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Weibo.com / kayaliang
A picture circulated on Weibo of a carton of milk and piece of bread that make up a free school lunch for students at the Suode primary school in Fenghuang, central Hunan province in China.
BEIJING -- Five local Chinese education officials were sacked this week amid rampant speculation that they were stealing from a national lunch program, prompting a nationwide online debate over how this nation of 1.3 billion is feeding its more than 194 million K-12 students.
The five officials were dismissed from the Fenghuang school district in the central Hunan province after it was revealed they were serving substandard meals to the children, sparking outrage and raising questions about whether they were pocketing the money instead.
The terrible meals at Suode Primary were first exposed last month when a volunteer teacher at the school, Liang Xuyue, took a photo of the "healthy" lunch and posted it on China's Twitter-like service, Weibo.
The meal, a 20-gram piece of bread and a 200-ml carton of milk, was a far cry from the ministry of education's recommendation that free school meals for poor students should consist of meat, eggs and milk.
Liang noted that the school had also been supplied with seven cases of expired milk.
Influence of social media
The scope of China's national lunch program is daunting. The government allocated 16 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) in 2012 to be used to provide free lunches for approximately 26 million poor rural students. That means just 3 yuan (48 cents) is available per student.
By contrast, the National School Lunch program run by the USDA in the United States budgeted $11.1 billion in 2011 and served 31.8 million students. Taking into account students who pay within the plan for subsidized meals, the American program was able to budget $2.86 for free meals per student.
More than 880,000 comments were posted on Weibo about the scandal, many suspecting like Liang that school officials were lining their pockets with lunch money.
Two Chinese families linked by a kidnapping
"I've said it before, when it comes to money it is impossible for us to believe these officials without supervision!" wrote one Weibo user. "We should send these Ministry of Education officials to the forests to experience starvation!" declared another. "Let them suffer!"
Some Weibo users pointedly posted pictures of American school lunches side-by-side with the Suode lunch for comparison.
Hunan province education officials were forced to respond quickly to the outrage, reflecting social media's growing power in influencing how justice is served in China. The school's headmaster, two deputy headmasters and two Fenghuang County education officials were all summarily removed from their jobs.
'Kids need hot meals'
But the scandal has evolved beyond a simple case of naked graft and the mistreatment of these children. Many in China are now asking serious questions about the lunch program – not just about the pitiful amount spent per child, but the very makeup of a school lunch.
"In China the quality of life differs in various areas, so there is no unified national standard for what lunch should be like," Deng Fei, a former journalist for China's Phoenix Weekly news magazine, told NBC News.
Read more stories from China on NBC's Behind The Wall
Deng started a free lunch program after a reporting trip last year to rural schools in the relatively poor province of Guizhou. The concept was simple: private donations would be used to construct kitchens in poor schools so that children could have what is often their only hot meal of the day.
In mid-2011 as part of an Education Nation series, NBC News visited Baiyun Middle School, a rural school in Hunan that had recently opened one of Deng's kitchens. The students were poor – sons and daughters of migrant workers who make on average less than $40 a week.
As the noon time bell rang, 212 students dashed out from classrooms, steel bowls and chopsticks clanking as they lined up to receive a simple meal cooked by staff in the newly built kitchen: a generous square of rice, some stir-fried vegetables and tofu.
The meal was hearty, tasty and perhaps most importantly, cheap.
For Deng the meal summed up what he and many netizens believe is the biggest problem with the government's school meal plan: an over-emphasis on staples like milk and bread instead of Chinese options that are cheaper, nutritious and more filling.
"I understand the difficulty of some rural places, but after almost one year we should have made some progress," Deng said. "Enough of the milk and bread; these kids need hot meals."
Several teachers and program directors at Baiyun confirmed what a recent Stanford University study in China had discovered and published last year: a healthy, balanced lunch led to improved academic gains and more animated students.
Millions of parents no doubt agree – as does a ruling Communist Party that has emphasized education as a way to elevate socio-economic conditions for its people and maintain social stability.
NBC News' Yanzhou Liu contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Nice to see some people still respect the innocence of children. Is there no bottom to which people can sink to make a dollar?
