One of the summer highlights (h/t to Moira) has been the discovery of Google Music China, a legal music download site available to anyone visiting the site from a China-based ISP. There is a lot of music here for free, and much of it is at a near CD quality 192 kbps bit rate. Warning: you can get lost here for great chunks of time, and it might cost you the price of a new external drive. For those reading this outside of China, you can still go and see what’s available to us here for free, but you’ll get the message “Music streaming/download services are not available in your region.” For those in China using VPNs, you’ll need to turn them off to tap into the goods.

I’ve also been poking around the Tianjin rivers, though the clammy haze has dramatically cut down on visibility. Below are a few of the photos taken over the last couple of months.

Neighborhood charcoal 'factory' in Liuxia Dongli (Hongqiao). This is where loose coal is pressed into charcoal briquets (mutan): perforated cylinders of granular coal, approximately 6 inches in diameter and 4 inches high, used for cooking and heating throughout the ping fang areas, the one-story brick homes that are still found in some parts of the city, especially in Hebie and Hongqiao districts. The delivery men with flatbed trikes and small motorized carts are waiting for the next batch to finish.

Lock at Erzha, at the conflunece of the Xinkai and Ziya rivers.

Fisherman on the Ziya River north of Yongle Bridge, home of the Tianjin Eye Ferris wheel which spins through its cycle between the bridge's east-west traffic lanes. A first in the world: a Ferris wheel in the middle of a traffic bridge! This is another one for the "Why didn't I think of that?" list. I blame it on having slept through "The Geometry of Visual Sloganeering: Soaring with the Pigeons" classes.

Tianjin's stone boat along the Ziya River, at sunrise. The stone boat, a soon-to-open monument to the final victory of tourism and entrepreneurial excesses over official history and deep-rooted hatred of the foreign Qing, is a stellar example of the decadence that runs much deeper than the ideals and lessons of any party principles.

A recent samplings of tweets include ass kicking, very cool and amazing. And it is all of the above, especially considering what it was before. A decade ago it took close to two hours, sometimes longer, and the exit scrums at both ends and the attempts to get taxis (or a subway tickets at the Beijing terminus) were battles that could go either way. For more than a year leading up to the Olympics the Tianjin end of the line got even worse, since the main train station, closed for renovation, meant that all trains were routed into a warehouse district in the eastern part of the city, a temporary situation that added several degrees of pain and inconvenience to the journey.

Though ingress and egress has been vastly improved at both ends, there are still no subway connections at either terminals and unless you want to deal with very crowded buses, a cab is still a must if you need to get away from the stations. At the Tianjin end of the line there is more to see with easier access if a leisurely stroll through the center of the hometown of mahua, goubuli baozi and Wen Jiabao is the point of your visit. Beijing South is quite a different deal, since it really is in the middle of nowhere. A subway line is coming, but I am not sure when. At one time Septembers 2009 was the target date, though a cab is still the only way I get away. I am sure there are buses, though I’m holding out for the subway.

The always informative and ever-exuberant David Feng (TechBlog 86) provided the following info for purchasing an express rail card for those who travel back and forth on a regular basis.

Head straight for the Tianjin Railway Station and ask station staff where to get the “kuai tong ka” (express rail card). Initial load is at CNY 1,000 for standard class (standard card; about 17 rides) and CNY 3,000 for first class (gold card), and the card’s good for two years. Be prepared to pay cash only in one lump sum.

Look for a blue/yellow arrow beneath a fare gate (often to the right in Tianjin, but at times left at Beijing South). Don’t insert your card on the fare gate, but instead, dip it over the bulls-eye icon. Your credit will be shown and doors will open.

Standard class gets car 6, seats 1-80 reserved; first class gets seats 1-10 reserved in the sole first class car. Within those seats you’re free to pick window or aisle. Show staff the express card when requested.

If upgrading from standard to first, be sure to pay the extra fare difference. Gold cardholders travelling standard do not get the fare difference credited. Cardholders do not have access to Deluxe Class, which are limited to eight per train and can only be bought at ticket counters and are only available for series CRH III trains.

So what does a trip between two sprawling east coast Chinese cities have to do with Tibet? It’s all about the ‘free’ water available to riders.

Tibet Spring water, part of the price of the Beijing-Tianjin bullet train ticket.

(To be continued)

There were great superstitions that ran through the Tianjin streets during the time of SARS, all set in motion by the supposed discovery at a construction site of the remains of a very large and very dead snake that was declared to be shewang, the snake king. Then things got really fun as remedies for the disaster, portended by the discovery of mighty legless lizard, took off. There were two folk remedies that readily come to mind, though I am sure that there were more that I am forgetting. The first had to do with buying 6 eggs , though you could only buy one egg per vendor, and the sixth egg had to be from a seller named Liu. If you really wanted to gather creds you could go for eight, the eighth egg, as you might expect, having to be purchased from Eggman Ba.

