Water on the Knee and Appeal

The Friday before last, I got to the Chinese-Japanese Union Hospital of Jilin University (sometimes called Number 3) at 8:30AM. It is reputedly the best hospital in the city. I have, quite obviously, water on the knee and one of my dearest friends here works in the Rheumatology Department. She was off on a Beijing-Xi'an-Shanghai trip with her sister, but was a tremendous help by text.

I checked in at the Outpatient window and paid 3RMB (50 cents). I went to see a doctor who told me that I should get an X-ray and an ultrasound. I went back to the window where I had waited to get the piece of paper that allowed me to see the doctor and got two more receipts that entitled me to the tests (100RMB each or about $31.28). I decided after the ultrasound that I would return to the Outpatient Rheumatology doctor without fulfilling the X-ray order. She was fine with that decision and sent me to Orthopedics. (We spent some time trying to get a refund for the unfulfilled order.) I was not touched by the Orthopedic doctor or, I am quite sure, even looked at by him. He simply looked at the ultrasound and said that within three weeks my knee should return to normal. It has been a week and it has barely changed at all.

Have you ever had or known anybody with prepatellar bursitis or "water on the knee"? It is very strange!

The mechanism of injury was almost certainly yoga. I am afraid if I post this photo, it may be the very last time that any of you ever look at this blog. I will take the risk. If you like it (or even if you don't care), please make a donation to support the blog.

A Catholic Wedding in Beijing

Toyota to Exhibit New Hybrid Vehicle in Changchun

CHANGCHUN -- Toyota Motor Corp will display its new hybrid concept car, the Yundong Shuangqing, at the upcoming Changchun auto show slated for July 13-22 in Northeast China's Jilin province, sources with the company said on Tuesday.

The concept vehicle is equipped with a system of multiple power sources designed by Toyota's Chinese research and development center in Changshu, Jiangsu province, according to the sources.

The vehicle is an outcome of Toyota's Cloud Action plan, which was initiated on March 1 in Beijing to promote environmentally friendly products in China.

A production version of the Yundong Shuangqing, literally meaning Cloud Action Dual-Engine, will be available in 2015, according to the plan.

The vehicle made its debut at the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in April this year.
China became the first country outside Japan to produce Toyota's Prius hybrid, when Sichuan FAW Toyota Motor Co Ltd started making the third-generation model in 2005.

In 2010, GAC Toyota Motor Co Ltd in South China's Guangdong province began making the Camry hybrid, the second hybrid vehicle manufactured by Toyota in China.

Source: China Daily

On the Heat Wave, El Nino and Real Consequences

Despite Bill McKibben's change of heart, the evidence that climate change is not a hoax seems to be rising.

Biman Mukerji and Diksha Sahni report from New Dehli for the Wall Street Journal, "Swaths of northern India are facing water shortages due to the late arrival of monsoon rains, deepening already acute power shortages and disrupting the sowing season of staple food crops at a time when India's economy is fragile."

The "Father of Hybrid Rice" is somebody that Chinese students learn about in their English textbook during the first year in senior middle school (aka high school). He made dramatic predictions about the potential for increased grain outputs in a speech in Changchun on Thursday, but sizzling weather may interfere with this. In Changchun, we have received uncharacteristically large quantities of thunderstorms and the temperatures have hovered around 90F for the last few days.

Codi Yeager reports for Circle of Blue:

A drought in China has also impeded crop production. Arable land totaling 5.17 million hectares (12.8 million acres) in Henan, Anhui, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia is being affected by the dry spell. Furthermore, 4.28 million people and 4.85 million heads of livestock in Yunnan, Hubei, and Inner Mongolia are short of drinking water, Xinhua reported. The Chinese government called for a Level IV emergency response plan to deal with the drought in Hubei Province, where city and county governments have allocated $US 1.2 million (7.72 million RMB) to ease shortages of drinking water and food.

The return of El Niño weather conditions could further parch China and the Korean Peninsula. The weather phenomenon, part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather cycle that includes La Niña, is caused by warmer than normal water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. El Niño generally brings droughts to Asia and Australia, while dumping rain on North and South America. 

Phoebe Sedgman and Elizabeth Campbell report for Bloomberg, "Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says this may be the first time in five years that New Zealand, the world’s biggest dairy exporter, produces less milk, at a time when surging corn prices are raising costs for U.S. farmers.... The heat wave wilting corn in the US Midwest is raising feed costs for farmers and may curb milk yields."

