Five survivors have been recovered by rescue crews from the ruins of the building, said to have collapsed at 4AM.

Early reports say some 20 people are suspected to have been living in the four apartments that collapsed. The five-story residential unit was an attached part of a townhouse complex in Wenzhou’s Lucheng District.

Dozens of rescuers were seen sifting through the wreckage by hand in order to reach trapped victims.

The cause of the collapse has not been determined. Southern Capital reported that steel reinforcing bars are not seen in the ruins of the collapsed building, which appears to be made from concrete bricks and wood.

A number of residential building collapses have occurred around China in recent years, causing a number of fatalities.

The collapse of a three-story building in Shanghai was caught on video this past March, while six people died in a six-story residential building collapse in Pingxiang, Jiangxi back in February.

Last year saw ten people die in a May apartment collapse in Guizhou, two people injured in a July apartment collapse in Hangzhou, and 17 people die in collapse during renovations for a building in Henan in October.

The post Building Collapse in Zhejiang Leaves 8 Dead appeared first on The Nanfang.

The Ouhai police station refused to make an exception for Adam, despite the fact he was staying with his common-law wife Xiaoqiong (a pseudonym). The police said they were compelled to follow the letter of the law.

Police say foreign visitors must register within 24 hours of their arrival at a local police station; they must also provide police with their passport and the hukou of their host. Violators risk fines of up to 2,000 yuan.

Wenzhou police believed increased cross-border marriages have led to two such violations this month.

The post Foreign National Fined RMB 1K for Not Registering With Police appeared first on The Nanfang.

[Warning: this post contains violent content that some readers may find objectionable.] 

Five people fell off a motorized amusement ride in Zhejiang this afternoon, killing two.

Eyewitnesses say the five riders were not properly strapped into their seats with safety harnesses when the ride called “Crazy Scream” went into operation at a amusement park at Longshan Park in Pingyang County, Wenzhou. As a result of the accident, three park patrons fell to the ground directly below, while another two were thrown a distance away.

The deceased have been named as Chen and Zhou, both from Aojiang county. The other injured have been sent to Pingyang No. 1 Hospital where reports of their numbers vary between three and two.

Victims can be seen bleeding profusely onto the ground as bystanders are seen talking on the phone as others take pictures.

Police have shut down the park, which has been deemed as “operating illegally”. The operator of the amusement park has been taken into custody as police continue their investigation.

May 1st was the first day of operation for the amusement park.

Graphic photos taken at the scene can be seen here. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The post Two Dead in Labor Day Amusement Park Ride Mishap [Graphic] appeared first on The Nanfang.

The Taiwanese gutter oil scandal just keeps escalating as mainland cities, including Shanghai, Xiamen and Wenzhou, discover more and more food products containing tainted lard supplied by Taiwanese oil manufacturer, Chang Guann Co.

According to the Shanghai Food and Drugs Supervision Bureau, approximately 8,700 bags of food suspected of using the substandard oil were seized in Shanghai. In Xiamen, about 4.9 tons of food was suspected of containing the contaminated oil, said officials from the City’s Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po reported on September 14.

Of the 4.9 tons of food seized in Xiamen, 3.2 tons consisted of pork products and 1.7 tons were made up of butter biscuits. The two food manufacturers, Wei Chuan Food (味全) and Triko Foods Co Ltd (盛香珍食品), were found to be using tainted oil from Chang Guann.

Cream cookies…found to have used the tainted oil.

Wenzhou, in eastern China, also uncovered approximately 60 kg of food allegedly containing the tainted oil, which included noodles, beef and sunflower seed oil, the China Daily reported.

Since the gutter oil scandal first exploded in Taiwan in early September (when Chang Guann was found to be mixing lard oil with gutter oil collected from food waste or slaughterhouses and selling it as cooking oil), about 250 food products involving roughly 1,200 food companies and processors were found to have used oil supplied from the company.

In Hong Kong, cakes made from the gutter oil supplied by the Taiwanese firm were sold by 7-Eleven, Starbucks, Maxim, Café Express and Arome Bakery, to name a few. A comprehensive map of the stores, shops and restaurants suspected of using the substandard oil in Hong Kong can be found here by SCMP.

Photos: Central Television 

The post More Taiwanese Gutter Oil Found In Shanghai, Xiamen, Wenzhou appeared first on The Nanfang.

Two Wenzhou university students cut short their celebrations of the new school year when their waitress inadvertently started a huge fire, reports ZJ News.

Xiaoqian and Xiaoqing, both 20 twenty years-old, were having a reunion dinner at the “Good Day” barbecue buffet restaurant in Wenzhou, Zhejiang when their waitress, Xiaoshan, came to refuel the fire by pouring alcohol on it.

