Replies

On a recent visit to China, a friend spotted this ad in a Beijing newspaper. He sent me the photo with a translation of the ad copy.

BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR AND JOIN CHINA’S NEW MONIED ELITE!

Yes, you can now join the millions of happy and prosperous Chinese citizens taking advantage of the growing numbers of American and Western multinational corporations “outsourcing” their production to the hard-working and industrious people of China. This outsourcing has now spread to their food supplies and ingestible items. Since these firms pay us for gross weight – and this new weight will be pretty gross – and the stupid American government only spot-checks imported items in these categories (they just got lucky on the anti-freeze thing), it has opened an entirely new opportunity which our beloved Chairman is offering to any Chinese citizen willing to do a little of what the foolish Americans call “grunt work.”

Installing one of these state-of-the-art food additive production facilities behind YOUR hovel is as simple as clipping the coupon below and sending it to the address shown. Your production plant will be shipped to you in 4 to 6 weeks. Supplies are limited so don’t fart around. ACT NOW!!

These silly Americans have an expression we have “borrowed” and modified to describe this new and exciting venture: “Don’t give me any s**t.”

Our motto will be “We won’t GIVE you any s**t. But we’ll SELL it to you fools at a really great price.”

AND LOOK FOR A NEW DROP-DEAD MONEY-MAKER COMING SOON. SOYLENT YELLOW PROMISES TO BE BIG!!

Oddly enough I just got back from China. China’s food supply is an odd mixture of extreme sanitary precautions as they cope with SARS, and the more normal older way of pretty filthy conditions. For example, the open air farmer’s markets have uncooked meats chopped and lying on tables with no cooling or packaging. Intestines are strung over strings. There were split dogs and split rats hung from hooks, although I have heard from my Chinese friends that the rats are illegal. Fish are farmed in nets in rivers, and I am not sure how much sewage treatement goes on in the area before the sewage goes into the river. In other words, given anything in the open air markets, and the ants, I’d bet on the ants being cleaner. One of the more sanitary things about the market is that much of the animals are alive in cages, and therefore not decomposing.