"Tit-for-tat safety spats

A NUMBER of made-in-China products have been taken off the shelves recently for

safety reasons, while China has hit back with its own list of unsafe foreign

imports.


PROBLEMATIC PRODUCTS IMPORTED BY CHINA


Aug 9: China charges that 24 imported gas turbines made by US industrial

institution General Electric had caused several big accidents.


Aug 15: China bans the import of three types of biscuits made by Arnott’s

Indonesia, a subsidiary of US food giant Campbell Soup, saying the biscuits

contain levels of aluminium three times beyond the safety threshold.


Aug 21: China announces that it returned 272 heart pacemakers imported from

the US in April after quality tests found problems.


Aug 22: China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and

Quarantine says it has found pesticides, poisonous weeds, and dirt in soy bean

imports from the US. The beans – crushed for oil and used as animal feed – are

the biggest single US farm export to China.


PROBLEMATIC MADE-IN-CHINA PRODUCTS


Aug 1 and Aug 15: US toy giant Mattel issues two separate recalls involving

over 20 million Chinese-made toys it says were coated in lead-laced paint and

contained small magnets harmful to children.


Aug 18: A chain of Dutch bed stores says it will be recalling more than 1,300

Chinese-made foam mattresses amid fears that they had been sprayed with toxic

insecticide.


Aug 19: New Zealand launches an investigation into woollen and cotton clothes

made in China after scientists find dangerous levels of formaldehyde.


Aug 22: Chinese-made blankets found to contain high levels of formaldehyde are

recalled across Australia and New Zealand."



Reflections-->>

There are 2 reasons why I chose this article. First, would definitely be because of the extremely cool title.
Tit- for -tat safety spats. The author has obviously attempted to use a rhyme in the title to hold our attention.
What can I say? It has done its job. 

Secondly, this article is extremely important in our world today. China is the largest producers in the world.
Overturn your plastic bottles, “Made in China”. Look at the back of your CPUs. “Made in China”.
Check the brand of your toilet paper. “Made in China”. There are even some students who are, no offence,
“Made in China”. We cannot deny that China produces quality products that we all use, except that we don’t
really use the Chinese students per say. However, these recent scares have put off many people from buying
“Made in China” products. This said, it’s hard to find a whole inventory of items that are not “Made in China”.  

This article presents a new point of view to the whole issue. Apparently, China has hit back (tit-for-tat) at USA by pointing out some of their own product failures. My views on these issues consist of 2 points.

Firstly, I would like to point out that 2 wrongs do not make a right. When China products were shot down by the various nations of the world, it made me think if it was really correct to use this approach to rebuff China. By stating this internationally and publicly, it is actually gravely hurting China’s economy and sales. This might be part of politics which I do not understand, but using my narrow mindset, I feel that it was quite wrong to do this. One or two small companies in the large vast of land we call China might have produced some inferior goods. But the rest of the companies surely have not.

Also, in retaliation, China shot down some of the USA’s product as well. Even though this is warranted, I feel that it just serves to sour the relationship between the 2 countries. The paragraph above applies in this case as well.

I feel that a correct solution would be to just forget this entire incident. Is it worth it to sour relationships just because of some toys (maybe not some, a lot). Some people argue that these toys could harm millions of people all around the world, but denouncing all Chinese products could cause the same number of people to be jobless. This may be an exaggeration, but according to my knowledge, most jobs in China are high labour. One company losing their business could leave hundreds of people jobless. The hit back on the USA was also uncalled for, as when two people start to quarrel among themselves, their credibility is lessened. This is parallel to what is happening now.

Perhaps, it is also not so good to just complain about something, but actually do something about it, companies all around the world could give incentives for good products manufactured by these Chinese companies. According to what I know, Chinese products are extremely lowly priced. With such low cost, there are bound to be mistakes. With incentives, it could help reduce the number of these mistakes.