"Gone are the days that people in Suriname considered their country blessed by the gods against disastrous weather." (AlertNet, 28 Jun 2012)

N.B. It is quite difficult to find English articles in China about weather patterns and recent monthly weather data.

Part 1: Who Has The Power? The Li Family

The five major players in China's electric power generation industry, and their listed subsidiaries are all state-owned enterprises directly administered by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Their listed subsidiaries are substantially independent, hence counted as independent power producers, and are major power providers in their own right. Typically each of the big 5 has about 10% of national installed capacity, and their listed subsidiary an extra 4 or 5% on top of that. They are:

• China Datang Corporation parent of Datang International Power Generation Company (SEHK: 991; SSE: 601991)

• China Guodian Corporation ("Guodian") parent of GD Power Development Company (SSE: 600795),

• China Huadian Group parent of Huadian Power International Co., Ltd.

• China Huaneng Group parent of Huaneng Power International (NYSE:HNP)

• China Power Investment Corporation ("CPI") parent of China Power International Development Limited ("CPID", 2380.HK)

According to an old article (2007), three of these companies were in the top five power companies responsible for the most carbon dioxide emissions in the world. Updated information from the same source shows that China Huanneng Group now tops the list and China Huadian Group is third on the list. China Datang Corporation is now sixth on the list and Huadian Power International Corp. is now ninth on the list, followed by China Guodian Corporation at tenth. China Power Investment Corporation has fallen from fifth place to twelfth place and this story will be told below. The only American companies that are worse than China Power are Duke, AEP, and Southern Company.

Of the states and provinces in the world, the Great State of Texas is the only place worse than China's Provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Guangdong, and Shanxi. Put another way, Texas is the single biggest carbon producing province ("state") in the world and these Chinese provinces hold second through sixth place.

China Power International Development Limited

China Power International Development Limited (the "Company" or "China Power") was incorporated in Hong Kong with limited liability under the Companies Ordinance (Cap. 32 of the Laws of Hong Kong) on 24 March 2004 and is the flagship company of China Power Investment Corporation ("CPI Group"), one of the five largest power-generating groups in the People's Republic of China (the "PRC" or "China"). The power plants of CPI Group spread across 28 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in the PRC with a controllable installed capacity of approximately 70GW.

China Power's executive is Li Xiaolin, daughter of Li Peng (aka "the Butcher of Tian'anmen" and the man who initiated the construction of the Three Gorges Dam on December 14, 1994). She was the center of a controversy recounted in an earlier post of mine. She was also featured five years ago in a Forbes piece: Chen, Jean (January 3, 2008). "China's Power Queen". Forbes (Hong Kong). 

Her brother--considered a "Princeling"--is the vice-governor of Shanxi Province and a graduate of Beijing's North China Electric Power University. He is the former chairman of Huanneng Power International, China’s largest independent power provider.

This is the structure of Xiaolin's CPI Group:

Much of this information is taken from Wikipeia and carma.org.

My Summer Plans and the Expansion of E-Vehicles in China

When I received this nice note from a fellow member of the the Beijing Energy Network, I jumped at the opportunity.

Dear BEN friends,

I am YAN Mi, from EU Delegation to China in Beijing, and am writing to invite you to the China Energy Trip 2012, which we are organizing for the third time this summer. 

The purpose of our program is to help young people from other countries to get to know the development and huge potential of energy markets in China by visiting government bodies, companies and universities. 

This summer we offer two modules (August 8-17, or August 19-27), covering renewable energy, cleantech and petroleum development. Participants can choose Modules A and/or B according to their interests. Also, some officials from the EU Delegation to China will participate in Module B.

Last summer, 18 foreign students from 11 countries and universities such as MIT, UC Berkeley, University of Oslo, IE Business School, SCIENCES-PO, and Dresden University of Technology participated. 7 graduate students from Harvard, Yale and University of Tokyo participated in 2010. 

The brochure with more details about the China Energy Trip 2012 can be downloaded here: http://sdrv.ms/KQJPPa

Thank you very much!
Kind Regards,

YAN Mi 

Please comment on the hyperlink to the description and let me know what you think I should glean from the experience. Also, if you want to make a gift to help underwrite this trip and my concomitant blogging, please click the Donate button on this page! The more I raise, the more I will write.

