Made in China

Interesting, for a few days now I have seen Chinese nationals working on the Vumatel Fibre backbone. Don’t get me wrong, I want the fibre but why the Chinese? It looks like China Comservice, a subsidiary of the China Telecommunications Corporation, has been sub-contracted by Vumatel to install the fibre optics. This begs the question; don’t we have our own fibre optic installers?

On the way home back from an appointment in Pretoria I saw these 2 Chinese nationals connecting the dark fibre near my home. Okay say we don’t have enough local installers or say we can’t pay them the same we pay the Chinese. I would have imagined at least that we would have some sort of "transfer of knowledge" training on the ground but I didn’t see any local installers with a Chinese educator training our locals. What are we going to do in the future, make a long distance service call to China or is there something I am not seeing.

Another question; are we using "Fong Kong" products or Chinese top of the range products?

Note to some of my readers who are not local, the township slang words "Fong Kong" means something cheap or a copy made in China which will inevitably break sooner than later. I know it might be demeaning to some of my Chinese friends, and I do apologise up front. But take vehicles for example, the Japanese after the war made cars that were very unreliable, terrible in fact and after a few decades they became leaders in vehicle manufacturing with some of the best cars in the world. After a while Korea started making vehicles and it took them half the time to go from rubbish to awesome cars.

Now it is the Chinese turn and I believe their cars which are not so good will be up there with the best within even half time it took Korea. It's a learning curve that is getting shorter and shorter. Look at the cellular industry with majority of cellphone manufacturing now made in China.

Now are these made in China fibre optic equipment installed by the Chinese up there with the best or do we say "Fong Kong" for now as the price was just right?

Cock a doodle doo

As most people know last year, the Year of the Monkey was simple a bad year but now, cock a doodle doo, a New Year starts and a new dawn as we celebrate the Year of the Rooster in Old Chinatown.

Now before you get on your high horse, we also don’t enjoy fireworks for our animals’ sake but in a controlled environment like down town Johannesburg with the only animals close enough other than the humans are the rats and pigeons, (no one knows what happens to the cats and dogs in Chinatown). Anyways Lynda, Matthew, and I went down to Chinatown this evening, with the old year behind us for good, we let the rooster herald a new beginning.

 

Fiery Monkey

In South Africa especially this year the monkey has became a taboo in terms of racism but the Chinese, the Year of the Monkey is about to start on the 8 February, not just any monkey but a fiery monkey.

In the Chinese calendar, there are 12 animals which are allocated a year, and associated with the animals are 5 elements, metal, water, wood, fire, and earth which means that Fire and Monkey combination recur every 60 years. So what does this Fiery Monkey mean to the Chinese, well to them this year will be an ambitious and adventurous, but irritable year.

The weeks leading up the Chinese New Year are celebrated in different places around Johannesburg with the first welcoming of the New Year tonight at the Old Chinatown which has the best fireworks display anywhere in South Africa and the only one I really enjoy because it is in downtown Joburg CBD, far far away from any animals and pets. Next Sunday will be the main event at the Nan Hua Temple Buddhist temple outside Bronkhorstspruit. The following Saturday 13 February will be New Chinatown’s turn of welcoming the monkey in.

No I am not a Buddhist but I enjoy going to Old Chinatown for the awesome fireworks display. This photo below is my favourite of the evening because there is something about it that intrigues me especially that person on the bottom right. It was taken handheld with my point and shoot Canon camera on the wrong settings. The overall affect is a blurred photo that has this eerie feel to it. Not a planned affect but I love it. To me it shows how distorted the world has become with a vague hazy view what is to come when we try to make sense of the future.

The following photo was taken with my Samsung cellphone of the same scene seconds apart as my favourite photo. This one shows that maybe we should change this Year of the Monkey and call it the Year of the Cellphone.

