Talk to the hand

Don’t talk to me about leaded paint on toys. Or tainted pet food or fish fed on antibiotics or antifreeze toothpaste. Whatever you, farang, are getting out there, we’re getting it 100 times worse here, where there is probably zero testing (or whatever testing there is ends up being wiped out by corruption) and zero collective consumer activism (or whatever activism there is meets with brutal repression). You worried about pet food? Here, we worry about our pets ending up as food. I feel bad for you about the crap lining your Wal-Mart shelves, but that shite is a daily reality here from the moment we turn on the faucet in the morning.

If there is any benefit to this media attention on poisons from China, it is this: it sows the seed for the revolution. The Party has long abandoned Socialism, and thus lost its idealist core as its reason for being. So now it must rely on improving the lives of the people that it has fucked for the last 50 years, to justify its extended shelf life. But its ineptitude in dealing with the degradation of the environment and food supply is getting the 老百姓 Chinese folk more and more up in arms. And, based on what I have seen of college grads not being able to find jobs while more and more big German sedans crowd the streets, I suspect that the wealth being created in China is driven by liquidity rather than fundamentals. So in spite of attempts to medicate the masses with things like the Olympics, the World Fair, exploding (and bubble-like) A Share prices, or glorious (but mostly inbound investment-driven) GDP growth, the seeds of discontent are taking root. And beware when the unruly masses here get done playing World of Warcraft and come out from cybercafés and start to smell the shite, cos it will surely hit the fan.

Ok ok, excuse me while I wipe the spit from my computer screen. (And log off, in case the local authorities want to track me down and Jack Bauer my ass....)