When flames suddenly shot out and scared her, Xiaoshan dropped the container of alcohol which fell onto Xiaoqian, causing her entire body to catch fire.

Xiaoshan and Xiaoqing both scurried from the table, and another diner came to Xiaoqian’s aid, trying to extinguish the flames with a shirt.

Xiaoqian was the most severely injured from the incident. She is now described in serious condition with life-threatening injuries, and has since been transferred to a hospital in Hangzhou. She is described by a doctor as never likely to be able to return to university.

Xiaoqing received face and neck burn injuries from the incident.

Of the three, Xiaoshan had the least severe injuries with minor burns to her right hand and both knees. She can be discharged from the hospital soon.

Xiaoshan, 18 years-old and originally from Guizhou, had only been working at the Good Day restaurant for a month before this happened. You can watch surveillance video of below.

Photos: CCTV

The post [Surveillance Video] When a Simple BBQ Dinner Goes Horribly Wrong… appeared first on The Nanfang.

But as seasoned expats can attest, the plastic doesn’t always ensure cleanliness. Despite being stamped with a certification number, date of issue, and place of production, diners often crack open their individualized place-settings only to discover eating utensils that are still dirty.

While most Chinese and expats have a story, anecdotal evidence isn’t necessarily indicative of a systemic issue. Unless of course it is. Thankfully, the Wenzhou Evening Report decided to find out. Over the course of a month, two undercover reporters looked at a lot of utensils in a lot of plastic wrap. The results of their in-depth investigation are nothing short of horrifying.

The report makes serious allegations of professional impropriety with specific violations that are the very antithesis of “clean and sterile”. Following an investigation at one of the utensil cleaning plants, the reporters made some disturbing discoveries:

• employees don’t use gloves or uniforms;
• employees don’t wash their hands;
• utensils that fall on floor are still kept in the production line;
• sterilized utensils are kept in dirty places, like the ground;
• utensils that remain dirty after passing through the production line are improperly cleaned, as with a dirty rag;
• utensils covered with human blood are considered fit for consumers;
• the process of sterilization only takes two to three seconds;
• a disinfectant solution is reused for three days before changing

These are all serious allegations against an industry for which cleanliness is their strict selling point.

And yet, as detailed in the report, and as seen in other similar exposés of the food industry, workers are more than willing to admit that they willfully endanger consumers with unsafe health practices.

The month-long investigation met with heavy resistance from the hygienic eating utensil industry, which was reluctant to reveal any information about their practices despite having a near monopoly in Wenzhou. Of 50 restaurants interviewed for the report, 80% said they used the shrink-wrapped eating utensils despite not knowing anything about how the utensils were prepared, or where they come from.

The Longwan Aixin Disinfectant Utensil Center refused the reporter’s request to visit their facilities, as did fellow Wenzhou utensil provider Guoxijie Utensil Cleansing. When the reporter went to the Guoxijie facilities unannounced on July 22, he was discovered within two minutes and ejected from the premises.

The reporter was finally able to make his way into the secretive industry by applying for a job at the Kangjie facility, a feat accomplished with the help of an intern that was following along. After a two minute interview in which there was no need to produce a health certificate, the reporter was able to get behind the scenes.

As it turns out, the process of turning dirty eating utensils into a clean and sterilized form suitable for consumers is a five-step process that takes 20 minutes to complete: preliminary wash, sorting, liquid disinfecting, main wash, heat sterilizing, and packaging. Of the first five steps, only six employees are assigned compared with nine workers assigned to packaging the utensils.

The report describes the five separate areas:

1. The preliminary wash is the first step in the process, and is the dirtiest place in the facility. It is staffed by one worker.
2. The sorting area has three areas where utensils get organized by individual types.
3. The liquid disinfecting area is a sink about two meters long filled with disinfectant into which the utensils are soaked.
4. The main wash employs a high-pressure water gun to clean the utensils more thoroughly than step one.
5. The heat sterilizing machine is two meters long inside of which the utensils are subjected to high temperatures to dry and kill any bacteria.
6. The packaging area is a two meter-long conveyor belt upon which the clean and sterilized eating utensils are organized by hand into individualized packages before being shrink-wrapped by a machine.

The Kangjie facility may appear to have a proper system for thorough cleaning and sterilization, but as the undercover reporter found in the three days of working there, the day to day implementation of the system is where everything goes wrong.

On his first day, the reporter noticed that no one was wearing any protective clothing. He asked a fellow worker:

Reporter: How is it that we don’t wear any gloves or work clothes? Aren’t they mandated by the factory?

Worker: Sure there are! But with the weather being so hot, what’s the point of wearing them? No need to wear them.

