“Critics have accused this new breed of administrators of neocolonialism. But in fact their approach is not that of a nineteenth-century colonial officer. Colonial administrations may have been racist and exploitative, but they did at least work seriously at the business of understanding the people they were governing. They recruited people prepared to spend their entire careers in dangerous provinces of a single alien nation. They invested in teaching administrators and military officers the local language. They established effective departments of state, trained a local elite, and continued the countless academic studies of their subjects through institutes and museums, royal geographical societies, and royal botanical gardens. They balanced the local budget and generated fiscal revenue because if they didn’t their home government would rarely bail them out. If they failed to govern fairly, the population would mutiny.

Postconflict experts have got the prestige without the effort or stigma of imperialism. Their implicit denial of the difference between cultures is the new mass brand of international intervention. Their policy fails but no one notices. There are no credible monitoring bodies and there is no one to take formal responsibility.

Individual officers are never in any one place and rarely in any one organization long enough to be adequately assessed. The colonial enterprise could be judged by the security or revenue it delivered, but neocolonialists have no such performance criteria. In fact their very uselessness benefits them. By avoiding any serious action or judgment they, unlike their colonial predecessors, are able to escape accusations of racism, exploitation, and oppression.

Perhaps it is because no one requires more than a charming illusion of action in the developing world. If the policy makers know little about the Afghans, the public knows even less, and few care about policy failure when the effects are felt only in Afghanistan.”

Thanks to our panel managers’ keen eyes for talent, and the moderation of our professors-in-residence, discussions were kept “pithy, provocative, and particular” – not to mention humorous.

But, while most panelists yeah-sayed in reply to this year’s theme (“Is Capitalism Sustainable?”) what really struck me were two recurring points raised throughout the conference:

1) Capitalism fails to effectively deal with externalities and long term horizons; and – perhaps more importantly

2) People value consumption, not efficiency.

Either one of these notions is a discussion unto itself but the second point is of specific interest and – having worked for a company that promotes efficiency – concern. As our GEM (General Accounting for Managers) professor instructs us that ‘pushing out the PPF’ (Production Possibilities Frontier – aka “the hill of happiness”) is always better I can’t help but wonder: is it?

Every time technological advances have increased energy efficiency, for example, increased consumption has pushed energy use back out to its original level or beyond. But can we continually increase our consumption without consequence?

I think, quite clearly, the answer is no. So where do we go from here?

Once upon a time, when the local river wasn’t frozen over, a few brave (read: foolish) Tuckies trekked into the woods and goaded each other to dangerous heights on a rickety platform…

China reporter held over cardboard-in-buns story

So, is Beijing pulling a cover-up here, or is the story really fabricated? And, since this is a time of “intense international scrutiny” for China regarding food-related scandals will this reporter be unduly executed… I mean punished?

According to a the Harvard Business Review (Scorched Earth, June 2007):

“International standards define a serious water shortage as the availability of 2,000 cubic meters or less of water per capita per year; 1,000 cubic meters per year is considered the minimum for existence. Currently in Northern China – which stretches from Shanghai to Beijing and contains nearly 40% of China’s total population – the average amount of available water is only 1,100 cubic meters per capita per year, and the water table for the entire region is dropping precipitously.”

I have an idea that might help: stop hosing down the damn trees!

It’s been humid and pouring rain for the last few weeks and yet… someone on city council feels that spraying high powered jets of water into the air is a good idea. Please allow this photo and video to elaborate on a particularly wasteful, sonically atrocious, likely toxic and generally ludicrous Shanghainese activity.

We assume it’s a pesticide dispersal system of sorts. The same truck has been patrolling up and down the French Concession neighborhood for several days warning off pedestrians with fairground tunes and leaving a soaked path of mystery in its wake.

Better yet, the wordpress.com blogging platform also works, allowing me to bring you this exciting news from my sorely neglected internet home, which has sat in digital jail for most of the last two years. Huzzah.

And, in keeping with the theme of good triumphing over the annoying, Germany has chosen not to allow Tom Cruise to film at one of its military bases on the basis of his being a Scientologist. So says the NYTimes: “The German government has long been at odds with Scientology, which it does not regard as a religion but as a dangerous sect.” (okay, okay, this is old hat and may yet be resolved… but leave me my dreams)

In other news, China continues to make outlandish claims that it will solve all the mysteries of operating a harmonious society by 2010. If I had a dollar for every goal to be accomplished by that date…

Being back in the US, I was finally able to procure myself a much wanted account (you can’t register from an overseas IP) but while I love the features I have so far been hesitant to pass on the number due to a worry that, while cool, the site wouldn’t be around long.

