Pigeons in Hefei

In an western style wedding ceremony on Nov 11, 2013, the organizers released hundreds of pigeons near the south shore of Swan Lake in the city center of Hefei (source, more pics). In Chinese culture, pigeons are expected to bring good luck and blessings.

The birds immediately found themselves targets of local residents who happened to be at the scene. People of all ages rushed to the birds. Before pigeons could fly away, most were caught and cooked.

Hefei is the capital city of Anhui, hometown of former President Hu Jintao.

Anhui is the most dangerous province in China for birds. Local residents often use fine nets larger than roadside billboards or poisoning an entire lake to catch migrating birds.

May God Bless People in Anhui.

Gu tried in Anhui

The official Xinhua News reported that the Neil Heywood murder case had been started in Hefei, Anhui. British citizen Neil Heywood was alleged to be poisoned by Bo-Gu Kailai, wife of CCP's Politburo member and Charisma Party Chief in Chongqing, Bo Xilai. It is believed to be the largest political scandal in decades. It is rumored Shen Zhijing (Beijing) will join the legal defense team of Bo-Gu Kailai, along with Jiang Min (Anhui). Shen defended former Deputy Minister of the Public Security Ministry Li Jizhou. Jiang, being the deputy president of national association of attorneys, is not a trial lawyer.

Although it is understandable to have the case tried in a neutral third place, away from Bo's Chongqing, Anhui is still an interesting pick being one of the most poor areas lagging behind the nation. Why?

The answer is that Anhui is the hometown and power base of Chief Justice Wang Shengjun. Born 1946 in Suxian, Anhui, Wang attended Hefei Normal College in 1966, majoring in History. Due to the start of the Great Cultural Revolution in early 1966, Wang did not have much formal college education. Wang never took a course in legal related areas, and never worked a single day at a court. Still Wang was named the (ninth) Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of People in 2008.

One month after resumed the Chief Justice position, Wang published a sentencing rule on death penalty, where are: 1) law; 2) security status; 3) social feelings. The three point guidance make many law experts puzzled.

Anhui Province is an interesting place. In a sense it is the miniature of China. A small province known for its poverty, Anhui has contributed to numerous famous people in Chinese history. Many scientists, businessmen, political strongmen come from Anhui in thousands of years, probably more than any other place in China. Yet, Anhui itself remained one of the most poor area with the most corrupt political systems.

Scholar Set Up Collaborative Website to Fight Child Slavery

At least hundreds Chinese children are being abducted on any given day from their parents. They will be resold several times, until end of in the hands of some 'beggar camp', where they would be confined in cages and trained to be a qualified children beggars. Many of them would be further fixed by pouring acids on their body, or amputation of all 4 limbs, so that they look more visually appealing to sympathetic walkers passing by. At the beginning, many of these child slaves were acquired from poor families in remote rural countryside or government run orphanages. In recent years, because of 'high demand', the major source changed to abduction from busy intersections in major cities. Many city residents' children went missing this way every day, including many from rather well off background. It has become a nightmare for all young parents, and a great factor in social instability. However, police rarely act on these kind of cases, even when the family was able, after extremely hard works and with a great deal of luck, to identify the whereabout of their missing children, because there is little room to make profit. But the most daunting task is to find the children in a country as large as the US, with 5 times the populations.

Scholar Yu Jianrong had an idea on how to fight this with, what else, Twitter (or micro-blog as commonly referred in China). Yu set up a micro-blog account where people can post pictures all the child beggar they ran into in real time, so that parents who have children missing can see them and identify them and act accordingly. Yu suggested a standard three steps protocol: 1) Give a small amount of money, not too little that the child would be beaten by their master as punishment for incompetent, not too much that they will not appear the next day; 2) quickly take a picture of the child with recognizable face features using cell phone; 3) send the picture to the micro-blog website dedicated for this cause.

Within days after the page was set up, more than 100 thousand people 'followed' the thread. More than 2,000 pictures of children beggars were uploaded.

Yu's ingenious idea marked a historic moment where the Internet was put into real use to attack a social issue with tremendous impact on the entire society from bottom to top elite. To make money, the children slaves would have to work in prosperous cities where people are in general more tech-savvy and eager to participate for a good cause (think, 'Egypt'). This operation could eliminate the motivation for children slave in China, and destroy the entire production line.

The police's inaction is evident from the existence of many well-known long established children beggar training camps with no harassment from the government at all. For example, in the picture a young child with missing legs were being trained in Gongxiao Village, Gongji Twonship, Taihe County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province. Many local communist officials are share holders of this kind of businesses. Begging industry has been the sole major revenue source for this extremely wealthy area. Most people are involved in children slavery industry one way or another.