Gold,
I hear ya. Yes, there is no bottom. It still never ceases to amaze me what some people can do with no remorse. Children, the future of our world, should "always" be raised with running the world when we're gone in mind.
They are our future. Raise them F'd up, and that's all they'll ever know then it snowballs from there.
Then, there's the opposite. Raise them "correctly", and it snowballs from there which is the way it should be.
"...should be raised with running the world when we're gone in mind." ?? Oh, I see. You just split an infinitive. Nevertheless, the sentence is amusing. :-)
No bottom? Consider this, 'An estimated two million women and children are sold into the sex trade every year, the U.S. research group Protection Project states'! This is per CNN and many feel that number is far lower then it should be! Everyday, right here in the good ol' USA, young girls from the ages of 8 to 28 are either sold by their parents or kidnapped to work in the sex trade and NOT just overseas but right here, although China and other Asian countries import the largest number of these unwilling young women to be brutalized and abused by sick men! It's a MULTIBILLION dollar industry!
Far worse things await young people out in the world then skimpy lunches, I'm afraid.. This is something that can be fixed easily by the government allocating more money for schools to use on their lunch programs but it's a real shame they don't allocate a hell of a lot more money to put a stop to these horrible crimes against women and children!! I guess, considering China, along with Japan, Taiwan and other Asian countries, right along with the Middle-East, are the largest recipients of sex slaves, it would be too damn much to expect them to help put a stop to this disgusting practice once and for all!
Annie: Big Latin fan, are you? That's where we got that rule. Because it is impossible to split an infinitive in Latin, and Latin is a model for English, then we therefore should never split an infinitive in English. Let it go. I'm sure they'll still be splitting infinitives by the time James T. Kirk is born for him to boldly go where no one has gone before. ;-)
Seabreezin': "..far lower that it should be!" You may want to consider a different wording.
Goldfish, the current "children are everything to be celebrated and adored" meme is a new invention. In fact, only since after WWII have children been much valued, and that is in 1st world nations. Prior to WWII, they were an accident of sex, a nuisance or just little workers. When a country has more than a billion humans, don't expect anything but commerce and exploitation. Coming soon to every continent and every country but those in Europe. There will be 9 billion humans crowding the planet in another generation, minimum, given that the current bulk of the planet is of child bearing age. In another 30 years, stale bread and expired milk will be a luxury in some places (as will be clean water, clean air, adequate housing, growing social unrest and political turmoil, etc...)
China, you may have the gold but America has the food. Let's see who wins in the economic war, a government whose children are malnurished or a government where everyone gets a nutritious meal in school regardless of income and can think of ways to pay you communists off and take our country back from Republicans.
China has the food. They just have to choose to use it. The meal they described...rice, veggies, and tofu...is fine and nutritious. Well, brown rice would be nice, but the meal they should be getting isn't expensive and is much healthier than that gross bread slice and dairy milk.
Sorry SooLong, English is a Germanic language with a Germanic base in grammar and sentence construction. It may have a large vocabulary of words derived from Latin but it is not based on Latin structurally. The sentence was agreeably awkward but had nothing to do with Latin.
Where is all that money going?
Answer: "I shall come as a Thief"
There is nothing wrong with bread and milk in and of itself, if it is not expired. However, its not enough for a meal and nutritionally its not balanced. Put some fruit and vegies with it and make the bread into a sandwich and it would be ok.
When I was in elementary school right here in the USA I never got a free lunch (or any lunch).
I remember one of my teachers sent me home because I had holes in the bottom of my shoes. My mother had to go to school and explain why...four kids, left husband ( child abuser/drunken bum) , she worked three jobs and still poor. Never saw any results from that meeting my mother had.
This was back in the 50's..not now.
Isn't there some way that this Annie character can be permenently blocked so we won't have to even see her drival? No one cares about your trying to correct other's English.
Time for Mrs. Obama to head to China to help them develop a "Chinese Food and Drug Administration" agency. That should take about 3 3/4 years.
Maybe she could take some pictures of the White House "green" garden and the "Obama beer" setup.
