Back in Wuxi. King of Wuxi flees to Taiwan.

I am back in Wuxi.  I spent two days in Nanjing where I saw a lot of the wife and little of Nanjing.  I did take video which I will plop together to make a youtube video.

I can't see this blog site right now.  But it is not stopping me from publishing it.   Is the Chinese government clamping down on the free speech that has been exhibited in the past week?

I was expecting the King of Wuxi to learn  his expat subjects in this water crisis in the manner of which he had helped to liberate Hans Island from the Danes.  Instead, what do I learn?  He has gone to Taiwan.  So instead of Churchill, we get a WH Auden.  The shame.

But seriously, he had to go there on business.

Germans to do analysis of Wuxi Water. I am going to Nanjing. More Wuxi Water anecdotes.

Someone has taken a sample of Wuxi water to Germany for analysis.  Many Wuxi expats are waiting for the results which will come either late Thursday or Friday.

One of my students told me that Wuxi water is like beer.  When I asked him to explain what he meant.  He said that Wuxi water looks like beer and tastes like it as well.  Tastes like it?  I asked.  The student said that he hated beer.

It has been said by those in the know that Wuxi tap water is not safe to even shower or wash clothes with.  One of our trainers said he had crystals on his skin after taking a shower in the water.

WuxiLife is full of debate verging on political about the water crisis.  Chinese and foreigners are getting involved.  I wonder how long the debate will last before the site is shut down.

I am going to Nanjing at 847 am tomorrow.

Bad news.

I have been told that those who know something about the Wuxi Water crisis are very upset these days.  They say that all the government has done is use chemicals to remove the bad smell of the water, and that the odor-reducing chemicals are just as toxic as ones that could be smelled.  This person in the know has a two year old daughter and is planning to get her out of Wuxi.   She advises to not use the water for anything but flushing the toilet.  

My wife won't be in Wuxi for the rest of the summer.  I just don't have any confidence in anything the government here says. 

My blogs have been linked in a Wuxilife posting.

But the King of Wuxi says this could all be hysteria.

I went to the Blue Bar last night. My water still stinks. New Youtube video.

I went to the Blue Bar last night.  The place was hopping.  The people I talked to who are long-term expats in Wuxi seemed to be willing to wait out the water crisis.  Some talked optimistically that the problem will be solved. 

I feel that the problem is worse that the government likes to say it is.  The problem has been around for 3 weeks before most people in Wuxi and the World knew about it.

The water in my apartment still sinks.  The flushing out operation does not seem to be helping.

The water at school is not as bad as two days ago but it is still not odorless. 

I am glad my pregnant wife is in Nanjing.  It was a sad parting we had yesterday morning.

Here is a Youtube video, that is very informative, about the crisis.

 

My water still smells.

There has been talk that the water is better in Wuxi.  But this is not so where I live.  The water still smells.  For a while tonight I had no water and I was hoping that when it came back on that it would smell better.  Well, it is on and it still smells.  Maybe I have to let the taps run awhile before the water smells better. 

It is a good thing that Jenny, my pregnant wife, is out of Wuxi.

I just talked to Steph, the consort of the King of Wuxi.  She lives in the New District.  She told me her water still smells.

Meanwhile, Luis  (http://ponquenet.spaces.live.com) says his water smells Jim Dandy.

More Youtube video about Lake Taihu

This news report is in Chinese but the video speaks for itself.

 

Video of Tai Lake Algae Bloom

My wife goes to Nanjing tomorrow. Stories the students have told me about the water.

 

My wife is going to Nanjing tomorrow.  She is pregnant so too much is at stake for her to stay here.  Wuxi TV news is reporting that the Water problem is getting better.  I don't believe.  My water is still malodorous.

I had a speaker's corner today about guess what?  Here are some of the stories the students have told me:

• Many people are not taking baths.  There are stories circulating that the water causes rashes.
• Restaurants have already shut down because most people believe they still use tap water.  Either that or they just cannot afford to buy bottled water.
• The Chinese are flocking to McDonalds and KFC because they are perceived as using only the best water.  Meanwhile, they don't trust Chinese restaurants.
• Instant Noodles are selling out.  People don't want to go to restaurants.  People don't want to cook at home.  A student has told me that he ate instant noodles yesterday for the first time in two years.
• Vendors are coming to Wuxi from Northern Jiangsu and Anhui province selling bottled water.
• Many Wuxi residents are getting their water from wells which are perceived as being clean and uncontaminated.
• The government's official position is that the water is safe for drinking.  This is what the students have repeatedly told me.
• One student sees a golden lining in this.  He believes this incident will be impetus for the government to seriously act to stop pollution.
• A student who lives by Lake Tahui said he first noticed smelly water about three weeks ago.  He lives near Lake Taihu.
• The students believe that the crisis is the fault of the government for allowing foreign companies, especially the Japanese, to  come here and pollute. 

