Another odd news article I translated from the Chinese press 10 years ago.
Translated and edited by D. Christopher Harry, freelance translator
"Deng Family Restaurant" Closed Yesterday for Doing Business under the Banner of Deng Xiaoping
The "Deng Family Restaurant" which was the focus of a news scrum these last two days was closed yesterday. This reporter arrived on the scene to find the two characters "Deng Family" had been taken down, the twin black cat/white cat sculptures were no longer in front of the restaurant, and the characters "Deng Xiaoping has led us to prosperity" were also cleaned off the restaurant window. Pictures of Deng's life and work were also removed form the interior of the restaurant. The restaurant's owner, Meng Jiawan, said that staff from the Yongdingmenwai Street Office of Industry and Commerce in Beijing's Chongwen District came to his restaurant the day before yesterday to inform him to close the restaurant . As they explained, there was nothing wrong with the name "Deng Family Restaurant" and the promotion of the late paramount leader's theories and thinking; only that his name could not be used for the purpose of doing business.
One official from the Chongwen District Bureau of Industry and Commerce who refused to reveal his identity said that the restaurant was forced to close down possibly for being suspected of false advertising and unfair competition. In his opinion, despite the fact that the restaurant did not use the late leader's name explicitly, the twin black cat/white cat sculptures out front, and the 80-odd pictures of Deng inside the restaurant make it clear to customers that the "Deng Family Restaurant" is borrowing the fame of China's former leader to attract business. This is in violation of a statute forbidding the use of the names of great leaders for commercial purposes. In addition, many of the dishes in the restaurant have no connection with Deng Xiaoping. Thus, the "Deng Family Restaurant" is also suspected of misleading customers about facts relating to the deceased leader.
Restaurant owner, Meng Jiawan, had told a reporter that he had been inspired by another restaurant under the name of "Mao Family Dishes" to borrow the name of Deng Xiaoping, also born in his hometown of Guang'an in Sichuan province. "I revere Deng Xiaoping and I wanted to promote both his greatness and his achievements.", Mr. Meng said.
Prior to this incident, the Chongwen District Bureau of Industry and Commerce had ordered the "Mao Family Dishes" restaurant in the same district to cease operations due to the restaurant owner's claims about which dishes Mao Zedong was most partial to. By the same token, this practice also violates relevant provisions of an advertising law which prohibits using living or deceased national leaders for the purpose of promoting business.
Cui Hong (Beijing Morning Post 2001-11-04)
Showing posts with label China - Odd News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China - Odd News. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Friday, 15 May 2009
Cockroach in Food - Restaurant Owner Covers Tracks by Destroying Evidence (2001)
Cockroach in Food - Restaurant Owner Covers Tracks by Destroying Evidence
Guangxi, Liuzhou - After a bug is found in a customer's order, a fast-food restaurant owner makes an artful show of apologizing in order to remove the ‘evidence’.
On October 29th, Miss Zhang went to the fast-food restaurant she usually goes to for lunch next to the computer company where she works. She and three co-workers ordered two orders of fast food and sat down to eat. To their shock, they discovered a cockroach in one of the dishes after only a few bites into their meal. Naturally, upon seeing the dead, thumb-sized arthropod in one of the dishes, all four of them felt more than a tad nauseous.
When they demanded an explanation from the proprietress, she sceptically asked one of the staff to go and have a look. After the worker confirmed that there was in fact a bug, and relayed this to her, she reluctantly came over to their table. Somewhat nonplussed after eyeballing the large roach she started to make a phone call and then put the phone back down.
Then came an inspiration. The owner quickly marched back over to their table, picked up the roach-infested dish and then asked the customers if they could still see a bug in the food as she removed the offending item, threw it on the ground, and stamped on it with a vengeance.
By the time Miss Zhang and her colleagues had realized what had happened, “exhibit a” had been mashed to a pulp and the owner offered not to charge them anything for their “lunch”.