The other magic bullet was in the form of canned peaches, to protect small children from the disease. Jeremiah at the Granite Studio has the explanation here, a remedy he discovered from his mother-in-law who lives in Tianjin, and which he wrote about last year after the Sichuan earthquake and the Olympic Torch debacle had everyone on edge. In the spring of 2003 there was not a can of peaches to be found in Tianjin after shewang showed up.

So, when I heard the fireworks a few minutes ago I flashed on the latest disaster that China is fending off: the swine flu – and I wondered if this was a dispersal of the memo. Once canned peaches start to disappear I’ll know that the cloud has settled in. I guess I could go check the local shops to see how their stock is holding up – which may be a better indicator of the buzz on the street than I could get by watching CCTV or reading the People’s Daily – but it looks like rain, and I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.

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 is one I’m not kitted out to tell. But it’s always worth a closer look, a flip through the pages. Jewels like these always fall out.

Here are a few more from the same morning, same area, the Jingang Bridge.

click for larger photo

And here’s one more from the Harry Lime Tribute file. Harry could have done well, at least for awhile, in this brave, new China. I could imagine him as a silent Sanlu partner.

For more photos along the Haihe go here.

I’ll be turning my cameras on the Haihe over the next few weeks and uploading them here. Below are a few samples. Click on the photos for a much larger version.

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 Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) said it was very concerned about these reports and would investigate the case to find out the cause as soon as possible. No further details were provided.

It looks as if this problem has finally reached critical media mass, requiring an official response. Where this will go from here is anyone’s guess, though the lawsuits are piling up along the US Gulf Coast where hurricane damage and subsequent building booms caught US drywall manufacturers with much more demand than they had supply, which opened the import gates to Chinese drywall from 2005-2007. The US Senate and EPA are now involved in the investigations which have, no doubt, been the impetus for the Chinese official response. Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., Ltd. is the major company at the center of the storm. At the end of February 2009 Knauf Tianjin claimed that they didn’t have insurance to address the rapidly spreading problem and lawsuits in the US, though Knauf’s parent company, a large German multinational, is, no doubt, feeling the heat. It looks as if this will be getting a lot more public here in China now that CRI has covered the story. What this will mean for problem drywall within China is anyone’s guess, though I imagine that damage control and public relations campaigns are gearing up to full throttle on this one. Look for more Chinese domestic fallout on this one.
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Update:
The timing of the “going public” with this story is curious. Or not. Is it coincidental that it became domestically newsworthy a few hours after the conclusion of the 2009 G-20 London summit? No, that couldn’t have had anything to do with it.
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Update, Sunday afternoon 3:30 PM:
The China Daily is now running the story since late this morning, here.

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 products liability problem that China will take more major lumps on. The Florida Department of Health also released a 66-page report last Monday, though there is another investigation underway by Unified Engineering, a private Lab, due for release later today (Monday March 30 23: see here). What seems clear at this point, is that “moisture accelerates the release of volatiles from the drywall,” according to a letter from Lori Streit, a principal scientist with Unified.

I have been getting questions from readers in the US asking me where they can find info concerning this problem. The Florida Department of Health has a FAQ site, which I recommend those with questions have a look at. This is still new territory, so people are treading carefully.

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Update, March 31, 2009, 8:45 AM:

The following is from the WSJ from one hour ago:

Two U.S. Senators have filed a bill seeking a recall and temporary ban of certain Chinese-made drywall, the latest effort to address problems with Chinese-made drywall believed to be emitting unpleasant, sulfurous odors and causing unusual air-conditioner problems in homes from Florida to Louisiana.

Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) introduced the bill, which also asks the Consumer Product Safety Commission to conduct a study in conjunction with the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the Environmental Protection Agency. They want the study to include at least 10 samples of drywall that was imported from China during 2004 through 2007 and used in residential dwellings in the U.S. The study should include at least one sample of drywall from residences located in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia, according to the bill’s text. The bill is called the Drywall Safety Act of 2009.

This may be the action that brings a public response from the Chinese government. It should be interesting to watch how this one plays out in a time of heightened economic tensions. A trade ban on any Chinese product is bound to rattle a few cages, though it is not clear to me how much Chinese drywall, if any, is currently being exported to the US. This may, in fact, be posturing, but even if it is, it will, no doubt require a posturing response.