Two Toddlers Died in Haier Washer Accident

Two sisters of four year old and two year old died in a washer accident on September 21 in Qiaoshe Township, Xinjian County, Nanchang of Jiangxi Province.

When reporter came to visit, they saw a small chair placed in front of the washer. It was believed that the two sisters climbed in the washer using the chair, and closed the lid. They managed to start the washer and were killed. At the time, the father was watching TV in bedroom, and the mother was cooking in the kitchen. The washer was on the balcony. The washer had already been cleaned, but blood stain could still be seen on inner tube.

A witness who helped transported the kids to a local hospital portrayed a horrific scene, "the washer was filled with blood".

After the incident, the two sisters were buried on the same day. The parents moved back to their old house in the country with their third child, a one year old son.

The local government expressed condolence to the tragedy. A spokesperson Mr. Hu indicated that they would provide financial assistant to the family. The uncommonly generous gesture casted a hint of a possible entanglement with the family planning enforcement. Among 19 provincial level government who released their fines for family planning violations in 2012, Jiangxi top the list with $700 million in the past year. There was rumors that the parents might get away the two girls to avoid heavy fine for the baby boy (their third child).

Lives of two young girls is too heavy to be overlooked. This accident has too many unanswered questions which deserves a full-scale and thorough investigation.

The picture shows a Haier fully-automatic top-loading washer, which was usually designed to stop working in case of overload or imbalanced load. The washing cycle was slow and should not stop the toddlers from getting out or in the least making some noise to alert their parents who were both in the same small apartment. Even if somehow the girls were stuck and drowned, the gentle movement in washing cycle should not cause bleeding. The drying cycle should not start with the lid open, and should not start with the combined weight of two kids.

Washer/dryer related death is extremely rare. According to a computer product safety commission report, between 2005 and 2009, only two children under the age of five lost their lives in laundry room accidents, in comparison to 350 death in the bathtub during the same time frame.

Also by looking at the picture, it still seems impossible for the two year old to get in. Could the four year old raise the two year old and feed her to the tube while standing on the small chair? It took a sequence of 7 keys to start the dryer mode. Can a toddler accomplish that without making any mistake?

Police needs to get involved to decide whether it was a homicide or an accident.

Haier Group (SEHK: 1169, SSE: 600690) is a multinational consumer electronics and home appliances company headquartered in Qingdao of Shandong Province, China.

How Chinese Children Go to School

This picture was taken by Lu Qixing in an elementary school in Shanjiang Township in Fenghuangshan (Phoenix Hill) County of Jiangxi Province on July 29, 2012. The sister, a 2nd grader comforted her little brother to take a nap while attending a class. Their parents were hundreds of miles away working as migrant workers to support the family. The boy's head looks big perhaps due to malnutrition.

It's a common scene in many rural schools in China. Children in poverty not only have to take care of their family, but also keep up with school.

The kids are looking up to their parents. They know they have to contribute with their own ways because their parents are working even harder for the family. They understanding going to school is a duty that every kid undertakes as a natural law. That is the secret for the Chinese success.

If the parents can bring home more by not working, thanks to a skewed welfare system, then who can these kids look up to? If going to school in the morning is praised as a virtual, then why do they have to elevate themselves to where they do not see themselves belong?

Children in Zhangjiawan Village, Sangzhi County of Hunan Province went to school, climbing these multi-level high ladders. Although grownups and elders would not go out of village in years, children, beginning at 5 year old, climb up and down these ladders two times a day to go to school in the town. If they drop, it will take awhile to reach the bottom of the valley 800 feet down.

But that no excuse to not go to school, and no one had ever even thought that way. This is how Chinese children go to school, without a school bus, without attendance bonus, without free lunch.

Readers of Daily Mail commented: Those truants in the UK should count their luck seeing how much effort these kids put into going to school; the road to success is paved with snakes and ladders; how amazing to see a five year old read by herself before school; are our politician still trying to figure out why China's the taking over? Hard working and self disciplines; we wouldn't have so many obesities had our kids going to school like that!