Dissatisfied with the handling of the affair, the four customers immediately dialled "12315" to make a complaint. After having enquired about their complaint, the person receiving the call confirmed, in no uncertain terms, that their complaint could not be processed since the evidence had already been destroyed.
Chen Jie--(Nanguo Morning Post, 2001-11-02)
Translated and edited by D. Christopher Harry
Guangxi, Liuzhou - After a bug is found in a customer's order, a fast-food restaurant owner makes an artful show of apologizing in order to remove the ‘evidence’.
On October 29th, Miss Zhang went to the fast-food restaurant she usually goes to for lunch next to the computer company where she works. She and three co-workers ordered two orders of fast food and sat down to eat. To their shock, they discovered a cockroach in one of the dishes after only a few bites into their meal. Naturally, upon seeing the dead, thumb-sized arthropod in one of the dishes, all four of them felt more than a tad nauseous.
When they demanded an explanation from the proprietress, she sceptically asked one of the staff to go and have a look. After the worker confirmed that there was in fact a bug, and relayed this to her, she reluctantly came over to their table. Somewhat nonplussed after eyeballing the large roach she started to make a phone call and then put the phone back down.
Then came an inspiration. The owner quickly marched back over to their table, picked up the roach-infested dish and then asked the customers if they could still see a bug in the food as she removed the offending item, threw it on the ground, and stamped on it with a vengeance.
By the time Miss Zhang and her colleagues had realized what had happened, “exhibit a” had been mashed to a pulp and the owner offered not to charge them anything for their “lunch”.
Dissatisfied with the handling of the affair, the four customers immediately dialled "12315" to make a complaint. After having enquired about their complaint, the person receiving the call confirmed, in no uncertain terms, that their complaint could not be processed since the evidence had already been destroyed.
Chen Jie--(Nanguo Morning Post, 2001-11-02)
Translated and edited by D. Christopher Harry
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Chinese Sheep Addicted to Tobacco (2001)
Some Sheep in Xi'an just Crave a Good Butt
In some areas of the township of Duqu, in Xi'an's Chang'an County, the number of what local farmers refer to as sheep "addicts" has experienced a dramatic jump. Discarded cigarette butts, which mix in with meadow grass, are ingested by sheep, and over time, some of the sheep develop an appetite for tobacco. As a result, the local townspeople have begun to appeal for an emphasis on the need for truly 'green' meadows.
According to an article in the Xi'an Evening News, reporter Xiao Haibo witnessed the following odd phenomenon at a pasture on the outskirts of Duqu township's Yangwan village: several sheep fighting over cigarette butts tossed by tourists out of passing buses. In Zhupo, another nearby village, one ewe belonging to an elderly man named Zhang has apparently sunk even deeper into the pit of addiction. Every time old Zhang lights up, she presses near him in anticipation of the 'sweet grass'. Although local shepherds try to prevent their flocks from eating the cigarette butts, they have been vexed by the increase in the number of butts littering the rural landscape over the last few years, especially along roadsides where the butt scourge is even more pervasive. A farmer living next to a river in the village said that the paper wrappings of butts come off when it rains, leaving threads of tobacco to float away in the accumulated puddles of water with the result that the sheep quite likely end up eating tobacco as they forage for grass. While the verdict is still out on what kind of threat this may pose to the sheep, it serves as a reminder that open fields and meadows also need to be managed in an environmentally-sound manner.
(Source: Dayang Net)
Translated by D. Christopher Harry
In some areas of the township of Duqu, in Xi'an's Chang'an County, the number of what local farmers refer to as sheep "addicts" has experienced a dramatic jump. Discarded cigarette butts, which mix in with meadow grass, are ingested by sheep, and over time, some of the sheep develop an appetite for tobacco. As a result, the local townspeople have begun to appeal for an emphasis on the need for truly 'green' meadows.
