Fire, Safety, and Recovery

These are three random pictures that I have taken during my time here in Taixing. I just found them and although the y may not be directly related . I can see the connection and it is all a little bit scary. The first picture is entitled "The Roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!" Although the picture may not clearly show it this building has just caught fire and is going to burn down. I walked past it on my way home and couldn't believe that there was a huge gathering down below. The mood was actually quite jovial and it took the fire department about 40 minutes to show up. I have walked past the building since and it look s like it is still standing but the fire has gutted it.


This picture is entitled, "Locksmith? We don't need no stinking locksmith!"
You are looking at the outer doors that lead to the sliding doors which are the doors to my office. At the end of the day, I need to lock the doors when I leave to protect all of the company secrets. As you can see from the picture, the doors in the office don't actually have any locks built in so we need to improvise. The system that we are currently using is to take a bike lock adn weave it through the door handles. This is how every door in the building is locked. Even the front doors. The first week I was here I was locked in my office by one of the workers who thought that I had already gone home. That was fun and funny. It just goes to show, to every problem there is a simple solution. It really just depends on what your idea of ridiculous is. I tie this picture to the previous one by noting that a building catching on fire is dangerous enough but in China they like to up the ante by locking themselves in with bike locks.

This last picture is called, "Please God, don't let me get locked in a burning building in Taixing"
I took this picture at the Taixing hospital. This is the top-of-the-line room. We went to visit a worker who swallowed a gallon of gasoline by accident. The hospital scared the shit out of me. It was dark and dirty. The bed sheets on most of the beds were dirty, used, and stained. There were archaic looking hooks hanging from above the beds. I really hope that I don't get sick here. The doctors and nurses were nice and I am sure that they are competent but the facility was not very encouraging. Fortunately, they are currently building a new hospital which looks like it will be a big beautiful building. This new hospital is a positive example of how the recent, dramatic development is helping the people in Taixing. For the meantime though, I really don't want to get sick here.

There you have three snap shots from my life in Taixing. I hope that the next time you use your key to unlock the door to your house, you think of me trying to figure out how to unlock a bike lock from the inside of two glass doors.

The Area from Whence I Work

Here are some pictures of the area that I am working in. It has been designated as an area that is willing to have chemical production companies. As many areas are not interested in having chemicals production (due to the obvious health risks) the government officials are able to benefit greatly (financially) from allowing them to set up shop here. There is actually a Hummer being driven around by one of the officials which looks so ridiculous when it is surrounded by the city. It illustrates perfectly the massive wealth gap present here.


This first picture is of the front sign for the company. Right behind it is the office building and further behind is the warehouse and the production facility.

The second picture is taken from a 180 degree perspective from the last one. It shows how rural the area is. This is basically farmland that has been turned into land for sale to chemical companies. So this is a plot of land that has yet to be sold. You can kind of see that on both sides there are factories that have been built around it. I like this photo because it is fairly representative of the situation here in Taixing.


This third picture is down the road from my company (so it is at a 90 degree angle from the last photo) In the photo you may be able to see two shacks up the road on the right side. The first one is the barbershop which apparently gives more than a haircut. The second one is a bar which was set up to accommodate the German workers at the factory next to mine. I have been drinking there and I met a German lady who insisted on arguing about everything even when I wasn't arguing back. The guy that I was drinking with and I decided to check out the barbershop and see if they really offered "more than a cut". the lady was scared shitless which made sense as we had consumed about 9 litres of beer each and were speaking quite loudly in English. She refused to open the door,but as we started to walk away she gave in and opened the door ready for business.............................................

This picture is of the last direction I have yet to show (90 degrees from the first and second pictures and 180 from the third). As far as I know there is nothing down this road. I believe that it continues for a way and then eventually drops off into the abyss. I have no proof but I have never seen anyone return from that direction so it makes the most sense to me.

So there you have it. The area in which I work. Where the air is thick and the rain is sour. It is funny though because despite the pollution (or perhaps because of it) the people here do look much younger than they really are. Go figure.

The earthquake

I meant to write about the earthquake earlier but then I was sidetracked by the new Chinese visa laws which nearly threatened to send me back to Canada to get the next step of my Visa. Luckily, Munny found a company in Hong Kong that could do it for me there. It was called CTS and it was located right in the airport which made it very convenient. It only took one working day.

Now that I am settled in again in Taixing I was looking through some of my photos and I found these two photos taken at my factory. The first one is of the Chinese national flag at half mast which has happened very rarely in China. As in only twice in the last four decades. This is to honour the people that died in the earthquake.



The second photo is of all of the office workers in my plant joining into a national moment of silence for the victims of the earthquake. It was very impressive to see how quickly the Chinese government jumped into action to help the victims. It was also very impressive how much the Chinese people gave to help the victims. everywhere you went for the weeks following the earthquake there were volunteers collecting for the victims, and people were giving. I read some crazy things on the net about how the Chinese government doesn't really care about its people but I have to say that they much more impressive than other governments have been in helping their people when a natural disaster struck.



On a side note it is pretty crazy how low the building standards are here. If an earthquake was to hit my little city of Taixing, I know that my brand new building would crumble like a cookie. In fact, one mean game of hop scotch may do it. But when I bring this up with the locals they say, "Yes, it would crumble like a cookie but we are not near a fault line!"

I just wanted to give you a taste of what the river next to my house looked like on an average day. It makes you want to stay inside, eh! Now I'm not saying that China is polluted but when you can't see the top of a five story building from the smog it may be time to address the issue.The picture on the right is of the river right beside my house. The building that you can barely see is on the edge of the city. I am not sure what the building is for but there is nothing really beyond it (not that you could see it even if there was)

This picture is of my apartment complex. There are about 120 buildings and I am in Number 13. They are only 5 stories high, but you can not really see the tops of the buildings clearly due to the pollution. The row of metal structures on the top of the building is solar powered water heaters. China obviously recognizes that there is an issue and these solar powered heaters are a positive move but the only problem is that when there is not enough sun you can't have a shower. You may be surprised by how often there is not enough sun!