Perhaps February, Perhaps March

'Rapist' Zhan Ranmeng was sentenced two years in jail by the People's Court of Dongzhi County, Chizhou, Anhui Province. The court found he along with two other men raped a woman in one day of, 'perhaps February, perhaps March' of 2008.

The defendants insisted on their innocence.

When news media questioned the verdict, the court replied that it had been a common practice of the court (to use vague phrases in the verdict) when the police could not provide accurate information before the trail starts. The head judge of the case, Judge Mr. Gao Guiwei refused to comment on the verdict.

Start of Melamine Milk Powder

Around June 2004, newspaper reported cases of babies died of drinking milk powder with zero nutritious ingredients in Anhui Province. Before their death, these babies had distinctive appearance of swollen heads due to water intoxication. They were referred to as the Big Head Babies. Sanlu Dairy was named as one of the suppliers who produced the killer milk. In a PR stun and with help from higher up (the acting minister of the Health Department, Mr. Gao Qiang), Sanlu was removed from the list.

Amid public outcry after the breakout of the extend of the Big Head Babies scandal, the Chinese government started testing the protein level contained in milk powder products, which, in turn, trigger the melamine scandal.

To answer questions from readers, the techniques of adding melamine was introduced in 2004, and peaked in 2007, when Sanlu was awarded a national science progress award, the highest national award in science. The only dairy related technique to be awarded in the 30 years history of the national top science award.

Luxury Government Buildings Questioned

An article published in the Japanese Sankei Express (産経新聞) questioned the wisdom of a Chinese local government in Anhui Province for building luxury government buildings while leaving school kids under collapsing roofs.

Japanese funded for the rebuild of Yangzhuang Elementary School in Yingquan District, Fuyan of Anhui Province. A new teaching hall with 12 classrooms is being build thanks to $80,000 from Japan. Yangzhuang Elementary School applied for the grant in 2001. At the time, all but 4 classrooms in the 600 kids school are collapsing, and kids took classrooms under shaking bricks. They had applied for Chinese national educational grant earlier, but didn't get any. The application for international assistant was passed by the local government to the provincial government, and finally landed in the General-Consulate of Japan in Shanghai.

About the same time, the local government started building their luxury office building, which is often ridiculed by local residents as the 'white house'.

Japan sent in investigators to check out the condition, and they were shocked by the scene of hundreds of kids reading under falling roofs. The project was fully funded by Japanese Foreign Ministry's safety enhancement funds. The rebuild started in March of 2006, and finished by the end of the year. Now the school is the best building overseeing the village.

Japanese investigators published an article in the influential Sankei Express on June 22, 2007. Although they recommended the funding, but they argued that they were shocked by the excessive luxury of the office building used by the local government. The regional (county level) government's new office building is comparable to the Palace of Versailles in Paris. Its cost should be more than enough to rebuild hundreds of country schools. So what was it in local official's mind?

The article was noticed by Chinese Nanfang Daily in an investigative report. Despite the extreme poor condition of the building, the education system in the region is severely suffering from underfunding. Even teachers were not paid. The local Party boss, Mr. Zhang Zhian was reported receiving the position by bribing his county Party boss with $12,000. Nevertheless, he is still holding his position, and praised by his Party bosses.

Chinese have long been known as investing in education. However, that's only on the individual level done by individual families. The communisms government never behaves that way.

On the contrary, Japanese government place education the top priority. Education played a significant role in Japan's uprising in the late 19th century.

The question is: should the Japanese government take care of Chinese education, while the Chinese officials busy building luxury government buildings?

Chinese Government Does not Trust Made-In-China

Hefei government published an air-conditioning purchase announcement on Nov 16, which explicitly excluded any made-in-China products in participation, not even those with foreign brand and only assembled in China. Lack of technical specification, the announcement only required that the air-conditioning must be imported in its entity (not in parts and then assembled in China). Actually, this has been the case for years. The Chinese government does not trust made-in-China product. Whatever they say on the newspaper and TV, they do not want to use made-in-China product themselves. The Party Boss Mr. Li of the Bureau of Homeland Resources told the reporters of Anhui Business News that they must use the 'best' product.

What's even more ironic and drama is that the Hefei government just signed a deal with the Gree Air-conditioning Company to build a manufacture base that will produce 30 million air-conditioner per year, or one thirds of the world market.

Hefei is the capital city of Anhui Province in Central China.