I thought they loved lamb!
"American lobster is new Chinese New Year delicacy" by Patrick Whittle, Associated Press February 17, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — Now on Beijing menus for Chinese New Year: lots and lots of US lobster.
Exports of American lobsters to China have rocketed in recent years, largely to satisfy the appetites of the communist country’s growing middle class, to whom a steamed, whole crustacean — flown in live from the United States — is not just a festive delicacy and a good-luck symbol but also a mark of prosperity.
This as the AmeriKan middle cla$$ vanishes.
And that’s good news for Maine, far and away the nation’s No. 1 lobster state, where the boom has put more money in the pockets of lobstermen and kept shippers and processors busy during the usually slack midwinter months.
For Stephanie Nadeau, owner of the Lobster Co., a wholesaler in Arundel, the demand has meant 14-hour nights packing up wriggling lobsters so they can reach China in time for the Lunar New Year, which falls on Thursday this year. She said she sends 100,000 pounds a week to China this time of year.
‘‘There’s lot of orders, lots of demand right now,’’ Nadeau said.
On the other side of the world, every morning at 9, the Auspicious Garden restaurant in Beijing receives 800 lobsters that have just crossed the Pacific aboard a cargo plane. In the evening, hundreds of diners fill the two-story restaurant in the gigantic Pangu Seven Stars Hotel for a nearly $80 all-you-can-eat buffet with the New England specialty as the main attraction.
Xu Daqiang, a 35-year-old businessman who was at the restaurant for the first time on a romantic date with his girlfriend, said food-safety concerns in China make him choose expensive high-class restaurants where he can find imported seafood.
Cao Lijun, a 24-year-old Shanghai resident celebrating her friend’s birthday in a party of four, alluded to lobster’s reputed aphrodisiac properties when she said with a half-laugh: ‘‘How to say it? It makes my husband healthier. Really, this is what we say, because it is high in proteins.’’
Lobsters and other foods seen as luxuries are popular at festive events. The bright red of a cooked lobster is considered lucky, as is its resemblance to a dragon.
China also imports lobsters from Canada, Australia, South Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere, but the market for the US variety is exploding, with the demand strong year-round, not just at New Year’s.
American exports of live or processed lobster to China climbed from $2.1 million in 2009 to $90.5 million last year, federal statistics show. China took about 12 percent of US lobster exports in 2014, up from 0.6 percent in 2009.
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Want to take a look at the catch?
"Happy Ewe Year: Astrological Signs Bad for the Sheep Year" by LOUISE WATT, Associated Press | Feb 19, 2015.
Chinese were seeing in the Year of the Sheep on Thursday, but with fortune-tellers predicting accidents and an unstable economy and some parents-to-be fretting over the year's reputation for docile kids, it wasn't exactly warming everyone's heart.
This animal sign, which comes once every dozen years, can be said to have an identity crisis. Known variably as the Year of the Goat, Sheep or Ram, the sign's confusion stems from its Chinese character, "yang," which broadly describes any of the ruminating mammals, with or without horns.
Many Chinese prefer to translate it as the "Year of the Sheep" because sheep are more cute and cuddly, and large sheep figures have appeared around the capital's shopping areas in recent weeks.
The goat, however, is more likely to be the original meaning because it was a popular farm animal among Han Chinese who started the zodiac tradition, Huang Yang, a researcher on the roles of sheep and goats in Chinese culture, was quoted by the official Xinhua News agency as saying.
Still, Xinhua is going with "Year of the Sheep" in its English-language reports rather than "Year of the Goat."
The United States also appears to be opting for the fluffier, more gentle animal sign, at least in the U.N. Security Council. A U.S. diplomat at a council meeting earlier this month wished China, this month's council president, a happy "Year of the Sheep."
During the seven-day holiday that started Wednesday, the world's second-biggest economy largely shuts down.
How can they do that?
Many mainland Chinese tuned into the annual New Year's Eve TV gala Wednesday evening, and this year's mascot managed to achieve the problem-solving feat of not being clearly a sheep or a goat.
The previous year, the Year of the Horse, is generally considered to be an auspicious time — never mind that Asian airlines had a string of high-profile disasters.
Astrologists interviewed said this year would bring a volatile economy, more transport accidents and windy natural disasters such as tornadoes in the United States and typhoons to Southeast Asia.
For China, which doesn't get tornadoes, that means air pollution, "coming in with dirty air currents and affecting everyone's lives," said Shanghai-based astrologer Dong Jialing.
"In around June, when it's getting hot in China, the Western economy will fluctuate quite a lot and will be very unstable," Dong predicted. But August or September will mark the start of a very stable economic period.
Feng shui master Clement Chan, who appeared on "America's Next Top Model" as a guest judge in an episode filmed in Macau, said he sees a lot of fire this year, and "fire means accidents." He anticipates plane crashes in the first half, but not as many as in 2014. He also sees a lot of road accidents.
I sure hope he wasn't seeing nuclear explosions.
On the positive side, he sees female managers and company leaders doing well this year. "I think you'll see a lot of female world leaders — they'll achieve something great, actually," Chan said.
People born in the yang year, including Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Zhang Ziyi, traditionally are believed to be filial, kind-hearted and artistic, while also timid, obstinate and consummate worriers.
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"China urges fewer fireworks during New Year celebrations" Associated Press February 19, 2015
BEIJING — Setting off fireworks to celebrate Chinese New Year may be a centuries-old tradition, but the country’s authorities are urging people to light fewer of them this week as cities fight a losing battle against relentless, toxic air pollution.
Dozens of cities have outright banned lighting fireworks Wednesday and Thursday, while others have reduced the number of fireworks vendors allowed to operate.
Well, that sucks.
In Beijing, people received text messages from their phone companies advising against setting off fireworks while local government-run media repeated the warnings in newspapers and online.
Still, the state-run China Daily warned that Beijing’s clear skies would likely become heavily polluted by night due to fireworks, reaching the highest level possible on a scale measuring air pollution. It said the polluted air would probably last through Friday due to windless conditions.
Last year, Beijing authorities said they planned to phase out coal burning by 2020.
Then how you gonna cook they lobster?
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Let the bad luck begin:
"A nursing home worker in central China accused of killing three elderly residents with a brick and injuring 15 other people had argued with his boss over unpaid wages, according to a local government and state media. Luo Renchu, 64, attacked elderly residents and staff at the privately run home in Hunan province at around 2 a.m. Thursday, the first day of the Chinese New Year, the Shuangfeng county government said in a statement. Luo fled and police said they apprehended him on a mountain on Saturday afternoon."
UPDATES: For lobstermen, another banner year
"BEIJING (AP) — China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports that took immediate effect Thursday amid criticism that its citizens' huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants.
Bad China!
China is the world's largest importer of smuggled tusks, although Beijing has campaigned against illegal ivory. Six tons of illegal ivory was pulverized last year in the southern city of Dongguan, and Chinese courts have stepped up prosecution of illegal ivory trade.
The government also has warned its citizens not to bring back any ivory, but critics say the public awareness campaign is inadequate as many Chinese do not know that tusks can only obtained by killing the elephant.
After China acquired a legal stockpile of ivory in 2008, demand for ivory has surged among increasingly affluent Chinese who see ivory as a status-defining luxury, and high profits have fueled a strong underground market for the product.
The ivory trade looks like the worldwide CIA drug-smuggling network and all it's corruption.
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I guess the Chinese hate elephants, huh?
