And so do I. These things suck. And when will the federal government stop pushing these heavy, ugly and awkward dollar coins on the American people? Nobody likes them. On Thursday, the U.S. Mint will put millions of the new George Washington dollar coins into circulation, the first of a series of presidential dollar coins. Every three months, the Fed will release a new dollar coin with the face of the next president who served. I guess this means in 11 years there will be a George W. Bush dollar coin? There is also talk of replacing the dollar bill, pretty much the most American thing ever, with these silly gold coins. According to an AP poll, 75% of Americans oppose replacing the dollar bill with the coin and half don’t want the coin at all. I’ll give you two reasons why this dollar coin is a horrible idea. One, the Susan B. Anthony silver dollar, released in 1979. A horrible miscalculation by the U.S. government. Nobody used it and the coins were left sitting in the U.S. Mint. Two, the Sacagawea dollar released in 2000, aimed to aid Americans with electronic payment systems and parking meters. This gold dollar coin was an even bigger failure. Why? For instance, in New York City, when one uses a twenty-dollar bill to buy a $2 train card with an automated transportation machine, the thing would fire out 18 of these dollar coins along with the pass. Wow, how futuristic. These dollar coins are about the only thing in the world that would make me want to deal with a surly human MTA worker. At least these assholes give me back a ten, a five and 3 ones. In an AP article, one Albany man said, “instead of taking time to put four quarters in a parking meter, you could put in a dollar.” Yeah, except in places like Manhattan, where people actually use meters, these dollar coins will surely not be compatible. So please U.S. Mint, stop indulging these nerdy coin collectors and leave the greenback alone. Americans like their money exactly how it is.
•AP: Majority Oppose Scrapping Dollar Bill
“A synagogue in Shanghai?” Yep. Actually 2 synagogues in Shanghai. At one point there were seven. Today, however, there is not even one active house of worship for China’s largest Jewish expat community. But that is about to change. Shanghai has begun a five-month restoration project on Ohel Moishe Synagogue in Hongkou district, built in 1928 by Russian Jews living in the neighborhood. The synagogue used to be the focal point of a thriving Jewish area in the early to mid-20th century known as the Shanghai Ghetto during World War II. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution the temple was shut down, modified and turned into a mental hospital. Then in the 90s it reopened as a bookstore. Today, it serves a dilapidated Jewish museum with a bunch of dusty exhibits and photographs that do not warrant the absurd $6 price of admission.
As long as this story gets better and better, I will continue to write about it. The London arm of the Hong Kong-based Chinese mafia group the “Triads” has made death threats to players of the Queens Park Rangers for their roles in a massive soccer brawl Wednesday with the Chinese national under-21 team. According to Friday’s Daily Mirror, the London Triads have sent letters to the Rangers players promising revenge for the dirty fight that made China, I’ll say it, look like a bunch of bitches. One interesting fact to surface Friday is that the Ranger throwing the punch in the famous punch photo (scroll down) is not a player at all, but rather the team’s assistant manager Richard Hill. In response to the death threats, QPR has increased security at its Harlington training facility and at the team’s away games. The Triads, while based in Hong Kong, have a network all over the world including New York, Sydney, Amsterdam, L.A. and of course, London. The gang is perhaps the most sophisticated, exclusive and feared organized crime group in the world.
Model, reality TV star, mother, playmate, actress, stripper and iconic pop celebrity Anna Nicole Smith passed away Thursday in a hotel room in Hollywood. That’s Hollywood, Florida. I don’t want to bore you with the details of the death, but basically, she collapsed and the cause of death is still unknown. I don’t know whether to be sad about Anna Nicole’s passing or happy that she and her loving former husband will be joined once again in heaven. I’m sure he is interested in what happened to his money. While many newspapers and websites covered her death by portraying Smith in an elegant Marilyn Monroe-wannabe light and write about her life as though she was an important figure in American history, I chose to run a photo that faithfully portrays the true Anna Nicole Smith. She was a blond, busty, at times beautiful, fucked up female figure who never was able to get it together. Anna Nicole was one of these people who every time she spoke, moved, blinked or did anything, it was obvious she was on drugs. Yet for some reason all of her “fans” would rather just believe that she is “crazy” or “eccentric.” The girl was messed up. Always. She dropped out of high school, had a son as a teenager, was from Texas, worked as a stripper, married an 89 year-old man when she was 26 (who she picked up in her strip club… yuck) and then gained about 100 pounds and had cameras follow her around for two years documenting how fucked up she was. Her own mother in November went on a talk show to beg Anna Nicole to get off drugs. She said of Anna, “She lives on drugs now.” Her mother also prophesized months ago that if she married her then boyfriend, current husband Howard K. Stern, she would end up dead. After her son died mysteriously 5 months ago, Stern stands to inherit Anna Nicole’s money. I guess what goes around comes around. I wish I could say Anna will be remembered for all the good work she did. But other than Playboy and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, I can’t really think of anything good she did. She will go down as a 90s sex symbol who made what she could out of a shitty life and then went off the deep end. As my friend Joe, saddened over the sudden death, remarked, “I hope they donate those tits to science.”