Let it snow

Beijing welcomed the first major now of the year. The picture shows a soldier standing still on his post on the Tian'anmen Square.

While many admired his tense and strong posture, for some it is a mere reminder of the People's Library Army's role in the Tian'anmen Square Massacre on June 4th in 1989. The tough soldier is not guarding the people, nor the nation. He is guarding the communist party.

Striking visible is the fire extinguisher, which had been a standard issue for guards of key positions. So many people set themselves to fire to protest the injustice they suffered, and Tian'anmen Square had became a top choice because of the constant media attention it entitles.

There would not be a fire extinguisher ready in places less visible to media scrutiny. As a matter of fact, local officials often order killing or sometimes public execution to 'show an example' to the people. In Zhengzhou of Henan Province, TV aired a video showing officials ordered a bulldozer to run over residents protesting a demolish project (which later showed as illegal). When one resident was run over, the police blocked other residents to save the woman, until her death hours later. In Fuzhou of Jiangxi Province, another illegal demolishing operation sponsored by the local government, Family of Zhong was determined to protect their house with their lives. When the government's bulldozers came, they set themselves on fire. Again the officials on the scene ordered no one should rescue them, and many cameras (some belong to varied government agencies involved, many from other residents living nearby) recorded two people burning, jumping, rolling in pain, until they could not move and how police blocked other residents who tried to come close to help. The 50 years old mother died at the scene. Her 30 years old daughter was badly burned.

In the Fuzhou Zhong family case, one remaining family member was able to get away from police detention (she was charged of obstructing police operation when she tried to put off fire on her mother and sister), and barracked herself in a restroom when the police finally caught up with her in an airport. She was planning to go to Tian'anmen Square to set herself to fire to protest. She was able to send a few micro-blogs (Twits), and thanks to online community, numerous persons acted immediately and probably including some with connections to power, she was promised an investigation from higher-up.

The investigation confirmed the wrongdoings of the local officials. Two commending officers of the Yihuang County, County Party Boss Qiu Jianguo and County Mayor Su Jianguo, were removed from their posts in September 2010 in a high profile manner. The Central Government once again stated no violence should be used in evictions and demolitions.

Last week, Xinhua news reported the two officials were all assigned to new (higher) posts. Qiu Jianguo was promoted to the Director of Development of Fuzhou Prefecture, Su Jianguo was promoted to Director of Public Transportation.

Twit Forward

Two recent cases in China showed twitter (actually, it's state sponsored Chinese-clones because twitter is barred by the authority) could be one WMD for responsible Chinese Internet users.

In Jiangxi Province, an official eviction went wrong when three of the residents set themselves on fire in protesting the procedure. Although there are hundreds of police, paramilitary forces and even an ambulance at the scene. The senior communist officials order the demolition went ahead, and policemen blocked relatives and bystanders to rescue the burning individuals until they shrank to black carbons. The deceased had a dispute with the government on the proper amount of compensation for the building. However, it turned out as now we finally know, the eviction was not even lawful. There was no eviction orders from the court nor the local government. Local government jailed relatives to stop them from making a scene, but two were able to fled as far as the women's restroom in a nearby airport on the way to Beijing for a petition. The airport was not operated by the aforementioned local government, so although they summoned an army of public employees to surround the restroom, the two women were able to broadcast their situation online before they were taken away by force. The online broadcasting triggered a mass twitting phenomenon while the messages were followed and forwarded millions of time, which triggered the network monitoring agency's attention of the central government. The agency's evaluation of the incident is that it mounts to the scale of social stability level so that it should be handled carefully. The central government ordered the local government to release jailed relatives and to renegotiate a fair compensation for the demolished building.

Another incident happened in Beijing. An author was arrested by police in Shaanxi Province because he published an investigative report of people's sufferings on a state project. Although the project had been over dozens of years ago, thousands of people are still homeless because their land were taken away for the project and then reassigned to other people. Also thanks to mass twitting and forwarding, the author was granted a bail.

Although you can vote for the government officials or your representatives, but you do can twit, follow and forward. A few clicks might help save some good people's life. There is no excuse for not doing that.