Reporter: Have you ever worn them?

Worker: If someone comes for an inspection, then we wear them.

Then, the reporter asked how “clean” utensils are to be handled:

Reporter: After disinfecting, the chopsticks are sill wet; do we still wrap up the ones that haven’t been disinfected and cleaned?

Worker: Yes! The chopsticks are the dirtiest.

Reporter: I see that you’ve still wrapped up chopsticks that have fallen on the floor. Isn’t that a bad idea?

Worker: No need to concern yourself with that. Once they’re wrapped up, they’re fine.

Not once while working at the cleaning and sterilizing facility was the reporter asked to wash his hands, so he asked a co-worker about it:

Reporter: When I come to work, the boss still hasn’t required me to wash my hands. Don’t I have to?

Worker (laughs embarrassingly, then waves hand): No problem! No need to wash your hands! I didn’t wash my hands yesterday.

Reporter: Won’t this be unclean?

Worker: (laughs)

The following day, the reporter noticed that despite being put through the cleaning process, pieces of food were still stuck to the eating utensils even after the heat sterilizing process. As the pieces of leftover food were large enough, the reporter was able to identify them by sight: watermelon rinds, water-logged beef, chewed up corn, chicken feet, spare rib bones, and hot peppers.

After noticing employees placing disinfected utensils on the ground, the reporter went to help out a fellow worker who found a piece of pork stuck within a pile of chopsticks.

Reporter: After getting out this piece of pork, do I need to wash my hands?

Managing worker (laughing): No need.

Reporter: Can I keep wrapping up these spoons?

Managing worker (nodding): Sure.

Despite there being a system through which the utensils are processed, any items that pass through the system that remain dirty aren’t necessarily made to undergo the process again. Instead, any utensils that have stains after the disinfectant stage are wiped with a dirty rag that looks yellowed with age and is usually left on the washer.

On his last day of working at the cleaning and disinfectant facility, the reporter asked about adhering to the system:

Reporter: Can we directly wash the utensils by scrubbing (by hand)?

Worker: Yes, if you still have time. If it’s too late, then forget it. For those (leftover) grains of rice and bits of chive onions, just wipe them away and it will be fine.

The cleaning and sterilization facility is a dangerous place for workers because of the risk of injury from broken utensils. In one instance, a female co-worker cut herself and then bandaged herself up and went back to work.

Bloodstains from the woman’s injury could be seen upon utensils that had already been cleaned and sterilized. While some of these blood stains were wiped away, others completely passed through the system and could be seen upon packaged settings set to be delivered to restaurants.

While the facility has a process to sterilize eating utensils, the reporter found that utensils were not properly sterilized. Following his last shift, the reporter talked to an old worker. The man revealed that since they have a small workforce compared to the amount of utensils for which they are responsible, the utensils are only put into the sterilizer for two to three seconds at a time, and aren’t sterilized dry.

Lastly, the reporter found that while water in the first area is changed daily from being so dirty, the liquid disinfectant is used continuously for three days, two if the load is especially heavy.

With the number of food safety scandals and lax quality standards in China, the horrors of this report may be a foregone conclusion for some. Then again, a better educated public will hopefully translate to more sanitary eating conditions, even if the restaurants have to scrub one utensil at a time.

Related:

• Kitchen Confidential: Expose Details Beijing Restaurant’s Horrific Hygiene
• Newspaper: Serving Expired Meat a Problem Throughout China’s Food Industry
• Newspaper Blows Lid Off Fake Lamb Skewer Industry In China
• Avoid Cancer By Passing On These Famous Chinese Dishes

Photos: Guangzhou Daily, 99114

The post China’s Shrink-Wrapped Eating Utensils Are Not As Clean As You Think appeared first on The Nanfang.

A female thief was caught stealing from a shop red-handed at a clothing market in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, and was publicly shamed as a result. The incident is reminiscent of public shaming during the Cultural Revolution, the torturous period in China’s history from 1966 to 1976.

In photos uploaded to the internet, a woman believed to be in her 40s wearing a blue blouse was seen with a placard hanging around her neck that reads, “I am a thief, and I deserve to be beaten”. The shop owner then allegedly paraded the thief around the market and forced her to kneel down and kowtow for forgiveness in public, reports said. During the shaming, onlookers snapped several photos.

The woman was eventually handcuffed and taken away by security shortly afterwards.

This is not the first case in which thieves were shamed, abused and even stripped after being caught. One female thief was shamed in Taizhou in 2011, while a male thief was stripped to his underwear and paraded around on the street with “thief” written over his body in 2010.

A female thief was stripped and publicly shamed in Taizhou in 2011.

