The News

We've started subscribing to the International Herald Tribune, which gives us New York Times news as well as international news focused on Asia. Before our subscription started, we were buying the Shanghai Daily or the China Daily whenever we remembered, and watching CCTV 9, the Chinese English-language TV station, where we saw the bad news on the weather (36 degrees in Shanghai!) several times a day. Now that we have satellite TV we seldom watch Chinese TV, which is a shame. Perhaps when our Mandarin improves I'll give us the assignment to watch Chinese TV 1/2 hour per day, homework permitting.

Since we arrived here I've been reading the business news, something I never spent much time on at home. For one, there's a lot more of it relative to the rest of the paper. For another, the IHT business news is very different from the business section of the SF Chronicle, and conveys considerably more information about economy and society in Asia. We get the IHT from Hong Kong so the emphasis is on Asian news of all sorts, along with the regular news and editorial content. I even read the sports section, something I seldom did at home in the US.

Although I appreciate the chance to read well-written New York Times-style news stories, the Chinese news is both more interesting and more enlightening. Examples from the Shanghai Daily (archives available only to subscribers) of Friday, September 8, 2006:

Expats honored with award - Thirty-eight foreigners, mostly business executives, were awarded the Magnolia Silver Award by the city government yesterday for outstanding contributions to the city's development. But as officials praised the award winners, some recipients suggested the government could do more to improve the local manners as well as the city's business environment. . .
Expo weather under control, bureau says - The Shanghai Meteoriological Bureau said it was taking steps to ensure 2010 World Expo festivities are not dampened by the weather. The Expo, which will take place from May to October, could be hit by the plum rains, soaring summer temperatures or seasonal typhoons, the bureau said. The bureau is planning to control the climate through cloud seeding or cloud removal. . .
Woman appeals grandmother status - . . . Wang wants to prove her son wasn't really married -- a court has already annulled the marriage -- and didn't have a child so she is his sole heir and gets to keep the apartment. . .

In this issue is a full-page opinion piece about coal-bed methane, entitled TAP MINE GAS, with a sidebar stating that "China has the highest number of coalmine accident fatalities in the world, with about 80 percent of casualties attributed to gas explosions, causing direct losses of US$93 million a year." The author believes that investment is the key, and apparently a coal-bed methane power plant is being built in Shanxi province. Let's hope some of that investment is in mine safety. Unfortunately, occupational safety does not receive much attention here.

One of the things I will bring home with me is a file of news articles. There is plenty of environmental news in the English language press. From page A2 of the Monday, September 11, 2006, edition of the Shanghai Daily:

Water source in Hunan tainted by arsenic spill - Nearly 100,000 residents in central China's Yueyang have been warned to stop using their tap water for drinking after a nearby river was contaminated by an arsenic leak from a chemical plant. . .
Safe drinking water targeted - China will tighten pollution controls over the next five years in its campaign to provide safe drinking water to its populous countryside, a top official said yesterday. . .

No doubt there will be more such stories tomorrow. I'd better remember to buy a paper.