Shanghai Surprises: September 2008

Warning- ensuing rant to follow: I haven't had one of these days in awhile but today was definitely an "I hate China" day. I am sure most of you have heard about the milk scandal here- in a nutshell, some unscrupulous milk manufacturers decided that in order meet the required protein standards they would just add a poisonous chemical to their dairy products. It started with just baby formula (could you get any scummier? Messing with baby formula?) but now, as is usually the case with things like this in China, it has spread to regular fresh milk, yogurt, ice cream, etc. And the kicker is that the milk Audrey drinks (she is the only one of us who drinks the fresh whole milk since she is under 2) is OF COURSE on the list of tainted products. She's been drinking it for 6 months. My ayi, trying to ease my mind, was like "don't worry, it only had a little bit of melamine in it". Yeah, but the point is that is shouldn't have ANY chemicals in it. I am so frustrated! Today it's milk, tomorrow what? Meat, noodles, rice, etc. We already buy almost all of our veggies from an organic farm and today I ordered beef to be delivered from Australia. And let me tell you it costs an arm and leg to live on imported products here. But I think we are really going to cut back on our chicken and pork consumption as I've heard recent rumors that there are tons of added steroids and hormones. Anyway, the only reason the milk got tested was because a bunch of kids got kidney stones from drinking it; otherwise, we all would've just kept on buying it without even knowing. It just makes me question what other kind of crap it in our food here. Now, I know that not everything in the US is healthy or chemical free (remember the tomato recall this summer?)- but I'd like to think that on the whole, we don't have to worry about people adding crazy shit into our food to hit some sort of required nutrition standards- but ya never know.
Now on the whole, I would venture to say that in one way, China is a lot safer than the US- virtually no violent crime, no kidnappings, no shootings, no child molesting, etc. But on the other side of it you're chances of getting killed while crossing the street are much higher, you might die from poisonous chemicals in your food, and look out for that construction overhead that might fall on you as you pass by. In short, no safety standards whatsoever. So which is worse- worrying about your kids getting kidnapped if they are out of your sight or worrying about them getting some random parasite from drinking their bath water- you decide.
Anyway, we are off to Japan on Saturday and I am really excited to get out of here for a week and go somewhere that has milk we can drink :)

I'm feeling a bit lazy this week and I don't really have much new to write about - except for the fact that I bit the bullet and took a public bus the other day. It was raining, I was tired, there were no taxis...so I figured what the hell? It wasn't as bad as I thought. The funniest thing was that the stops were announced in both english and chinese (a recording- believe me that the drivers don't speak english). I thought this was hilarious considering that I have never seen a foreigner ride the bus in China- I honestly think maybe I was the first one! But it only cost about 17 cents so I may do it more often.

Anyway, enjoy the pics (I threw in a couple recent ones of the kids at the end for good measure):

Migrant workers shaving and bathing out on the street at night. Since they live in the buildings they are constructing, they don't have anywhere else to clean up (they weren't happy we took this picture either).