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JISHOU, HUNAN — Chinese authorities have apparently detained artist Ai WeiWei, after they prevented him from flying overseas from Hong Kong’s airport on Sunday. His whereabouts remain unknown.  Artist Ai WeiWei (AP file photo) Following the public protests in several Middle Eastern and North African countries, China’s political bosses have been rounding up dissidents left and right, in an effort to quell any similar movements here.
Ai has had several run-ins with authorities already. He was blocked from attending the ceremony awarding Liu Xiaobo (who is in prison) the Nobel Peace Prize, one of his art studios near Shanghai was bulldozed, and in recent weeks, the cops have visited his offices and studios several times.
The artist, who designed the Olympic Bird’s Nest Stadium, had been keeping a running tally of dissident detentions on a Twitter feed that had 70,000 followers. I guess the politicos didn’t like that many people knowing what they’re up to.
The AP has the story, though The Guardian has a more detailed one.
Incidentally, the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of the press and freedom of expression. It’s just applied very selectively.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — Salt has just become the most sought after commodity in China since Japan’s looming nuclear emergency started a week ago.
Prompted by word of mouth medical advice, Chinese — especially those in the eastern provinces close to Japan — have nearly cleared the supermarket shelves of salt. What salt is available is being sold at exorbitant prices, following the time-honored advice of W.C. Fields, “Never give a sucker an even break.”
[Apparently, the word on the street is that iodized salt -- if they are even bothering to check for the iodized part -- is a suitable replacement for potassium iodide (KI) pills. KI doses are a preventive measure against radioactive iodine, a component of nuclear fallout, concentrating in one's thyroid glands. Someone consuming enough salt to effectively replace KI pills would probably keel over from high blood pressure, or at least from excessive thirst.]
Meanwhile, a fake email alert purporting to be from the BBC has circulated all around Asia, advising people to stay inside, avoid getting rained on, and to put betadine on the skin near their thyroid glands.
BBC Flash news : Japan Government confirms radiation leak at Fukushima nuclear plants. Asian countries should take necessary precautions. If rain comes, remain indoors first 24 hours. Close doors and windows. Swab neck skin with betadine where thyroid area is, radiation hits thyroid first. Take extra precautions. Radiation may hit Philippine at around 4 pm today. If it rains today or in the next few days in Hong Kong. Do not go under the rain. If you get caught out, use an umbrella or raincoat, even if it is only a drizzle. Radioactive particles, which may cause burns, alopecia or even cancer, may be in the rain.
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LONGSHAN, HUNAN — No, I was not in a bus plunge accident, but I was in a bus, on a mountain road, in the rain last week. The experience was oddly enough one of the highlights of the last three weeks.
A time-honored half-inch filler in many newspapers has traditionally been the proverbial “bus plunge” story, which goes something like,
GENERICA, HOONOHSISTAN — Nearly 100 people died last week when their overloaded bus skidded off a snowy mountain road and into a ravine 100 feet below. Rescuers were unable to reach the scene until weather conditions improved yesterday.
Despite the morbid subject matter, among newspaper people, bus plunge stories are somewhat of a running joke, since they are basically boilerplate copy. You just change the date, the number of casualties and the location and leave everything else basically the same. For years, I half wondered if the Associated Press was pulling our legs and just making these stories up. Some intern was sitting at a desk somewhere manufacturing half-inch bus plunge stories for release at random times.
Of course, such accidents really do happen, and they’re no joke. All this was running through my mind as my bus ambled from Longshan to Jishou.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — I realized over this winter holiday how much I don’t know about teaching English. Despite accolades from my students and my fellow teachers, I’m not so satisfied with my work so far. I get better at it every term, but I have a long ways to go as a language teacher.
Last term, my workload was relatively easy: two periods of Western Culture and six periods of Oral English a week. Nevertheless, a lot of my time was spent prepping for the Culture class. I felt somewhat guilty that I was not putting in more time prepping for the Oral English classes, especially for the freshmen, but I had organized the classes well enough that things pretty much took care of themselves.
This term, I have more work to do. The juniors have me for two subjects: British Literature and Academic Writing. Needless to say, I’ve got several months of hardcore reading and writing ahead of me. The sophomores will still meet me twice a week for Oral English, and I hope to try some new activities to enliven the classes even more. The freshmen will have a different foreign teacher, since we each typically teach eight periods (16 classes) a week.
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LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY — Al Jazeera reports that the net nannies in China are blocking discussion about the democratic movements in Egypt on a popular micro-blogging service.
Chinageeks.org reports official news sources are keeping mum about the reasons for the protests, if they carry any reports about them at all. Apparently, China is also blocking Al Jazeera’s live video streams and sanitizing discussion forums as quickly as anyone posts.
Maybe the leaders in Beijing are a little worried. One wonders why.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — Beijing artist Ai WeiWei is a vocal critic of China’s Communist Party. While party officials have not arrested him (yet), they seem to take special glee in making his life miserable.
On Tuesday, government officials authorized the demolition of Ai’s newly built artists’ studio in a village outside Shanghai.
The link above will take you the complete article at The New York Times.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — We had a white New Year’s here. It started to snow yesterday and continued into today. The temperature is about 30°F. Here’s a photo — not too often you see snow on a palm tree.
 Palm tree. Snow. I'm so confused! I know this is small potatoes compared to what some of you guys in the USA have had. Even so, the inter-city buses are grounded, because of icy roads. Meanwhile, the taxi drivers are on strike, protesting a outrageously high boost in their monthly licensing fees. The only things running are the city buses and the trains.
Sort of like snow in Kentucky.
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