For this blog post, I will be posting on this >>>article<<<

It reports about Singaporeans wanting to drop Chinese as a result of doing badly in it. The writer also attempts to convince parents to not allow their children to drop the chinese language. Or any second language for that matter. The writer emphasises the importance of a bilingual education system due to the economic trends in the world today favouring the uprise of china, india and vietnam.

I find myself agreeing with him to a rather large extent. For a person who has failed the recent Chinese CCT such as myself to actually acknowledge the importance of a second language requires many reasons. This, I have.

Firstly, as the article stated, a second language, apart from english, is important in this world where china, vietnam and india are uprising countries. We learned in school that English is important as it is the universal language of math and science. I do not doubt the truth of this fact, the English teachers, or teacher, that is marking this blog entry right now are and important part of our wholesome environment.

Secondly, in a world in which connectivity is so often emphasised, the more languages one knows, the larger the number of people he can connect with. A businessman who knows the Chinese language will have an edge over another businessman when it comes to deals with Chinese speaking countries.

Thirdly, having a second and a third language gives you bragging rights. I feel that this is very important for teens today. Many of us enjoy watching anime, picking up Japanese lines from these anime. What for? To confound their friends with their foreign lingo.

I feel that the government has done the right thing in denying the parents' constant complaining and staying its path. However, I can also see where the parent's are coming from. Every parent cares for their child. In Singapore's meritocratic society, failing will not get you anywhere. If one's child is failing a certain subject, tuition teachers will be hired, parents will try all means to give their child a distinction in that failing subject. When the child continues to deprove, there is nothing these parents can do but complain about the toughness of the subject and how it is impossible for anybody to score. This is true, as some people just cannot absorb/learn/study a certain subject.

Language teachers are also having it tough. With all the emphasis on the language, it is hard to arouse interest in students unless they have the interest in the first place. Students who do not care about studying Chinese will not want to learn anything about Chinese and will thus cause themselves not to absorb what is being taught in the classroom.

How then can we allow our teens to be interested in the Chinese language. A simple solution, movies and tv shows. Many of my friends and classmates have been addicted to the channel 8 9pm show, no matter how repetitive the stories are, how stiff the actors are and how weak the dialoguese are. Yet, it appeals to us. Perhaps it will be possible to find out what teens like about these shows and apply it to our chinese lessons. This may not only be for the chinese language. Languages like Japanese can utilise the ever so popular japanese anime and manga.

As said in the film Mary Poppins, "in every job to be done, there is an element of fun. You find that fun, and snap, the job's a game." For those students bored with their 2nd languages, as long as the teachers can find the fun in it, the students will definitely enjoy.

I used to hate Chinese. But this year, our Chinese teacher is an excellent one which can connect very well with us students. She uses our competitiveness, pitting one side of the class with the other. The result in an extremely hyped up and attentive class.

What about weaker students? It is possible to conduct special remedial lessons to teach them techniques to score better in their tests. What these students need are not to study more, since they cannot absorb knowledge, but to learn techniques to score well.

I know that our school as well as the ministry of education has been trying their hardest to increase a chinese interest and results in schools. Activities ranging from the hua yu cool! campaign to project superstar and even campus superstar have tried again and again to evoke interest of the chinese language in youngsters. The methods I have stated above may not be practical but I have tried to analyse the problem to the best of my ability.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6669061.stm

This article talks about how Japan's lower house of parliament has approved a new law requiring schools to teach children to be patriotic.

Reading this, alarm bells started ringing in my head. Why is it that so many more developed countries are now deciding to teach National Education? Although reworded in many forms, the essence of National Education would be to make citizens feel proud of their countries and thus love and feel a part of the country. In other words, National Education encourages patriotism.

This brings about a serious concern. Are youths today unable to love their countries without external forces like National Education?

To answer this, we must first consider what factors affect patriotism.

Firstly, there could be the factor of war. If the country is righteous in its dealings in the wars or is able to win laws, it will definitely gain the support of its people. Although this might be more towards nationalism, it is still patriotism to a certain degree.

