Sichuan Earthquake Appeal 2008, originally uploaded by whykay.

Sorry for the bad quality shots, took them with my mobile, did not have the D80 with me today.

There's a discussion at the IBC forum on various charities that are happening around Dublin. If there are other fund-raisings happening around the country, post it there. Of course, people can just donate to the Chinese Red Cross via redcross.ie.

Visible Chinese aims to become an Authoritative Independent Listing of Achievers within the UK's Chinese Culture with the following mission statement:

1. To Be Comprehensive
Through all walks of life and subjects

2. To Operate with Integrity
Candidates are carefully screened and selected

3. To Provide Recognition
Profiles will inform, celebrate and inspire

"I picked up as much as I could," Diep said as she hauled a dozen 50-pound bags of Super Lucky Elephant rice and 10 bags of 25-pound long grain into her van and her sister's sedan.

Hmm, over-reacting, aren't we?

Another warning sign for us to bear in mind are dairy products. I noticed that people in China has developed a taste for dairy products, thus a fight for keeping up with demands of supplying dairy produce globally. In Japan, they mainly import their dairy produce from Austrailia, and they are struggling to cope. This article shows that simple needs like buying butter from shops is a problem. Obviously the shortage of grain (rice and wheat) is an issue over there as well, impact from droughts hitting exporting countries and use of grains to be turn to bio-fuel hits pockets as food prices increases hits consumers to bakeries and other food related-businesses.

I wonder will this encourage countries to grow their own food more?

So I suppose what I can only do here is shop smarter, which will help me stop buying crap and only get essentials. Supermarkets will probably have to work harder now, as I wouldn't be the only consumer trying to save on food spending.

I noticed that the children are so straight to the point, for example, in the primary school shown, kids are made aware of how to treat your own possessions properly, the example of using class monitors to go around checking the item of the teacher want to make an point of, a pencil eraser. One boy was pointed out and voted to have the worst eraser and was shown as an example of a story of a tattered jumper that it's important to respect one's own things like respecting people. The humiliated pupil went around apolagising to the rest of the class and hooked the little finger hook with each of the students (like a shake on that gesture), and the class forgave him in unison. Although he was crying from being pointed out that he should look after his personal items properly, being a kid, it was forgotten very soon afterwards in their outdoor activities.

The pressures of secondary school kids looked pretty intensive, they even have medical checks on final year students, yes, a full medical! It's to make sure they can hack it through the tough study and exams and ensuring clean bill of health means you can get into university level). That just hits home as I watch all these kids, with books piled high, and how there study hour is reciting outloud in the same room, that will drive me absolutely bonkers, but that's how they study. And they get up at 5:45am, do morning exercises before brekkie at 7am. I noted that most of these students are staying in dorms or boarding schools. Even young kids at 6/7 years in that primary school learn to take care of themselves, no dishwashers, washing machines and parents to pick up things for them there. >-<

I have said this in many a posts already, we have it so easy over here!

More info:
- Structure of Chinese education
- Structure of Hong Kong education system

Came across this via http://drawn.ca/2008/03/27/chinese-painting/ with their linkie to the video, see below:

For most of the Chinese, rice is a regularly eaten with other dishes, I say most Chinese as other provinces might be regularly eat noodles instead of rice, for example. What I'm trying to say is that "食饭" (sik faan) basically means dinner. Even now that I reside in Dublin and I don't cook Chinese dinner that often, my mom would as me that question very early on in the phone conversation, and vice-versa.

What's worrying me is the cost of food going through the roof now, especially rice. Normally rice would be the most affordable, but with so much demand, will it going to be a luxury?