According to an article in the Xi'an Evening News, reporter Xiao Haibo witnessed the following odd phenomenon at a pasture on the outskirts of Duqu township's Yangwan village: several sheep fighting over cigarette butts tossed by tourists out of passing buses. In Zhupo, another nearby village, one ewe belonging to an elderly man named Zhang has apparently sunk even deeper into the pit of addiction. Every time old Zhang lights up, she presses near him in anticipation of the 'sweet grass'. Although local shepherds try to prevent their flocks from eating the cigarette butts, they have been vexed by the increase in the number of butts littering the rural landscape over the last few years, especially along roadsides where the butt scourge is even more pervasive. A farmer living next to a river in the village said that the paper wrappings of butts come off when it rains, leaving threads of tobacco to float away in the accumulated puddles of water with the result that the sheep quite likely end up eating tobacco as they forage for grass. While the verdict is still out on what kind of threat this may pose to the sheep, it serves as a reminder that open fields and meadows also need to be managed in an environmentally-sound manner.
(Source: Dayang Net)
Translated by D. Christopher Harry
Polluters Prefer Paying Fines to Cleaning up their Act (2000)
Polluters Prefer Paying Fines to Cleaning up Their Act
Despite being reported on for acts of illegal polluting and receiving fines from China's Ministry of Environmental Protection, some enterprises still display wanton disregard, preferring to pay fines instead of reducing harmful emissions. In the city of Fuyang, in Zhejiang province, the policy of monetary incentives for snitching on polluters becomes a vicious circle.
Last June, Fuyang was the first city in China to launch a campaign of awarding monetary incentives to individuals reporting incidents of illegal polluting and its anti-polluting hotline has been busy ever since. In the first half of this year, Fuyang's Municipal environmental protection hotline centre received 427 reports, investigated and handed out fines in 210 of those cases, and distributed ¥170,000 RMB (approx. $31,482 Cdn. funds) in reward money.
Oddly enough, these efforts still seem to have had no effect in terms of curtailing the problem and enterprises have repeatedly increased the amount of pollutants they discharge. To date, the city has 316 paper mills, a third of which are small enterprises. Many of them have already been reported on and subsequently fined as many as seven or eight times.
So why is the system of rewards for reporting polluters failing to prevent illegal polluting activity? According to reliable sources, a paper mill with a daily discharge of 1 000 tonnes of water would have to pay ¥50 RMB (Cdn.$ 9.26) per tonne to eliminate pollutants. This would increase such a company's overhead by 50,000 RMB (Cdn. $ 9,259) per day while fines for illegal polluting in Fuyang range from ¥5,000 to ¥30,000 RMB (Cdn $925.90-$5,555.55). Thus, the cost of implementing pollution controls for these enterprises is much higher than the cost of fines for the illegal dumping of toxins. As a result, many would rather pay fines than clean up their act.
Zhang Chunxia (Yangcheng Evening News 2000-07-17) Trans. Chris Harry
Despite being reported on for acts of illegal polluting and receiving fines from China's Ministry of Environmental Protection, some enterprises still display wanton disregard, preferring to pay fines instead of reducing harmful emissions. In the city of Fuyang, in Zhejiang province, the policy of monetary incentives for snitching on polluters becomes a vicious circle.
Last June, Fuyang was the first city in China to launch a campaign of awarding monetary incentives to individuals reporting incidents of illegal polluting and its anti-polluting hotline has been busy ever since. In the first half of this year, Fuyang's Municipal environmental protection hotline centre received 427 reports, investigated and handed out fines in 210 of those cases, and distributed ¥170,000 RMB (approx. $31,482 Cdn. funds) in reward money.
Oddly enough, these efforts still seem to have had no effect in terms of curtailing the problem and enterprises have repeatedly increased the amount of pollutants they discharge. To date, the city has 316 paper mills, a third of which are small enterprises. Many of them have already been reported on and subsequently fined as many as seven or eight times.
So why is the system of rewards for reporting polluters failing to prevent illegal polluting activity? According to reliable sources, a paper mill with a daily discharge of 1 000 tonnes of water would have to pay ¥50 RMB (Cdn.$ 9.26) per tonne to eliminate pollutants. This would increase such a company's overhead by 50,000 RMB (Cdn. $ 9,259) per day while fines for illegal polluting in Fuyang range from ¥5,000 to ¥30,000 RMB (Cdn $925.90-$5,555.55). Thus, the cost of implementing pollution controls for these enterprises is much higher than the cost of fines for the illegal dumping of toxins. As a result, many would rather pay fines than clean up their act.
