Wo Ai Zhong Guo

What kind of brown?

It seems so many of my recent posts have focused on bad translations but I just couldn't ignore this story about a (black) woman in Canada buying a new sofa manufactured in China with a label, stating that the sofa's colour was "nigger brown"!

Spitting In The Wind

The New York Times ran an article a few days ago about Beijing's efforts to clean up the vast amount of poorly translated English signs as well as one man's crusade to stop people spitting in the streets.

Un, deux, trois or yi, er, san?

Just last night at dinner with a couple of friends from London who just arrived in Shanghai to work, we discussed how China is talked about frequently in the media as its significance in the global economy grows.  But I was still surprised to read this article about how Chinese is widely taught in schools in the UK now.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Although this blog deals mainly with issues relating to life in China, occasionally other stories pop up that I feel strongly enough about to write about.

Sally Clark lost her first baby aged 11 weeks to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or "cot death".  Everyone was very supportive and nobody suspected any wrong doing.  A year later, she lost a second child, aged 8 weeks and this time, Sally was arrested and charged with the murder of BOTH babies.  She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.  However, the major factor contributing to her conviction was so called expert testimony from Professor Sir Roy Meadow, who stated that the chance of two cot deaths occuring in babies from the same mother was 1 in 73 million.  He came to this conclusion by a simple calculation.  The probability of a single cot death is around 1 in 8,500, so he concluded that the probability of this happening twice is 1/8500 squared.  This is a valid calculation only if there is no correlation between the first and second death.  For example, tossing a coin.  The chance of a head is 50% assuming the coin is unbiased.  The chance of 2 consecutive heads is 0.5 squared which is 25%.

However, it is widely accepted that the chance of a second cot death is greatly increased if there has already been a prior cot death in the family, lowering the probability of the second cot death to something like 1 in 60.  This makes a lot of sense even to a layman like myself in the same way that if a mother dies of cancer, her daughter has a greater chance of suffering the same illness.  Even the Royal Statistical Society later wrote to the Lord Chancellor, disagreeing with the 1 in 73 million statistic.

Sadly though, the jury accepted the expert testimony and it was only 3 years later that Sally's conviction was overturned on appeal and she was released.

I don't think many people can imagine the suffering endured by losing two of her children AND being branded as a monster child killer.

I opened this post by saying this is not related to China but in a way it is.  There is so much outrage at human rights abuses by the Chinese authorities from the US and the UK, but there are clearly many outrageous injustices occuring in the west as well.

Sally died two days ago aged 42.

Happy Mothering Sunday

Yes folks, to day is Mothers Day (officially Mothering Sunday) in the UK and if you live in England, it'll be impossible for you to forget because there will be hundreds of ads reminding you to send flowers, buy chocolates etc this Sunday.  However, if like me, you are British but live in China, it is very easy to forget because China generally follows the US and celebrates in May.  So for those of you who read my blog regularly, here's a free reminder.  If you are reading this on Monday or later, well, serves you right for not keeping up to date with my blog!

People's Republic of Sex

The New York Times ran a piece a few days ago about the sexual revolution that's going on in China.  Nothing here that's new to me, but some readers may be interested.

Britain's Shame

A Chinese friend asked me last week if I feel homesick, especially as it's Chinese new year this week, the equivalent of Christmas in China, when everyone traditionally spends time with family.

Today I read in The Guardian about gun crime spiralling out of control in the UK with 3 teenagers have been killed in the last 11 days, the London congestion charge being extended west and almost doubling in size, and last week a report from Unicef (An Overview of Child Wellbeing in Rich Countries) rated Britain as the worst country (just below the USA!) out of the top 21 most developed countries for kids, with the highest level of drunkenness, obesity, bullying, early sexual intercourse, cannabis-taking, and teenage pregnancy.

Do I miss Britain?  In a word: no!

Culture Contamination

Sad news for coffee fans today following a fresh debate about whether or not the Starbucks at Beijing's Palace Museum (often referred to as the Forbidden City) should be allowed to continue to operate.  The argument is that the famous coffee house is a symbol of western food culture and as such, the historic site is an inappropriate plcae to operate.

I don't personally visit the Forbidden City often enough to be affected by the closure of this particular branch, which has been there since 2000, but I won't risk being accused of sitting on the fence so I'll say that in its present form (without any visible signage to cause an eyesore), I think it's a pretty harmless service to offer not just overseas visitors who require some refreshment but also for the even bigger contingent of Chinese visitors for whom a tall latte has become part of their daily rituals.

The culture contamination argument I feel is weak.  Chinese food culture is already "contaminated" by the hundreds of extremely busy McDonalds and KFC restaurants that scatter the nation.  It's not contamination, it's globalisation or cultural integration, in the same way that most sex toys you find in London are likely to be made in China (that's what people tell me anyhow!).  Well okay, perhaps that's a poor example but a better one might be that English people are more likely to order a Chinese or Indian takeaway than and English takeway meal and what's wrong with that?