This article from Bloomberg is also an exciting development about more local (Changchun) efforts. Ecotality and China’s Changchun Eco-Power Technology Co. formed Tianjin Eco-Power Technology Co. to install chargers across China, according to a statement today. “China is rapidly expanding its leadership position in the electric vehicle market by implementing fleets and public transit applications that require high-power charging solutions,” Jonathan Read, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Ecotality, said in the statement.

Dragon Boat Festival and Calligraphy

The Dragon Boat Festival (or Duan Wu Festival in Chinese) is on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. It is a day to remember the great poet Qu Yuan, who was a loyal official in the State of Chu in ancient China and deeply loved by his people.

Qu Yuan drowned himself on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 277 BC due to being unable to save his country. The local folk did what they could to search for him in the river, meanwhile they dropped dumplings of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves into the river in order to prevent the fishes from eating Qu Yuan's body. Since that time, it has been customary on this day to eat zongzi (glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves) as a memorial to the patriotic poet.

Nowadays, zongzi is not only made for the Dragon Boat Festival. It is available at any time of the year, with a wide styles and varieties of dumplings. The main ingredient of zongzi is the glutinous rice, and then the bamboo or reed leaves -- the wrapping that makes zongzi taste distinct. The usual recipes include dates, sweetened red bean paste, meat, chestnuts, lotus seeds, dates, and yolk of egg. (See http://www1.chinaculture.org/library/2008-01/08/content_29449.htm)

The meat ones are my favorite, but are more common in the South. Here, dates are the most common filling and I am not wild about them. The other tradition is to wear five-color string bracelets. You can learn more about the traditions of Dragon Boat Festival at http://www.chinaculture.org/focus/focus/2010duanwu/2010-06/12/content_382549.htm.

A week or so ago, I finally purchased (for 100RMB) a rack for drying my maobi, or calligraphy brushes. This desk is dedicated to my calligraphy now.

More Stories from the Tea Market

“I feel my heart become so sympathetic, That I must have recourse to black Bohea…….”
                                                        - Don Juan, by Lord Byron (1788-1824)

Today, for the festival, I slept late and then my girlfriend and I went for a late lunch at my favorite restaurant, which serves mushroom hot pot. Then, we walked to Qing Yi Fang, the tea market that also sells plants and goldfish. We had a wonderful time and I was oblivious that they were supposed to close, but when we emerged, the hallway lights were out and most of the other stores had pulled down their shutters. I learned a lot. For instance, I learned about Ru Kiln which, during the Song Dynasty, produced pieces of porcelain for the emperor. The Emperor Huizon would "select 36 pieces of porcelain as his imperial products, and the remaining porcelain, whether good or bad, would be crashed to pieces without exception, with all such pieces buried deep in the earth, and might not be carried down by folks." (See www.gzhengfu.com)

The following entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica tells more of the story.

Ru kiln, Pinyin Ru yao, or Wade-Giles Ju yao,  kiln known for creating highly prized Chinese stoneware. The Ru kiln produced ware for a short period during the years when Northern Song emperors Zhezong (1085–1110) and Huizong (1110–1125) ruled.

No more than 60 intact pieces from the kiln were known before the discovery in 1986 of the original kiln site, which is in the village of Qingliangsi, in Baofeng county, Henan province. This site has yielded at least 37 more examples (22 of which are intact). The undecorated bluish or greenish gray glaze of Ru wares was cloudy and opaque, often with a slight lavender tinge and a fine, irregular network of cracks. The glaze typically covered a gray stoneware body that had a simple, elegant shape. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

I also learned about Lapsong Souchang Black Tea, or BOHEA (recall an from earlier post that what we call black tea in the West is called red tea in the East). This tea was popular in the 1600s and an ad from 1705 in Edinburgh purports to have sought 30 shillings for a single pound of the stuff. In the 1870s, production was quite high and then it trailed off to nothing by 1949. The company trying to sell me this kind of tea is certified organic in Japan and by the Germans and Americans. They have 120 staff who help to process 900 tons per annum. Of the 6000 mu in their plantation, 5000 are certified organic and the additional 1000 are under transition.

6,000 mu? Chinese still use many traditional measurements for distance, acreage and weight.