Some Weibo users were quick to support the shaming ritual. One user said: “This is how you do it. Those few soft-hearted commentators are the ones that have not been stolen from yet. If you send a thief to a police station, after a few days he will be out again. It’s better to learn from some other countries where thieves’ hands are chopped off when caught. Just the thought of my things being stolen by a thief is infuriating enough. At the city where I studied, I watched all sorts of thieves growing up.”

Another user wrote, “The shop owner is quite smart, and misspelled the Chinese character 小偷 (meaning “thief” in English) on purpose. This is quite merciful already”.

One went further and declared that thieves do not deserve any kind of human rights. They said, “Human rights are not reserved for those thieves. Do not abuse people’s Buddhist hearts”.

Still, a few users rebuked the abuse and showed sympathy towards the thief. A commentator said: “I think a due amount of legal punishment is enough. There is no need to parade the thief and publicly bash her. Judging by her looks, she must be a mother. How can she ever rebuild her image again in front of her child?”

Photos: Chutian Metropolis Daily; Sihai Net 

The post Public Shaming in Zhejiang Echoes The Cultural Revolution appeared first on The Nanfang.

You won’t have any luck boarding the new trains if you go to Guangzhou East or Luohu Station, however ; the line connects the new Shenzhen North station with Guangzhou’s immaculate (and massive) South station, which also serves as the terminus of the Guangzhou-Wuhan line.

The Shenzhen Daily says in the early stages (which aren’t defined), passengers from Shenzhen to Wuhan will still need to disembark in Guangzhou and get on a separate train, but eventually you’ll be able to travel between Wuhan and Shenzhen seamlessly.  Next year, the line connecting Wuhan to Beijing will open, creating a high speed rail from north to south.

The line between Shenzhen and Guangzhou will stop at Dongchong, Humen, and Gongming stations, so there will be stops on the outskirts of Dongguan.  It would be nice, though, if at some point somebody decided to put a train station in Houjie, or even better, Dongcheng.  It’s capable of traveling 380 km/hr, but will be capped around 300 km/hr, with memories still fresh from Wenzhou.

Alas, we shouldn’t complain: one couldn’t ask for much more than a 25 minute commute between two of China’s great cities.

Also on The Nanfang:

• Less than 30 minute commutes between Guangzhou and Shenzhen by year-end
• Weekend News Roundup: Buy your train tickets online

The post Shenzhen – Guangzhou high speed rail to open December 28 appeared first on The Nanfang.

Disaster in Wenzhou

There’s no doubt that people in China have more access to information than ever before, largely thanks to Internet services like Sina Weibo. Where once people in China may have been angry but disconnected, they are now increasingly able to band together for common causes and share their anger over issues such as government corruption, land expropriation, tainted food and more. The popular microblogging service most-recently lit up with angry comments during the Guo Meimei and Wenzhou train crash incidents. (If you’re unfamiliar with these two cases, you can read more about Guo Meimei here and Wenzhou here.)

Both cases were bad in and of themselves, but one could argue they were made worse by PR bumbling. This is not China of the 1970s (or even 1990s) where the government had a monopoly on news and information, which means more is expected of the people trotted out to publicly make the government’s case. The good news is it seems the government has received the message loud and clear. The Nanfang Metropolis News has published a story today (Chinese) on a lecture series offered to public relations spokespeople, using the Guo Meimei and Wenzhou train collision as case studies:

To help government bodies better communicate with their audiences, especially in an age where people can post their opinion relatively freely on social media platforms, the National News Publication Bureau recently organized the eighth national spokespersons training course in Beijing. According to Wang Xuming, former spokesperson for the national education bureau and one of the lecturers during the training, this kind of training isn’t available elsewhere in the world. Previous courses have focused on skills rather than values, but he regards this lecture as a way to help spokespeople establish their moral values.

Liu Pengfei, chief analyst of the press monitoring office of the People’s Daily website and another instructor during the training, suggested all spokespeople open Weibo accounts. Liu said his lesson would focus on how to respond on Weibo. “The Guo Meimei incident started from Weibo and developed all the way to a trust crisis of the Red Cross, and I have to say during the Wenzhou train wreck, the Zhejiang local government utilized its Weibo account to good effect.”

The participants are communication officers from the enterprise (SOEs) and government bodies, (Liu Jintao, the vice president of Shuanghui Group, whose company was involved in the recent poison scandal which started on Weibo, participated the training.) Liu said his lecture is welcomed by these people and they all regard social media communication as crucial.

China’s poor PR apparatus has long been a criticism of this blogger, so this is a good first step.

Thanks to MissXQ (Twitter, Weibo, blog) for the translation.

The post The light goes on: China to improve PR after Wenzhou, Guo Meimei fiascos appeared first on The Nanfang.