Also, could be the factor of politicians. If politicians are able to make the citizens happy through policies such as the USA’s freedom of speech etc, citizens will be willing to feel proud of their country due to the many rewards and incentives they have by staying in the country.

Japan’s reasons are simple however. They merely want their children to develop "the attitude of loving our country and hometown" and "the attitude of participating in society based on social norms and public spirit".

In other news however, these National Education lessons in Japan has faced much stiff opposition by the many students in the various schools.

I feel that this could be attributed to the rapid westernization of Asian societies. It is not cool to love your country, to embrace cultural values. It is much cooler to live life like the westerners, care-free, liberal, with no restrictions. This brings about rapid cultural degradation, which leads to a degradation in the society as students want more freedom and less rules. A world without rules will definitely descend into anarchy.

How do we solve this? Perhaps the only way to beat this is to join them. Governments could compete with western cultures on why the country’s own culture is cooler and more appealing. This would do much to increase nationalism amongst students. A proposed solution would be organizing joint- schools cultural fairs, so that these fairs will be a nation or at least regional-wide event, and would therefore attract students to learn about their country and culture in a relaxing and laid-back environment.

By understanding their countries’ culture, it would lead to interest, and then to respect and love. To increase nationalism in our youths today, it is important to appeal to our attention to start the first step.

Of course, we have to empathize with the government officials; it is hard to legislate such measures. However, all these could be done by student leaders all over not only in Singapore, but in the Asia-Pacific.

“Promising start to first Bring Your Own Bag Day”

This Straits Times article dated Thursday 19 April describes the outcome of Singapore’s first ever Bring Your Own Bag Day. In this initiative, visitors of the supermarkets will have to use reusable bags when making a purchase or donate 10cents for a plastic bag. Don’t worry, moms, this happens only on the first Wednesday of every month.

I dare say this is one of the most daring endeavors I have seen in conservative Singapore. Factories in the past were only encouraged to reduce their carbon emissions, with rewards to those with lower emissions. Although this by itself had the potential to reduce quite a fair bit of carbon dioxide emission, the fact is that most people do not really know what they can do to help the environment as the policies were meant only for the large industries. This initiative aims to lower and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide Singapore emits through the incinerating of plastic bags. To do this, the problem is now imposed upon all of us; all grocery shoppers will have to use reusable bags to save the environment.

On the surface, this seems like a superbly good idea. Using reusable bags, making it hard if you want to use plastic bags, thus less plastic is used and less carbon dioxide emitted. However, there are still certain problems to this scheme.

Firstly, would be the weekly shoppers. Weekly shoppers indicate people who shop in bulk around once a week, and dump all the food into the fridge to be used at leisure over the week. The problem? As items are bought in bulk, a lot of bags must be used. It is definitely un realistic to get the consumer to bring 10 or more reusable bags to pocket or bag all of their goods. Plus, the reusable bags, even when folded extensively, are still bulky to a really large extent. Also, it is these shoppers that use up most of the plastic bags.

A solution to this would be to perhaps use make the reusable bags more compact as well as perhaps create a reusable bag holder in which consumers can store their reusable bags to make it more convenient to carry etc.

Moving on, even though the world has rapidly escalated towards the saving of the earth and the prevention of global warming, it is still far from enough. The 2 more industrial countries, the US as well as China, have yet to sign the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warming.

However, in the US and Chinese point of view, it is necessary not to sign the protocol so as to fully develop their respective countries. This is especially true for China as it has only recently started to really industrialise and modernise.

Being only a secondary 3 student, I do not have a very clear view of what is really happening in politics, etc.

At least, by using the reusable bags, we can say that we are doing a part. :)

This article is from the Straits Times, February 26 2007, Monday and it describes how Singapore has prepared itself for the times ahead, by setting platform levels to have a minimum height of 129cm above sea level, so that we will not be sunken when the sea levels rise due to the melting of the polar ice caps.