To see more photos of the celebrations, check out my Facebook album Fiery Monkey

Year of the Horned Creature in Detention

With the Chinese horse finally bolted out of the stable, in prances this horned creature or animal. Is it a goat? Is it a sheep? Is it a Ram? Or is it just maybe Pan? Could this be an entire year lost in translation?

Mystified I joined friends in the Old China Town cloaked in the shadow of the notorious John Vorster Square and the dreaded Security Branch of the Apartheid Government’s Police Force, but today we joined in mass to celebrate the coming in of the new Chinese year, the Year of the Horned Creature aka Goat, Sheep, or Ram, with loud bangs and lots of fireworks.

So as the echoes from Chris van Wyk’s poem "In Detention" ran through my mind as blasts of crackers blew up near me under the skies which sparkled against the chocking smoke as the tears of the rain began to fall.

He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself while washing
He slipped from the ninth floor
He hung from the ninth floor
He slipped on the ninth floor while washing
He fell from a piece of soap while slipping
He hung from the ninth floor
He washed from the ninth floor while slipping
He hung from a piece of soap while washing.

All this while ominously looming over China Town. Bang! Bang! Wohoooosh!

Back to the New Year. The Mandarin Chinese character羊 denoting this new year means a horned animal of sorts which covers quite a lot of animals. Sheep are cute but not known to be leaders, more follow the pack. Goats tend to be more on the evil side but very tasty according to traditional culture. Rams on the other hand are more manly, aggressive and sadly alone. Then we have Pan. A wild mischievous mythical creature/god that was half goat half human, ahhh Puck of my Shakespearian youth.

So if you do follow the Chinese calendar, pray tell what year are we entering into? Is it the Year of the tasty Goat? Or are you going to be aggressive and say it is the Year of the Ram? Or are you going to follow the pack and say it is the Year of the Sheep? Or is it the Year of the Pan, full of wild mischievous abandonment?

Enter the Year of the Dragon

Here be Dragons. Not just any dragons, but the Yang Water Dragon. The Joburg Photowalkers and the Poser Scooter Club all trekked north to the Buddhist's Nan Hua Temple outside Bronkhorstspruit to celebrate with thousands of others the start of the Year of the Dragon in traditional Chinese style. The Water Dragon only occurs once every 60 years so you can imagine how big the event at the Nan Hua temple was.

Matthew and I got here early and went straight to the main temple for some early photographs before it got too crowded. While standing at the large doors, I did not go in because I knew from a previous visit that I could not take photos inside the temple and that it was disrespectable to take photos of the deity but the monk saw me standing outside looking in, insisted I go in. What a monk who does not understand the rules, so I explained to the monk about my camera, he answered, "Today special day, you go take photo" Now I am not one to be given a invite like that twice started taking my shoes off, and again the monk intervened and said "Special day, leave shoe on, we clean after". Okay,now that doesn't happen every day, so I went into the main temple and took photos inside and of the lighting of the candles ceremony all with the blessings of the monks. By that time the temple started getting full so Matthew and I proceeded outside to find the Joburg Photowalkers and the Posers Scooter Club.

It was even more packed outside with more arriving by the minute. After finding most of my friends, Matthew and I went and got some food to eat and did not have long to wait for the fireworks to start, followed by the Dragon Dance and Lion Dances. Towards the end of the dance ceremony I had a chat to the new incoming Chinese ambassador and with who I think was his wife. The performers were from the South African Taiwanese Hakka Association, so trying not to spark an international incident I asked how does the ambassador feel about all the Taiwanese performers with no mainland representatives. He answered very diplomatically that he ambassador for all Chinese including Taiwanese. I was tempted to join the ambassador, Mosiuoa Lekota, the president of the Congress of the People, and other political and cultural delegates who I did not recognise, for tea but thought it best not push my luck. It was an enjoyable day and I have posted photos on my Facebook album, Enter the Dragon. With over 800 photos to choose from, it was hard to select something that would envelope the whole day but this photo of Lucy's string dragon caught my eye. Have an awesome Year of the Dragon.