Worry no more. It’s not convenient to change your telephone number but switching to, or at least phasing in, GrandCentral is now worth the hassle for all it’s amazing features and its new Google-backed future reliability.

Among it’s awesome abilities: simultaneous or scheduled ring-through to your home, cell or work phones; online accessible voicemail that will notify you by text message or email; personalized incoming ring tones for your callers; ability to listen in on voice messages as they are recorded or even take the call in the middle if you want; and, not to mention, one phone number… forever… for all phones.

Oh yes, and it’s free!

www.grandcentral.com

Hello World. It’s been a long Net-absence but I’m back in the US for a lavish second time in as many months, and this time for a proper holiday. Lindsay’s wedding to be precise, which simultaneously affords one week of wonderful life on Cape Cod along with a yoyo’d international group of childhood friends. It stands to be an excellent time all around.

The trip over was a hellish 28-hour odyssey starting with a delay in Shanghai and then thunderstorms upon arrival in Chicago. The delay turned into a partial blessing since I ended up arriving before my sister and Louise who had departed before me on a parallel United flight (I took AA). They arrived amidst the worst of the storms and were grounded for two hours at nearby Rochester. All of our ensuing connections were cancelled and we didn’t get to Logan Airport until 3am, 7 hours after we were supposed to be on the Cape (… still a two hour drive away). Lily didn’t make it out to DC until the next morning and “slept” on a baggage carousel.

On the upside, the car rental lady took pity on us and we drove down in muscle car style with a bright red Mustang. Would’ve made my friend Steve proud. But on the further downside, our first day was wasted since we pulled up my driveway just after daybreak and collapsed into bed until 4pm. Naturally, I’m now wide awake when I should be face down in my pillows.

A good time to blog I say. So, thusly back in a land where my favoritest sites WordPress.com and Flickr are not blocked, what do you suppose I might ramble on about (aside from my travels)?

Rats and cucarachas of course! I thought I’d briefly relate a recent ‘life in China’ story and refer you to an interesting blog posted by my friend Kaying regarding the intersection of globalization and unconscious racism in The Netherlands. You are referred.

And now the insects:

On my way to meet Lily and Liz at the Pudong Oriental Pearl Tower (yes indeedy, that’s two sister (√) and no parents (X) who have visited me in the Middle Kingdom) I walked through one of People’s Square’s many snaking exit tunnels.

Upon entry, at the first landing, I noticed a crowd of people gathered in a semi circle against one wall. Now, this typically means one of three things: there is an accident and everybody has stopped to stare (but not help), there is a fight and everybody has stopped to stare (but not intervene), or there is someone selling something very interesting.

I had happened upon the later. Draped across the ground was a printed poster depicting text I could only partially decipher and pictures of six common household pests: mice, rats, cockroaches, centipedes (see my recent Hangzhou pictures for reference), snakes, and spiders.

The sales-pitch that accompanied this unusual sign clarified all in an inhumane but extremely effective manner:

For 10rmb a piece, the vendor appeared to be turning a brisk sales of small heart shaped night-light that glowed blue when plugged into his portable generator. Six feet from the vendor was a rather large gerbil in a rather small cage spasming in awful fits corresponding to the plug and unplug.

Vendor:

“Does it work? See for yourself!” ZAP! [gerbil spasms] [Sale]

“Rats, Cockroaches, sure… it keeps them all away, just look!” ZAP! [gerbil runs to other side of cage, slams into the bars, falls on its back and spasms] [Another sale]

I know this kind of thing must be outlawed in most developed countries but it was a very convincing demonstration. Perhaps I’ve been living in this country too long, or maybe it was the two inch roach that I discovered on my towel after a shower last week but I almost found myself reaching for my wallet. Almost.

Love Harry

Today is one of those days.