After reading this, I’m sure that this article has set off many of our doomsday clocks ticking. There’s definitely going to be many more tramps holding up “The end is near” signs in the alleys of New York, as portrayed in many comic strips.

Yet, it is important to actually face reality, in which the earth’s sea level will rise by about 50cm. We cannot pretend that everything’s going to be alright, we have got to do something.

What WE can do to help. Carbon emissions causing global warming are borne from our excessive use of energy. What can we do to reduce this? First, we have to change our mindset. How many times have we hesitated to do something because “nobody’s doing it and only me doing it will not make a difference”. I cannot say that I do not think this way, it IS human nature to want to follow the norm. Still, it starts with one person, if one by one people start to change their mindset, after a period of time, it will definitely show a big effect.

Looking at the big picture, there is definitely the Kyoto protocol. However, why are the countries which are the biggest/ emit the most amount of carbon not co-erced into the protocol? I feel that it does not matter if a country is developing or developed, but all should be included in the protocol. Developed countries must then help developing countries install new power sources. After all, this is a WORLD effort, not an effort from the developed countries.

Next, cars. We have to stop car company’s from showing commercials flaunting how cool new cars are, because face it, technology’s not advanced enough to the stage that cars do not give out carbon monoxide! Just one jam on the ERP can give out enough carbon monoxide to choke to death tons of people. That’s probably why there is air conditioning in cars, so we don’t choke to death in the exhaust

Still, my reasoning might be flawed. After all, in terms of politics, it is hard to just dispatch free help to others.

None of you want to be swimming in cold water by 2030 right? I hope not.

That’s not the only thing that’s going to change. With global warming, the climate and weather patterns is going wonky, this could cause an upsurge in new diseases and pandemics, and even strengthen old ones like dengue.

What should we do? Go with the flow and kill the planet? Or go against it and try to recover what was lost?

This article is from The Straits Times, Thursday, March1 2007. Its about something so close to every one of our hearts, it’s about the few periods of lessons in which we used to cringe at. This cringing slowly turned to enjoyment, as we would laugh at the teachers squirming at every question we would ask them.

What is this article about? Sex education.

How important is it really? A primary 3 girl, at only 9 years old, is pregnant with a 6 month old child. As most of you should know, sex education for kids only starts in primary 4. As for this girl, she probably had no idea about sex and contraception, leading to this disaster. Ah, so now we know how important it is REALLY. The main reason is that the unknown is dangerous, and therefore it is extremely important to introduce sex education to children as young as possible.

But when is an appropriate time?

I can still remember the time I was in primary 3, when we had not heard of a vulgar word, when we would nod our fingers at a person, saying "orhh-horhh" at the person uttering the vulgar word.

At the time, I thought that a condom was the short form for condominium. I shall not pen what I thought at that time here for fear of making you, the reader, cringe.

As we can see, the primary 3 girl’s parents had explained to her how to use a sanitary napkin, but had not educated her about menstruation or sex. This proved to be a disaster, with their daughter becoming pregnant. Apparently, she had experimented with sex with her 14 year old schoolmate at home.

This could all have been prevented if the parents had thought her about sex and the laws preventing underage sex, etc. But this is the government’s point of view. I am sure, however, that many of the government personnel are as squeamish about talking about the birds and the bees as every other Singaporean parent. Just imagine this conversation.

Parent: Okay girl, lets talk about the birds and the bees.

Girl: What’s birds and bees? What’s birds and bees?

Parent: Erm… its about sex.

Girl: Sex? What’s that mummy?

Parent: Never mind.

As you can probably see, its extremely hard to actually talk frankly about the subject of sex in front of your children. Why? This is because in school, we actually term the talk of sex in between friends as the corruption of mind.

In conclusion however, I feel that sex education should be talked about as soon as the child experiences puberty signs. And during this time, it should be the parent of the same gender talking to the child about it. It might be uncomfortable, but it is still extremely important.

However, not being a parent or teacher myself, it is very hard for me to comment on the actions of the parents and adults out there, but these are just my views on the subject