When I first got to China, I had no phone or computer. What I did have was a mother who made me promise to get in touch with her when I arrived. I set out to find an internet cafe. And maybe the 4th person for whom I did my little typing-on-a-keyboard charade walked me across the street to a Chinese internet cafe. While I just needed to write a quick email, it seemed like everyone else there had been there for days doing what Chinese teenagers do best: playing computer games. Not like the way me and my sister used to sit quietly and play the Oregon Trail. I’m talking about 50 different pairs of high-quality computer speakers turned all the way up blasting gunfire, explosion sounds and computerized though human-sounding grunts and men yelling “Fire!.” While these places sound like war zones, for Chinese teenagers, many of whom are without a computer at home, the internet cafe is the place to be. In Friday’s Washington Post, Edward Cody writes about the internet cafes in Gedong, in China’s Shanxi province, which have been closed down by the county’s Communist Party Secretary. Zhang Guobiao banned the internet cafes nine months ago because he felt they were a bad influence on the county’s youth. Edward Cody writes:
When I read a couple weeks ago that China’s under-21 Olympic soccer team would be traveling to London to train with Chelsea and play three exhibition games against 3 English clubs, I would not have predicted I’d write one post, much less two, on this less than thrilling subject. I couldn’t give a shit about sports in China. And I care very little about what everyone here other than me calls “football.” What I do care about are bench-clearing brawls, especially when they involve Chinese people and especially when they involve broken jaws. In the 75th minute of Wednesday’s friendly against Queens Park Raiders, Chinese national striker Gao Lin collided with a Queens Park player. The collision escalated into an argument and the argument became a fist fight. Both benches cleared and the teams pummeled each other as the crowd looked on in amazement. According to a Reuters UK story Thursday, one witness said, “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. There were punches, kung-fu kicks and all sorts. It was absolute mayhem.” Chinese player Zheng Tao (above) was jumped by six Rangers and beaten so badly that he was unconscious for five minutes after the fight had ended. He suffered a broken jaw among other injuries and will be unable to play for 3 months. The China Daily called the fight a “riot” and reported that other than Zheng, two players “suffered flesh wounds.” It seems the China Daily’s been watching too much “E.R.” The referees called the match and Zheng was rushed to a London hospital. This trip to England for the Chinese Olympic team has been quite the disaster. Local police have launched an investigation of the case.
Sounds like it could be Borat’s first novel. Though in China, something like this on the cover of a book is not meant as a joke. Instead, it’s meant to grab the attention of Chinese book buyers who are actually interested in making money. The Jewish way. The Washington Post, in a story Wednesday, uncovered many real-life how-to business books with English titles that would make most Jews scream “Oy gevalt!” Books such as “The Legend of Jewish Wealth” and “Jewish People in Business: The Bible of How to Live Their Lives” are shelved with all the other normal business-related books. My favorite title that the Post found was a book called, “The Eight Most Valuable Business Secrets of the Jewish.” I wonder if “convince China that you have eight really valuable business secrets” was one of them. There are around 50 distinct “Jewish” business titles floating around Shanghai bookstores. In today’s China, where the Chinese are racing to get ahead, capitalist self-help books are a big industry. And according to the Post, the ones with Jewish this or Jewish that in the title are incredibly popular. The dangerous element to these books, however, is that these books are all the Chinese have to learn about Jewish culture. In a country of over a billion people, there are only 10,000 Jews. And while these books are normally chock-full of ridiculous stereotypes like “Jews don’t break their promises” and “Jews show up places on time,” mostly all of the stereotypes are actually quite complimentary. The Post highlights the cover of January’s Shanghai and Hong Kong Economy Magazine which read, “Where does Jewish people’s wisdom come from?” Moses? While I suppose one could look at these books as propagating harmful stereotypes, the truth of it is the Chinese are somewhat in awe of Jewish culture and the two groups are historically very close. And not just in Manhattan’s Chinese restaurants. In Shanghai, for instance, Jews built up pretty much the entire riverfront, or the Bund, in the early 20th century. And when World War II broke out, the Chinese were instrumental in saving and protecting many of Shanghai’s Jewish community, which numbered 30,000 at its peak. So while I understand it’s the American’s reflex to get all bent out of shape about books such as these that classify Jews as successful and smart and hardworking, I think any group would just be proud to be associated with these attributes. And when I read about the Chinese buying up books that talk about Jewish business sense, I can’t help but think that maybe there are some stereotypes that aren’t half bad. It’s really nothing to kvetch about.
In October, I launched this infrequent and irreverent column chronicling the religious issues facing perhaps the most unreligious country in the world. I wanted to delve deeper into the topics important to China’s religious community. But more than this, quite simply, I really like the depiction of the Chinese Jesus (above). Well, more than three months after the first column on religious persecution and underground religion, I am proud to offer you the second installment of “China Church Chat”. And today, god willing, we will discuss the true level of religiosity in the Middle Kingdom.
On Sunday, I wrote about the Royal Grenada Police band who played Taiwan’s national anthem for China’s ambassador and nearly 500 Chinese workers who were celebrating the opening of the island’s new national stadium financed by China (scroll down). Oops. Well, as Grenada’s prime minister promised, heads have rolled. According to an International Herald Tribune article Tuesday: