Absurdity, Allegory and China

I started following the U. S. tainted drywall story back in January (2009), since one of the main Chinese drywall manufacturers is located here in Tianjin: Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. Ltd. Since then the story has grown and is now making it’s way awkwardly through the U. S. courts. For those who end up here [...]

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It has been quiet here, I know. For variety of reasons I have taken a little break. I did a bit traveling late in June to Bangkok, though mostly I’ve been in Tianjin during this first summer of swine flu and the second consecutive summer of failed ethnic policy. Anyone who has spent a summer [...]

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Here is a photo from my north porch at 5;35 this evening. Tall apartment blocks, satellite dishes, a three-sided trash hold, an empty six-story former housing unit (w/satellite dishes), the Tianjin TV Tower and clouds. Ominous looking clouds. Clouds that look like they might contain rain. Could we be so lucky? Rain in early June? [...]

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The following photo strip is from the distant backgrounds of four photos I shot early Saturday morning (May 30, 2009) along the Xinkai River in Tianjin. I was shooting something else entirely, and which turned out to be of little interest except for the small fragment in each one where these four came from, taken [...]

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A trip between Beijing and Tianjin on the Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Rail is one that gets quite a lot of Twitter attention, especially on the weekends. The trip from Beijing South Railway Station to Tianjin Railway Station (aka Tianjin East) on the Hai He (River) in the city center takes 30 minutes.
A recent samplings of tweets [...]

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Someone’s blowing things up close to my home, 3:45 on a Thursday afternoon, an odd time of both the day and the week, even in Tianjin. Not sure why, though I am not curious enough to go find out the reason. But for a moment I just flashed on 2003 when SARS founds its way [...]

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Early morning Tianjin, May 5, 2009. Fisherman and the curious, watching. This is one of my favorite photos. So many hands behind so many backs, watching guys gut fish. This is Tianjin: men with fish and others watching beside the river. There is a story here in the shadows of the Jingang Bridge, though it [...]

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The Haihe is the river the runs through the middle of Tianjin. Along with all-other things Tianjin, the riverside has changed dramatically over the past decade, though it is still, as it always has been, a great early morning place to wander and see the Tianjin seniors exercising, fishing, conversing or just strolling along forwards [...]

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China Radio International, China to Investigate Drywall Exported to the U.S., is reporting (4 April, 2320) that
China is contacting American authorities for information about its drywall exported to the United States in reaction to complaints that certain products are believed to be problematic, the country’s top quality supervisor said here Saturday.
The General Administration for Quality [...]

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In for a penny, in for a pound …
The first class-action lawsuit in the US state of Mississippi was filed last Friday in federal court in Gulfport, MS naming “Knauf Gips, Knauf Tianjin and Taishan, and possibly other unknown Chinese manufacturers” as defendants. This continues to build into what looks to be the next big [...]

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