The Duke of Wuxi had a soda at McDonalds.

The Duke of Wuxi had a soda at McDonalds two days ago.  He said it tasted putrid.

And of course now McDonalds is only serving pop in cans.

Apple, a student, says that the water situation is getting better because of the rain we have had the last two days.  There is a rumor that the rain was artificially induced.

Back to work and stories of water.

The Wuxi Water Crisis broke on my days off.  Now, I am back to work, I will have more stories to tell.

Bradley tells me that the Muslim noodle restaurants are charging 1 rmb extra on all meals because they have to pay for their bottled water.  A few days ago, I did express concern about going to those hole-in-the-wall places to eat.

Emily, a student who lives in Hui Shan where we are moving next year, says her water is okay.  They don't get their water from Tai Hu.  Good sign for property values there.

Miriam, a HyLite trainer, tells me she is showering with spring water.  She felt and smelt funny after taking a shower in stinky water.

One of the vice mayors of Wuxi, a student at our school, has been said to have had no sleep the last three days doing whatever she could about the problem.

Rain the last two days.

It has been raining the last two days.  Good thing in the face of the water crisis?  The rainwater collecting in depleted Taihu should help, we hope.

The pregnant wife has decided to go to Nanjing for the duration.  She will stay with a friend.  The smell of the water is that bad.

Wuxi Stinky Water Saga part I. The water stinks and so do the streets.

The Wuxi Water Crisis continues.  On the local Wuxi Expat forum, the news keeps pouring in.  Of course, someone has said you can weather the crisis by drinking beer and even bathing in beer.

My neighbor Nordlund started to notice his water smelling Wednesday afternoon.

I have heard that the water at the Blue Bar started smelling last night.

On the streets, I have seen many people carrying bottles of water.  Just now, I saw a man with a van full of bottled water selling to a crowd of 20 people.

I have also caught a whiff of the stinky water smell as I walked the streets.

Restaurants in Wuxi use the tap water so I am wary of going into any of the hole-in-the-walls.

My pregnant wife is worried.  She is thinking of going out of town (to Nanjing, not Beixing) for the duration of the crisis.

The water stinks and so does ______ : The Series.

The bad water smell here in Wuxi does not bode at all well for the summer. To be blunt, Summer is going to be terrible. But with the wife pregnant, I am stuck here so I will have to make the best of it.

On the bright side, I have can start a series of neo-reactionary conservative rants where I go off on a tangent from bad water to other ills of the world. I have already published the first of the series in AKIC1: The water stinks and so does ice hockey.

Other things that stink in this series will include: the Liberal Party of Canada, The King's Underwear, Major League Baseball's having a wildcard, the U.S. Democratic party, Fidel Castro (hopefully I will then be talking about his corpse), Michael Moore, I after a day of work, Quentin Tarrantino, too much perfume and Durian.

The water smells bad again.

It is all over Wuxi now:  the tap water smells awful.  The water in Wuxi comes from shallow and polluted Lake Taihu, and they say there is no inexpensive way to clean the Lake.

Justin, at school, who I had originally complained to about the water, came to me yesterday to complain about the tap water at the school.   "The water smells like shit!!" he said.

This morning, the wife asked me to buy some bottled water from the nearby supermarket.  Doing my duty, I went but I saw all the bottled water in the supermarket and in the nearby convenience stores had been sold out.

The wife told me that the bad smelling water had been reported on CCTV9, the English TV channel here.  CCTV9 said the smell was caused by seaweed in the lake.

Children's Day June 1.

 

I wrote this a year ago in AKIC1 , but it is still true today:

June 1 is Children's Day.  Designated as so by the U.N.  It is a date that the students all know of.  I never heard of it till I moved here.  Funny, in a country where the government discourages people from having them.  But you know that if the U.N. looks after something, it usually makes things worse.  Bureaucrats in suits look like they care; the actual results of what they do are ignored.

To see what else I wrote a year ago, click here.

What the students are talking about.

Many of the students at school, this afternoon, were excited by the rise in stock market prices.

Said one cynical observer, "that is all they like to talk about: money."

Lenin and I have something in common.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (I can't be bothered to spell that name properly unless I happened to by accident) and I have something in common:  our words are used to inspire Chinese primary school students.

On the outer walls of a primary school in Wuxi, in big lettering, the following words, I can take credit for saying, can be seen:

AWAKEN CURIOUSITY

BESTOW WISDOM

INSPIRE CREATIVITY

Any time, I go to the school I look at the words with pride.

But in the hallways of the school, there is also a picture of Lenin with words below which I assume to be his and which I assume are meant to inspire.