises strongly with the sufferers? Do you mean that they think that HIV indicates a moral depravity that should be kept out of China?

Do you mean the truck drivers were HIV positive and then they gave blood and the donations infected whole villages? That is tragic. I live in central China and blood donations are a Joint Venture here between the Red Cross and local health agencies - the method of collecting donations certainly looks (from a distance) just like it does in the West. But the scale of operations dwarfs anything we see in the West - the law of averages says that we are bound to see many people affected when something goes wrong. And they do not have the resources that we have in the West for health administration.

Posted on: Snacks

Definitely in Zhejiang. I'm pretty sure in Sichuan even but strangely not around here. Changye, I think you told us that Yunnan is more closely linked linguistically to the north than to neighbouring Sichuan? Or did someone else say that.