After a slew of apologies from the 23 year-old bong-ripper, Michael Phelps has made a formal apology to his Chinese fans via home-video (below). Definitely a good PR move, the Chinese media has not hammered Phelps too hard, and in some cases indirectly praised him:

Chinese sports stars are still in the habit of thanking leaders and giving self-criticisms to their coaches. Many of these sports stars think that their wealth and their fans have absolutely no relationship. Thinking about that, the Chinese sports market has a long way to go (from Guangzhou Daily).

It seems China is not used to sports stars apologizing to their fans. But Phelps definitely had a motive in his apology. Apparently, the video had been sent directly from Mazda, the Japanese car manufacturer, to various Chinese websites and news outlets. Just last month, Phelps signed an endorsement with Mazda worth over $1 million to promote Mazda cars after his eight-gold-medal performance at the Beijing Olympics last summer. The New York Times writes that “Phelps’s deal with Mazda is said to be the most lucrative sponsorship deal for a foreigner in China.”

But it’s sad that Phelps has to bend to will of Mazda and Kellogg. I have a feeling that if Phelps could say what he really felt to his fans and critics, he would take another route. He would tell people that though he engaged in an illegal activity and will accept the legal consequences, his country is a hypocrite when it comes to drugs. The drug policies in America are totally out of touch with reality. That, if anything, his use of marijuana is another fine example of how an illegal drug like marijuana is not dangerous and had no ill-effects on a world class athlete and all-around good guy. But the world is not ready for a successful, well-adjusted athlete to be a poster boy for pot. Selling cars will always trump the truth.

Links & Sources:

• Boston Herald
• Guangzhou Daily
• New York Times

According to the Beijing News, yesterday’s air was the worst this year. Most likely, it will be the day with the highest concentration of pollutants for the whole year. At about 9pm on the eve of the Lantern Festival, every square meter of air had 810 micrograms of pollutants, though by the end of yesterday it was down to 307, a number that is still far higher than acceptable levels.

Days with this much pollution rank as level 5, the most extreme rating. The last time air pollution reached level 5 was on May 29th of last year.

If you are wondering what exactly you were breathing during the Lantern Festival celebrations, below are excerpts from an academic abstract aptly titled: The air pollution caused by the burning of fireworks during the lantern festival in Beijing.

The effects of the burning of fireworks on air quality in Beijing was firstly assessed from the ambient concentrations of various air pollutants (SO₂, NO₂, PM_2.5, PM₁₀ and chemical components in the particles) during the lantern festival in 2006. Eighteen ions, 20 elements, and black carbon were measured in PM_2.5 and PM₁₀, and the levels of organic carbon could be well estimated from the concentrations of dicarboxylic acids. Primary components of Ba, K, Sr, Cl^-, Pb, Mg and secondary components of C₅H₆O^2-₄, C₃H₂O^2-₄, C₂O^2-₄, C₄H₄O^2-₄, SO^2-₄, NO^-₃ were over five times higher in the lantern days than in the normal days. The firework particles were acidic and of inorganic matter mostly with less amounts of secondary components. Primary aerosols from the burning of fireworks were mainly in the fine mode, while secondary formation of acidic anions mainly took place on the coarse particles

It was found that over 90% of the total mineral aerosol and 98% of Pb, 43% of total carbon, 28% of Zn, 8% of NO^-₃, and 3% of SO^2-₄ in PM_2.5 were from the emissions of fireworks on the lantern night.

This may be useful

Sources & Links:

• Beijing News
• The air pollution caused by the burning of fireworks during the lantern festival in Beijing
• Respro

The Lantern Festival Parade on Qianmen Dajie is over. Tang yuan (汤圆) prices are up as a result of high demand. And there are no places to guess the lantern riddles. So what to do? Go to Together Bar!

Though not the most traditional of places to celebrate the ancient festival, they are giving away free bowls of sweet, gooey tang yuan! Located in CBD, Together is not your typical CBD kind of place. With a cozy, laid back environment, bumpin’ reggae tunes and a friendly staff, this is the place to go to celebrate the Lantern Festival!

2 Changpocun,
CBD/Guomao
500m south of Guomao Qiao
厂坡村2号
国贸桥向南500米

The City Management Police (城管) have put on display the “certificates” that they confiscated from unlicensed entrepreneurs.  They took more than 1200 of the spoof certificates, which look official but have names like “Pervert Certificate,” “Idiot Certificate,” and all kinds of other clever, though rather vulgar names. The entrepreneur in question told police that he sells over 200 hundred of these certificates to elementary and middle school students per day.

But these certificates can not only be found in Dongcheng (东城), where they were confiscated. They seem to be all over the country and are causing quite an uproar. Though it seems the only way for authorities to censor these certificates is not by going to the source (the factories producing them in large quantities), but by picking on the unlicensed little guy trying to make a living.

Sources and Links:

• The Beijing News
• Rednet.cn
• Northnews.cn

I had seen this guy on TV before, but never really noticed exactly what he did until I came upon Crossing the River (guò hé-过河), a musical skit about a woman reluctantly taking her pint-sized suitor named  Gāo fēng (高峰) across the river. Seriously one of the coolest skits I’ve seen, it is a performance style called èr rén zhuàn (二人转), where a man and a woman sing, dance, and have dialogues (which sometimes get a little racy).

Like the 二人转 skit-style, Pan Changjiang originates from Northeast China and has been called the Mr. Bean of China, though far more verbose. He is multi-talented, having been in several feature films and dozens of skits and music videos. He sings and dances well too. The skit 过河 has a fun song and dance (below) where the woman tests 高峰 on his knowledge of farm life to see whether he is suitable for marriage or not. Pan’s character comes up with witty answers to all of the questions, and finally insulting his questioner.

Other good clips of Pan Changjiang:

双簧 (Super funny clip of 赵本山 and 潘长江)

好人好梦 (Pan Changjiang and his daughter sing a duet)

过河 Original version

过河 Flash version