Zhang Chunxia (Yangcheng Evening News 2000-07-17) Trans. Chris Harry
Chinese Electro-Woman (2001)
Henan's "Electro-woman" --- Able to withstand high-voltage without a second thought
(Trans. Chris Harry)
On the evening of July 15th, a woman wearing a red qipao (traditional Chinese dress) performed an astounding human feat for spectators in the city of Zhengzhou's Lucheng square -- turning on a light bulb by conducting electricity through her body. According to the M.C. at the event, the woman whose name is Yao Yanjing, set a new Guiness world record by withstanding 550 volts of electricity.
Yesterday afternoon, this reporter interviewed her at Zhengzhou's Xinwei Aircraft Equipment Company. "I first discovered I was unafraid of electricity ten years ago", Ms. Yao laughingly said. Once while visiting at a friend's house, a light bulb suddenly burnt out. While replacing the old bulb with a new one, she accidentally touched the metal carrying electricity to the light yet had not the slightest sensation. On May 18th, 1998, she safely overcame the challenge of withstanding 550 volts of electricity, and in the process set a new Guiness world record for the highest voltage withstood as conducted through a finger.
Hu Bingjun/ Wang Jianli (Yangcheng Evening News 2001-07-17)
(Trans. Chris Harry)
On the evening of July 15th, a woman wearing a red qipao (traditional Chinese dress) performed an astounding human feat for spectators in the city of Zhengzhou's Lucheng square -- turning on a light bulb by conducting electricity through her body. According to the M.C. at the event, the woman whose name is Yao Yanjing, set a new Guiness world record by withstanding 550 volts of electricity.
Yesterday afternoon, this reporter interviewed her at Zhengzhou's Xinwei Aircraft Equipment Company. "I first discovered I was unafraid of electricity ten years ago", Ms. Yao laughingly said. Once while visiting at a friend's house, a light bulb suddenly burnt out. While replacing the old bulb with a new one, she accidentally touched the metal carrying electricity to the light yet had not the slightest sensation. On May 18th, 1998, she safely overcame the challenge of withstanding 550 volts of electricity, and in the process set a new Guiness world record for the highest voltage withstood as conducted through a finger.
Hu Bingjun/ Wang Jianli (Yangcheng Evening News 2001-07-17)
Glowing Goldfish (2001)
"The Inspiration for glowing goldfish " (summary) Trans. Chris Harry
Yesterday's "Morning News" published an article entitled "The challenge of viewing goldfish by night". Pondering the question of whether goldfish could be made to flicker and glow like fireflies in the dark of night belongs to the realm of truly inspired and original thought. Scientists acknowledge that others have come up with this idea, but the odds of accomplishing this were so extremely remote that no one had realized this goal in the past. Then, a group of bold thinking and determined middle school students applied their initiative by utilizing contemporary genetic engineering techniques and finally met with success. Using firefly genes, eight students from the Yangpu Middle School injected them into fertilized goldfish eggs, thereby creating the world's first luminescent goldfish. (Xinwen Chenbao) 2001-07-05
Yesterday's "Morning News" published an article entitled "The challenge of viewing goldfish by night". Pondering the question of whether goldfish could be made to flicker and glow like fireflies in the dark of night belongs to the realm of truly inspired and original thought. Scientists acknowledge that others have come up with this idea, but the odds of accomplishing this were so extremely remote that no one had realized this goal in the past. Then, a group of bold thinking and determined middle school students applied their initiative by utilizing contemporary genetic engineering techniques and finally met with success. Using firefly genes, eight students from the Yangpu Middle School injected them into fertilized goldfish eggs, thereby creating the world's first luminescent goldfish. (Xinwen Chenbao) 2001-07-05
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