Ways That Are Dark

More on the tainted food scandals in China:

It’s scary to live here not knowing if the food and drinks are safe.

The above quote comes from CNN correspondent John Vause. The CNN website has an interesting Behind the Scenes feature, where their correspondents share their own experiences. Written from a personal point of view, they offer a refreshing perspective on the events they cover. Here are some excerpts from John Vause’s take on eating in China.

Eating out in China used to be one of the great experiences of living here. I often thought going out with friends and colleagues for dinner was a bit like the game of “Hungry Hungry Hippos” — vast quantities of amazing food that made dining a pleasure. Best of all, it was affordable and palatable.

But these days, the joy of anticipation of what the next dish will bring has been replaced with, well, the dread of what the next dish may contain.

When ordering at restaurants, I wonder: Is that drug-tainted fish and shrimp? Did that pork come from a pig that was force-fed wastewater? Any melamine added to those noodles?

Those are among some of the recent food scares here. Even drinking a glass of water instills fear: A recent government report found half the bottled watered in this city was counterfeit.

In defense of food quality, officials have argued that they are doing a lot to stamp out poor quality food. They insist that many of the recent events are isolated cases. The reporter continues:

I have another perspective. In a Communist country where corruption is rampant and the press appears only free to go after the little guy, I believe the deep systemic problems go unreported — that is until dogs and cats in the United States start dying from pet food made with Chinese-tainted ingredients and the world starts asking China some very difficult questions.

The bottom line is: If you’re worried about Chinese exports, rest assured the local stuff is without doubt many, many times worse.

The complete online article is Ordering food in Beijing makes me nervous.

It is turning into the China news story of the year, for the simple fact that it won’t be swept under the rug. Several days have passed, enough time for public opinion to simmer down, but people are still talking about the cardboard buns story. More and more people are coming out expressing the opinion that the original story was in fact true. Some say that reporter who has been detained for fabricating the Beijing baozi story, is really a scapegoat for exposing an embarrassing reality.

Certainly, Chinese officials have good reason for quashing the original story. Maintaining social stability is an oft repeated line, and the recent embarrassments over food export quality and the upcoming Olympic games are strong reasons for face-saving actions. Chinese media website Danwei, writes:

The way the authorities have gone about stopping the story is exactly the same way they clamp down on real news stories that they don’t want circulating.

One commentator on the site complains of the obvious lies in the governments position. He complains that in the days following the story breaking, the government did a hasty inspection of the breakfast food market. They reportedly found all buns to be “100% safe and clean.” Street food in China is notoriously dirty; many Chinese themselves refuse to eat it. So, to many commentators, the safety inspection seal of approval comes across like lies being told to protect the capital city’s image. It may be a bit late for that.

Check out the Danwei article Is the fake news story fake news? and be sure not to miss all the comments posted so far.

Chinese news media is reporting that the food scare involving baozi was a story fabricated by a freelance reporter. The Associated Press writes:

A freelance reporter for a Beijing television station has been detained for faking a hidden camera report about street vendors who used chemical-soaked cardboard to fill meat buns, local media said. (Source: Beijing TV Reporter Arrested Over Cardboard-Filled Bun Hoax)

The question that comes immediately to mind is which story should you believe? Was this really a hoax, or is this an effort at damage control to save Chinese face? Either way, the mainstream media has not picked up on the fabrication story as enthusiastically as it did on the original story of contaminated food. As a result, the public will remember the original footage of cardboard being chopped up and used as a food substitute for a long time to come.

Behind the scenes, an even bigger question need answering. How is it that news standards are so low, that a freelance reporter can file a report to be viewed by millions without it passing through the scrutiny of the editorial process? Was there no one available to verify to the veracity of the original report?

A news story has not been blundered so badly since the Beijing Evening News, the capital’s largest-circulation newspaper, plagiarized an article from the satirical website The Onion. It translated Congress Threatens To Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol Is Built into Chinese, believing it to be an actual “news” story. In that satirical piece, Congress made demands to modernize the U.S. Capital to a state-of-the-art facility or they would relocate to Charlotte or Memphis. The parody features an architect’s rendering of a proposed futuristic Capitol complete with a retractable dome, a “Dancing Waters fountain” and “55 more luxury boxes than the current building.” The Evening News story even reproduced the illustration.