No, today was not a day when I discovered a porn maven had favorited pictures of my sisters and girlfriend (a true story, that person is now blocked from my account), and today was not a day that I found a shot posted up on a local Shanghai city-blog (also true)

Rather, it seems the shot I took here, at my grandparent’s house in Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, was spotted by a contributor to Wikimedia Commons (his profile indicates age 31, from Israel) and used to illustrate an enyclopedia entry for flowering Bluemink (Ageratum Houstonianum). Lovely.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ageratum_houstonianum_(alverson).jpg

In other news, I recently cleaned our 5-gallon water dispenser. I’ve heard horror stories about cloudy water and ensuing food poisoning. We weren’t quite at that phase but it seemed time after a year of use and, indeed, a strange film of orange substance had collected on the internal holding chamber. Naturally, I thought it would be exceedingly wise to doubly disinfect by flushing the system with a bit of alcohol. Tequila to be precise. See, not wanting to waste the spirits we actually drink, I chose to sacrifice our neglected bottle of José Cuervo Silver. Unfortunately, every glass of water since then has carried a hint of Mexico. ¡Qué lástima! Ah well, on the upside our coffee now has more of a kick.

(Incidentally, I tried to do this using YouTube, but couldn’t get the clip to upload, so I ended up going with Google Video. Nice to have options)

The pictures here are from Mt. Hua (aka Hua Shan), one of China’s five holy (Taoist) peaks (Mt. Hua represents Metal – later we visited Shaolin Shan in Henan, the central Taoist peak representing Heart. 2 of 5 not bad for a short trip). Climbing Huashan — that is to say, walking up a whole lot of granite steps — ranks among the top “natural” experiences I’ve had in this country. Steps aside, the hike was invigorating, the air clean, the creek crystal clear, and the scenery absolutely incredible, including some of the most unique rock faces I’ve ever seen and actual native COLOR!

Huashan is a two hour train ride east of Xi’an and we decided to make it a one way destination stop en-route home to Shanghai. Gear in tow we set off on the 7am local. Since we bought our tickets the day of departure, a bad but largely unavoidable habit throughout our spontaneous trip, we found ourselves without assigned seats. Why they can’t assign seats on the day, even for an empty train, is curious to me. Naturally, this also led to some quintessential cross-cultural confusion. Frankly, I should know the train systems here better, but having been spoiled by air travel we we walked down the car aisles looking for a conductor to assist our search. Though most seats were empty, strange previous encounters pushed me onward to ensure we wouldn’t be asked to move later. However, in each car we passed the resident warden shook his head at our tickets and pointed us onwards until we’d walked the entire length of the train without successfully finding a place to park. Properly amused with our confusion the last conductor, the youngest and most kindly, decided to “let” us sit in his car. As we read later, when it comes to unassigned seats you’re basically allowed to sit anywhere as long as the seat is free. Why we kept getting passed forward will simply remain one of Shaanxi’s many customer service mysteries.

The trek up Huashan is a 5 hour affair, longer if you’re taking it easy. It is possible to spend the night on the summit in one of several “hostels” but our plan was to be down in time to catch the through train to Luoyang, in the next province. After stashing our big packs in a local restaurant at the base, and laughingly allowing ourselves to be goaded into purchasing a pair of 13-cent cotton gloves (which would later prove invaluable on the exposed “plank-path” lined with heat sucking metal hand-holds) we began our hike. It was a wonderful feeling to leave behind the valley smog and for several hours we trooped up the increasingly steep steps, which eventually looked like this:

Well past the half-way point, but still an hour from the summit, the base trail plateaus at the North Peak cut-off. It is also here that a cable-car from the opposite side of the mountain vomits forth throngs of jabbering local tourists. It would be hypocritical to overly lament the existence of the cable-car since it saved our knees, and time, on the way down, but it is not an exaggeration to say that our gorgeous and solitary walk through the country side was rudely and unexpectedly transformed into a jostling bread-line the rest of the way up the mountain, which follows a narrow trail know as Green Dragon’s Back. Thankfully, the summit is actually several distinct peaks with separate paths diverging once again near the top and our destination, the infamous “plank-path” just under the highest South Peak, was not a major draw. The following picture may help you understand why:

My friend Steve told me about the plank path when I first mentioned we were traveling to Xi’an. After his description > I knew it had to be done. It certainly lived up to it’s description. While the shoulder harnesses offered a modicum of security, the rusted metal spikes and worn chain links did not. The end destination is a small platform, home to a small chizzled-out cave containing a figure of Tao, and an interesting cedar growing horizontally out over the abyss:

All in, it was a hell of a great day trip.

