Oh noes, soon there will be even more Warz's and Nat's! And I thought things could only get better for this forum.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7863290.stm

How sad that you should actually find this amusing!

"defected" ??? - to abandon one's country for the interest of an opposing one?

Georgie wrote:How sad that you should actually find this amusing!

Yes, i was being facetious. Mind you, I confess I would be considerably more sympathetic if it wasn't self-inflicted.

yu888 wrote:"defected" ??? - to abandon one's country for the interest of an opposing one?

Oh dear, it is happening to me already, and I didn't drink the water! I think I would have preferred to turn in to a pedant as well.

Kulturschok, I think you can safely remove your tongue from your cheek now. It might cramp.

Tis a sad and disturbing report though. Poor little innocent victims of so-called progress.

Adrienne
http://www.shanghaiprops.com

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... ion=justin


Pollution causing birth defects 'every 30 seconds' in China

A senior family planning official in China has warned that a child is born with physical defects every 30 seconds due to the country's high levels of environmental pollution.

Jiang Fan, a top official in China's National Population and Family Planning Commission, says the rate of birth defects is alarming and is caused by environmental pollution.

The China Daily newspaper says Mr Jiang's commission found the highest rate of birth defects in coal-rich Shanxi, a province with a large chemical industry.

With this report a senior government official is suggesting there is a human cost to China's rapid economic development.

Courtesy BBC and ABC (Australia).
********************
I've seen so many Chinese kids (students) with extra wartlets and growths around their ears and hands - and it astounds me.

Well, surprise ! This is probably the the most grotesquely polluted place on the planet.

Seen twins, one normal, one with semi surgically corrected cleft palate and lip in my classroom. One 6 y.o. girl had enormous goitre, and she has to live with that for a long time.

It's a disgrace for children to have deformities due to their in-utero conception contaminated environment. Plus contaminated Parents

It doesn't affect me too much, but it changes their lives, and will probably be projected to their kids.

I want to leave here soon.

Z.

Mind you, I confess I would be considerably more sympathetic if it wasn't self-inflicted.

I don't see how the babies have "self-inflicted" anything.

"pedant"

well sorry to say, there is a rather large difference in "defected" and "defective". But given that you have probably been in China awhile too, we know how all our English deteriorates as we ingest lead and other heavy metals here so... we are all covered

I want to leave here soon.

I heard this quite a bit from certain expats here and just have to ask, so what keeps you here if its that important? This is not meant to be accusatory at all. My answer to that has been that I have better opportunities here to expand in my line of work. That outweighs my want to go home. What's yours...curiousity is killing me (if teh heavy metals don't first)?

It's just part of their plan. The one child policy is changing shape.

The other day I asked my Taiwanese girlfriend why all Chinese babies are so horridly fat. She joked, "They are putting more stuff in the milk to kill them"

@ yu... "I don't see how the babies have "self-inflicted" anything."""

100% with you. This makes me angry to tears. Others please attack.

Z.

It might not be self-inflicted per se but as a population they are certainly inflicting it upon their own, I think most of us know what he (she?) meant.

Just to put things in perspective...the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: "Birth defects affect about one in every 33 babies born in the United States each year. They are the leading cause of infant deaths, accounting for more than 20% of all infant deaths."