[divorce] good career move in china

In China, anything can be faked, including divorce.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the divorce rate more than doubled from 1985 to 1995, and by 2005, the rate had more than tripled, to 1.37 divorces per 1,000 people. In 2005, 1.79 million couples divorced, while 8.23 million couples ignored the rising divorce rate and tied the knot.

And the explanation for the rash of divorce?

Consider the case of one of the couples, Liu Fangzhai and Ma Xiuyun. Just 25 days after they were certified for divorce, they registered for marriage again. It happened that the county government wanted to demolish part of the village and requisition the land for a development project. The evicted villagers would be compensated.

But the compensation would be granted on the basis of households and, as a married couple, Liu and Ma would be compensated as a single household … Local officials were fully aware of the ruse but they could do nothing about it.

In the eastern Shanghai suburb of Pudong, more than a dozen couples were suddenly divorced last July. The area where they lived was targeted for redevelopment and they hoped to be compensated with bigger floor spaces as separated households.

It doesn't stop there.

There is a social-security program in Beijing to help the unemployed, disabled and others in need. The welfare is granted in such a way that it does not increase proportionally in accordance with the number of people in a household.

And yet another reason.

With the reform of state-owned enterprises in recent years, the number of laid-off workers has been so large, some local authorities launched new rules that they would only help one partner of a laid-off couple to find new employment.

Of course, this is just surmise. There are no official stats.

[sorry] couldn't resist it

So proud this morning. Click for larger view:

Truth is though, I'm usually U.S. weighted in the morning [please don't stop] when the Brits sleep and the Brits usually overtake this in the evening [please, please don't stop]. When [if?] that happens, I'll post it in the interests of balance.

[attraction] the eternal mystery

Welshcakes and I dancing recently. Lop off about 20cm, cut back on the brawn and c'est moi.

When one falls blindly for the other and the other is swept along by being loved, the momentum is enough to last some time. However, it must eventually drop back to a point where one of the two loves the more.

This one is usually the less beautiful of the two, the less capable in matters social, the more serious and trouble is on the horizon, as it's a case of, in Welshcake's words:

... ignoring the warning signals – and there always are warning signals – because, like many lovers before me, I had wanted to believe.

The less besotted will tire more quickly and the eye will once again roam, which is precisely the wrong thing with the besotted because for this person, despair is just round the corner:

it’s not about not having friends or even family. It's about not being first with someone.

My last "romance" was strange - I was besotted first and then the roles changed a little. I'd had to work pretty hard at it and when she finally fell, I suppose I dropped back to "cruise mode", thinking I'd achieved the desired result and in so doing, lost all.

The signs were there but I didn't understand the dynamics. Placed on an unrealistic pedestal which flew in the face of the "me" I really knew, I allowed myself to think I was younger, more handsome, more a "catch" than I was. Don't we always hope against hope for that?

With her, there were elements of the dilemma Ruthie pointed out:

The danger, I suppose, is in placing too much responsibility for your happiness in another person. I often hear that a person can't be happy in a relationship unless he/she can be happy alone, and that's probably true.

My darling could never be alone. She wanted me to bale her out of things I wasn't capable of - I'm a very ordinary person who appears to be something more in some people's eyes. Perceptions - it always comes back to these in the end.

Thus she started saying yes to invitations where before she wouldn't have. Thus I became first suspicious then upset; thus I became less pleasant as a person and let things slide at precisely the time I should have worked on attraction.

Fast forward and Ellee said:

There is a difference between being "lonely" and "alone"; one is chosen, the other is not. It's always lovely to have a special partner, but from what I've seen, they are few and far between. Most people make do, people's lives are often not as you imagine.

Assuming, for the moment, that there's nothing grossly offputting in you like a third eye, a giant protrusion or a sudden, uncontrollable temper, then often it comes down to very subtle things which turn the other away.

For example, there's one good friend who tends to close in to 30cm and grab your arm. I find myself backing away, sometimes backing the whole way round the room over a 40 minute period. Every time I take a half-pace back, she'll close in again.

She thinks I'm not interested because she's not a beauty.

Then there are the clearly mixed signals. Has it happened to you? You know you're no David Beckam and yet when you walk in, people outside your range whom you could never hope to attract gravitate towards you but the instant she sees you're interested she finds an excuse to slip away.

So you go over and talk to others and then become conscious that the same one is back again and as friendly as ever. The moment you suggest the balcony she finds an excuse again but then reappears again later. It's always this way.

I don't understand it and I really think it's better to be alone. I really believe there are people for whom a partner will never be. The trick then is to come to terms with that and even find happiness in other ways.