I know, you all want to hear about what I’ve done over the last 7 weeks in the US, Thailand, Beijing, Xian, Henan, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Patience, patience. Here, in temporary stead, is a guide to properly donning Thai fisherman pants, as requested by Ma and sisters. (Click pic for the full sequence on Flickr)

Note: We are neither Thai nor fishermen; therefore, this guide is unofficial and subject to revision as dictated by individual tastes (and local sea life)

Last Sunday (Sept 3) Mathieu organized a group to head out and enjoy the Shanghai Boat & Yatch Club’s “Open Day” on Lake Dianshan (淀山湖) – SBYC’s base of operations about an hour from Shanghai. The lake sits exactly over the border to Jiangsu Province, with Suzhou just on the other side. After a pancake breakfast (pics later…) and a bus ride past some fairly strange mushroom and elephant shaped buildings (no pictures, unfortunately) we found ourselves to one side of the Shanghai Olympic Aquatics Training Facility.

The gorgeous weather brought a near-record turn out, 70 people (fortunately we made it into the first bus), and the day kicked off with everyone clambering for spots on too few boats. Our team (ahem, Steve) mis-interpreted the whiteboard’s “cat” for catamaran and we unexpectedly found ourselves on Bill Crampton’s tubby New England cat-boat. Bill won’t mind me saying this because while the Monicat isn’t a trampolined speed machine, she does indeed embody the pleasurable antithesis of an adrenaline thrill ride and we owe him a big thanks for an incredibly welcome and relaxing experience – even if he did make us scrub the decks… literally A fine day out day she does provide.

Apparently, Bill’s uncle, Hans Christian, is a semi-famous boat designer in the New England area and Bill and Hans custom designed and built Monicat at a local factory in Shanghai. She and her newer sister are probably the only cat-boats in China. The factory, thanks to Bill, is now a successful boat manufacturer.

We spent the day tacking back and forth just off-shore, playing chicken with enormous concrete buoys, observing fleets of floating backhoes dredging a new channel (the entire 62 sq-km lake is only 3-5 meters deep), heeding the confusing calls of local fishermen, dodging unusually placed iron pipes sunk into the lake floor – and lurking just beneath water level, and admiring the remnants of an elaborate network of fishing nets that used to cover the entire surface of the lake before it was officially designated an aquatic recreation zone in about 1998.

Among the lake’s other strange attractions is an old Russian Ekranoplan, aka Ground Effect Vehicle, anchored at a PRC army recreational facility (the one we saw didn’t quite look like any of these, but it’s an interesting technology that’s still being researched). Though it hasn’t appeared to move in the last four year, the Ekranoplan can evidently reach the other side of the lake in just 8 minutes while flying at an altitude of about 2 meters. GEVs were originally used by the Soviet army to transfer ground troops across the Caspian Sea. They’re still used in some parts of the world, especially Australia, as an efficient form of travel over smooth bodies of water.

Back on shore, this land lubber finally re-joined a gym, not Your Gym this time, but Fitness First.

Last Wednesday we had the old gang around, avec Pierre and Mathieu, for some internet-delivery Thai food from the friendly folks at Thai FoodStation (we discovered TFS a few months back at another newish Shanghai pleasure, the Garden Bookstore flea market – every 3rd Saturday of the month). Lou baked up a tofu chocolate storm and Mathieu shared his incredible new – and plasmotically fresh – tattoo.

Stories from this weekend’s apartment hunting and Dino-beach “Splash” experience will have to wait. The highlight: Shanghai has suddenly become quite chilly. I’ll check in soon with new pictures. In the meantime I’ll be pulling my sweaters out of storage; I’m suddenly having trouble believing this season will bring an “Autumn Tiger“.

Live-Electronica at musky Antidote C’s last Thursday. Photo #5:

http://www.shanghaiist.com/archives/2006/09/01/photos_antidote.php

A Stroll in Sim City, posted up by Shanghaiist to accompany a byline:

http://www.shanghaiist.com/archives/2006/08/15/extra_extra_52.php#comments

Same pic at my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alverson/213900642/

COS Certificate of Suitability issued by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM)

CTD Common Technical Document OR Comparative Toxicogenomics Database

DMF Drug Master File

EDMF European Drug Master File

FDA Food and Drug Administration (USA)

GMP Good Manufacturing Practice

The following site was quite useful, but not wholly complete:

http://www.pharma-lexicon.com/medicalabbreviations.php

Our solution, to be implemented tonight, is the following organic pesticide:

Garlic Insecticide
Pulverize in a blender a couple of whole cayenne peppers, a large onion and a whole bulb of garlic with a little water. Cover this mash with a gallon of water, let stand 24 hours and strain. Spray daily on roses, azaleas, and vegetables to kill an infestation of bugs. Don’t throw away the mash; bury it among the plants where insects occur.