According to The San Francisco Chronicle (U.S. satire tricks Beijing paper), the Evening News editor in charge of international news, Yu Bin, “adamantly ruled out a correction and grew slightly obstreperous when pressed to comment on the article’s lack of truth.”

“How do you know whether or not we checked the source before we published the story?” Yu demanded in a phone interview. “How can you prove it’s not correct?”

The Onion’s article on relocating the Capital was featured alongside headlines such as “Sexual Tension Between Arafat, Sharon Reaches Breaking Point” and “Man Blames Hangover on Everything But How Much He Drank.”

If Chinese reporters are hard up for material and are looking for other articles to translate/copy, may we suggest the following gems about China from The Onion archives:

• Chinese Employers To Grant 15-Minute Maternity Break
• Chinese Factory Worker Can’t Believe The Shit He Makes For Americans
• That Chinese Girl In Office: ‘I Am Not Chinese’

And as a real test of whether or not the Chinese have a sense of humor, try grappling with The Onion’s Inforgraphic on China’s Olympic Bid.

CBS News has video of the shop in Beijing that was caught using chemical soaked paper as a filler in steamed snacks. The story originally aired on Chinese TV the same week that the government announced athletes could be assured of safe food during the Olympics.

China Central Television’s undercover investigation report features the shirtless, shorts-clad maker of the buns — called baozi — talking about how the product was sold in a neighborhood in Beijing’s sprawling Chaoyang district.

In the video, which you can see at China Busts Cardboard Bun Shop, an unidentified man is caught on hidden video showing how the buns are made.

Squares of cardboard picked from the ground are first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda — a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap — then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning are stirred in.

Soon, steaming servings of the buns appear on-screen. The reporter takes a bite.

“This baozi filling is kind of tough. Not much taste,” he says. “Can other people taste the difference?”

“Most people can’t. It fools the average person,” the maker says. “I don’t eat them myself.”

Chinese officials have vowed that the Beijing Games – a source of tremendous national pride – will be part of the crackdown on unsafe food.

Sun Wenxu, an official with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, told reporters that athletes, coaches, officials and others can be assured of safe meals.

That’s great, but what about the other 15 million people that live in Beijing? This seems like another half-hearted effort to appease foreign concerns. These efforts are unlikely to improve food safety for the millions of inhabitants of the Chinese capital.

The Associated Press reports:

In a report aired Wednesday night, China Central Television showed how a bun maker in a district in Beijing used cardboard picked off the street as filling for his product.

The undercover investigation report showed how squares of cardboard were first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda – a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap – then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning were stirred in and minutes later, steaming buns were shown on screen.

The complete article is China to begin Olympic food checks.

The international furore over tainted foods and unsafe exports has the Chinese news media responding in typical fashion. Newspapers have featured commentaries complaining about international efforts to start a trade war in an effort to settle trade imbalances. Read a newspaper in China and you will see the familiar defense: there is nothing wrong with food quality in China; the rest of the world is trying to keep China down.

In reality, the quality of China’s exports far surpasses that of goods sold on the local market. The Chinese media’s scant coverage of that keeps Chinese consumers at constant risk.

According to The New York Times article, As China’s Economy Roars, Consumers Lack Defenders, a few savvy shoppers are awakening to the growing dangers:

“I have no idea what we can and cannot eat nowadays,” said Feng Jiangping, 40, as she shopped in a Shanghai street market. “I have stopped eating many things based on media reports. Recently I have stopped eating turbot, river eel, eggs from free-range chickens.”

“I don’t know how the government manages food-safety things,” added Ms. Feng, a saleswoman for a chemical company. “I only know there is less and less safe food for us to eat.”

The food-safety crisis underscores the shortcomings of the state-controlled media, which continues to insist that the foreign media is exaggerating food safety issues. But all indicators of truth suggest the situation is worsening.

“China’s food and drug situation has worsened over the last 10 years,” said Wang Hai, one of the country’s few prominent consumer advocates. “Before, it was only small and informal workshops that would churn out fake food and drugs, but nowadays many big companies have joined in. The main reason, I think, is that penalties are not stiff enough to stop wrongdoers from making bad products, but there are many other faults in our consumer safety system, as well.”

He said those included the lack of accountability in the main watchdog agencies for food and drug quality.

Read the complete Times report: As China’s Economy Roars, Consumers Lack Defenders.