Maybe.

[flight information] call this blog [2]

I'm really terribly sorry to push this point and all that, especially in the light of the latest disaster but I really must ask you to:

1] look back over this post which, despite its semi-jocular tone, has a far from jocular message embedded within;

2] consider a summary of the latest crash:

A TAM Linhas Aereas Brazilian Airbus A320, carrying 176 people, was flying into Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil when it lost control on landing. It skidded off the rain-soaked runway and flew over a bustling avenue just below, hitting a petrol station and cargo termina and bursting into flames.

Last month, two passenger planes clipped wings while taxiing at Congonhas, increasing concerns about safety. Last September, 154 people were killed when a Brazilian passenger plane collided with a small executive jet and crashed in the Amazon jungle in the worst air accident in the country's history.

The Congonhas airport, located in the heart of South America's largest city, has had runway problems for years and recently repaved one of its landing strips. Earlier this year, officials tried to ban wide-bodied jets from the airport because of fears they could skid off its short landing strips.

Air travel in Brazil has repeatedly been disrupted since the September crash unveiled a series of problems, including insufficient infrastructure and overburdened, underpaid staff.

3] notice the supposed cause of the crash and the type of aeroplane it was. It was an Airbus yet again.

Against this, aviation sources repeatedly stress that air travel is the safest way to go and that most disasters are due to pilot error.

So what's for us to do?

1] I feel we need to be a little more circumspect, a little more critical and a little less trusting in accepting "air packages". The major carriers are fine but it's the "connecters" I'd like to know more about.

2] I'd also like to know if the airport I'm flying into, like Los Rodeos for example, has a previous history and whether anything has been learnt from this. Surely we need to look at national character as well while we're there and not give a damn if it steps on toes and wounds national pride. Who gives a toss about that when it comes to maximizing your chances of living?

Go through the records yourself and find out here up to 2001 and here after 2000.

3] Possibly you'd agree with the above but not with my final criterion. I'd really like to know that someone like, say Larry McDonald, wasn't on board our Korean Air Lines (KAL) flight 007 and the plane wasn't flying over, say, Sakhalin or that John Kennedy Jnr wasn't on the flight list despite it being all his fault or indeed that yours truly wasn't entered on any passenger manifest.

I don't wish to travel on any flight which would accept me as a passenger, thank you, Groucho. But this is stretching incredulity too far, isn't it?

[turkey] let them in, shut them out [2]

Further to this, please go to this and the issue might be a bit clearer.

[food quiz] know your fruit & veges

1] Rich in vitamin C, derived from a wild mustard plant, Cato the Elder praised this vegetable for its medicinal properties, declaring that "it is first of all the vegetables" and thus it is our first this evening.

2] From the nightshade family, was first captured and domesticated in southern Peru and northern Bolivia, had a part in the disaster of 1845 and bears white to purple flowers with yellow stamens.

3] The elephant garlic and Egyptian kurrat are also in this family, are hardy -many varieties can be left in the ground during the winter to be harvested as needed, essential to vichyssoise.

4] Status disputed, also from the nightshade family, as are its close cousins tobacco and chili peppers, has a weak, woody stem that often vines over other plants, possibly not grown in England until the 1590s.

5] Contains no fat, very few calories and a great source of fibre, can be peeled, steamed and then eaten warm with butter, extracts obtained from the roots are used industrially as red food colourants, good for for fevers and constipation.

6] Often eaten boiled with roast dinner, particularly at Christmas, contain good amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid and dietary fibre, are believed to protect against colon cancer, due to their containing sinigrin, hated by some.

7] Member of the Brassicaceae family, relatives include the mustards and turnip, summer varieties include "Rainbow Mix", red, white and purple, "Cherry Bell" and "Flamboyant Sabina" which is cylindrical, winter varieties include "Black Spanish Round".

8] A biennial plant which grows a rosette of leaves in the spring and summer, is a domesticated form of Queen Anne's lace, the β-carotene is metabolized by humans into vitamin A, can be used to treat digestive problems, intestinal parasites, and tonsilitis.

9] Provides more than one fifth of the calories consumed by humans in their global diets, can be grown practically anywhere, even on steep hillsides, is controversial due to talc coating and processing and is the 66th Secretary of State.

10] Our Lady of Thermidor, used to take baths full of them to keep the full radiance of her skin.

Fontenelle, gourmet of the 18th century, considered his long life was due to them, considered poisonous in Argentina until the mid-nineteenth century.

Answers here.