And, for your optical pleasure, the world’s cutest Flickr set: Tiny Animals On Fingers

Update: Apparently this doesn’t work as I had hoped. Attached links now instead of actual pictures. Boo.

The city area we frequently travel: (My work location is on the upper right peninsula on the east side of the river; our flat’s neighborhood is near the park area – if you can distinguish that – towards the lower left)

Close-up of our neighborhood: (Xujiahui Park lower left; intersection near our house upper right)

Close-up of our building: (long whitish building to the south-west of the intersection at the center of this photo)

Guess the next step is to post actual pictures of the flat… getting there. Just installed some panoramic stitching software

On the way to work, I watched a couple of odd videos on the taxi tv (some shanghai taxis have mounted 6 inch LCD screens in the upper right corner of their windshield; typically they play advertisements). First, I was treated to a bizarre cartoon in which oversized pigs kidnapped a naked baby, complete in all his animated glory, only to be set upon by other babies with swords and dynamite. Naturally, this segued into a 4 minute clip of what looked to be Russian artillery firing against tanks. Clearly staged shots were spliced with older actual footage and all of it was set to a dramatic score. It ended with tanks roaring over the artillery trenches, and then, finally, a somber shot of tanks, artillery and human bodies burning in silence. Nice morning fare.

Last year my company made a seizure of 400,000 fake garments. Today, I was tasked with checking out that the goods were still parked safely in their boxes at their AIC warehouse (Administration of Industry and Commerce). Seized goods have a funny way of ending up back on the open market. After half-assedly ripping or crossing out labels (though leaving identifying embossed buttons and stitching) the stolen IP (intellectual property) can be “legitimately” sold in auction and ends up at various outlet stores, such as Shanghai’s popular HotWind. Today’s trip meant driving into the sticks of Pudong. It’s amazing to me how quickly the gleaming modern facade falls away to trashy neighborhoods with ugly, bare concrete low-rises, half-finished (abandoned?) building projects and piles of rubble. It’s a pretty morose sight and I thought to myself, “this country has a long way to go.”

On the way back, as we travelled down an immaculate length of road, I realized I know of no other city with an equal length of elevated hi-way running not only directly through the urban center but for miles and miles into the suburbs. Truly an incredible feat of man and machinery. And I thought to myself, “my god, what kind of harnessed energy must it have take to accomplish this?”

Shortly after our car dropped down to street level again, a firetruck pulled in behind us and flicked on its sirens. For 10 minutes our driver jockeyed for position with other cars, as one normally does around here in a casually dangerous kind of way, while the sirens continued to blare immediately to our rear. No-one pulled over or made way, and presumably, somewhere, a fire raged. And I thought to myself “wonderful, communism has created a population of uncaring and selfish union members.”

Aside from not replying to you all, I’ve been busy with a lot of fun stuff. Have a gander at these ecclectic pics for a glimpse into my last few weeks. It’s hard to offer too much by way of explanation for these, but here it goes:

- Thanks to work, and a few recent “field visits”, I managed to procure (and temporarily enjoy) a firesuit. And a Chef’s hat. You know what that means around my household

- Thanks to Mom and Dad for sponsoring a tantalizing Birthday dinner. Fully my doing on the belated side but it took a while to gather the international troops and find the right restaurant. Our group was dazzled by the fabulous courses at Li Family’s Imperial Cuisine. The set menu consists of Empress Dowager Cixi’s favorite recipes memorized and smuggled out of her royal kitchens by one of her Generals. The public’s tastebuds have been thankful ever since 1985 when his descendant’s opened a restaurant following success at a PRC Iron Chef-esque national competition. Their new flagship restaurant was opened in Shanghai this May.

- Prep for Lou’s upcomining “café” venture at Shanghai’s 2nd largest kitchen kit supplier

- Every morning we wake up to chopping sounds emanating from behind our flat. It’s one of two downsides to our otherwise incredible 2nd floor flat – the other being roaches, but those are mostly under control since we engaged in small chemical arms race. I’m not quite sure what these women were doing but it looked like they were stuffing intenstines with other intestines. Mmmm. Their meat pail has a shiny hypnotic allure. Quite planely, their partner in gastronomic crime is ashing on his vegetables. We never eat there.

- Sexpo.

Other big news, I’ll be back in the US for a grand East Coast tour with Louise from about September 28 through October 10 (just after Columbus Day Weekend). No schedule yet, but wanted to let y’all know I’ll be coming ’round the mountain, and probably DC, NYC and Cape Cod too. Hope to see you all while I’m home.