@Seabreezin'......until the death penalty is enforced for heinous crimes and done within a fortnight instead of years on death row...nothing will change. I am all for televised public executions....
Actually, Ido, having the schools have gardens is a good idea. I think that there they might have to have a greenhouse, as the weather would limit what could be grown.
A number of the smaller schools have gardens here, providing fresh nutritious and saving garbage fees by composting (using worms) the left-overs. The kids also learn the "laws of the harvest"--that you reap what you sow, and stuff takes time to grow, and if you don't pay attention, things don't go the way that you planned.
"got bilk ?"
Good for the Chinese teacher that put that up on Weibo, it got everyone talking about kids' lunches. It was good to see that they made the point of how rice, veggies (stir fry), and tofu was far more nutritious - and cheap. American kids would probably prefer it compared to some of the stuff they get now.
Anyone old enough to remember the Reagan-era school lunch statement that "ketchup is a vegetable"? Ugh.
why are there so many commentors on here so worried about sentence and puncuation is that reallly a big deel if so this post could really mass up there day
2little2late-7381371
China executes plenty of people every year, so you should feel safe and warm about that.
Because, okie58, punctuation and sentence structure is a reflection of one's knowledge level. Poor grammar and spelling indicate a substandard education.
Apparently not.
Why don't they just tell them thousands of kids in Africa would love to have a meal like that?
pixie1 -- "Isn't there some way that this Annie character can be permenently blocked so we won't have to even see her drival? No one cares about your trying to correct other's English."
Just FYI, 'permentently' is spelled permanently, 'drival' is spelled drivel, and your last sentence should be, "No one cares about YOU trying to correct other's English.", not "your trying...."
Maybe it's you that should be blocked until you learn to write.
Happytimeshereagain: Actually I do. I believe that was the fault of the USDA though, considering how Reagan was only in office a few months.
Nice to see how the USDA standards are changing.
What do we serve our children here in the USA? High fructose corn syrup (with this stuff you never have to drink an ounce of alcohol to have liver problems), caramel color (nice to have a good cancer causing substance in our children's foods), artificial butter flavorings (what's a little more cancer, right?), a little pink slime and glue meat (add up those cancer causing ingredients, what can they hurt?) and a host of other substances many countries ban. But hey, at least some few people sitting on a ton of money can laugh at us as they watch these kids grow up and shuffle through the health care industry and make them few people more money before the kids finally die of this that or the other thing.
And yet we keep doing business with that despicable nation, just to make "American" billionaires even wealthier.
ElkMeadow, I don't know if the Chinese kids living in rural areas would want to do more farming. Most of them are coming from poor farm households and probably have to take care of crops before and after school.
As for vegetable gardens in schools in the US, I remember we had one at the elementary school I went to in NYC. That was back in the early 1960's. I don't know what they did with the veggies we planted. Most kids went home for lunch and the ones that ate at school brown bagged it.
Because, okie58, punctuation and sentence structure is a reflection of one's knowledge level. Poor grammar and spelling indicate a substandard education.
**********************************************************************
"Speak your mind quietly and clearly and listen to others..."
I disagree that proper punctuation and sentence structure necessarily reflects one's knowledge level but agree it may indicate any number of problems with the educational history of an individual. You are not listening or learning when you sit on the sidelines; more interested in and distracted by the need to correct people rather than to hear what they have to say. (I think my punctuation here is atrocious? I often have to spell check to make sure my spelling is correct, too. Ah well, that's too bad. Let's get back to the milk and bread in the Chinese schools...)
Republican solution would be not feeding them at all.
It shouldn't be hard to feed kids. The stuff is always ready in twenty minutes.
In all fairness to Annie...she makes me giggle and I happen to love her posts.
Communism or Capitalism? Is there no system that will defend children and let the predators know it is not safe to prey on others?
Would we expect different from Bain Capital? Would we have our own say, "Give them Ketchup and count that as a vegetable."
China's economic system is even more Capitalist than the current system we have in the US.
In fact, like Vietnam, China has almost unregulated Capitalist market, where people would do anything for money. If you ever buy medicines or lotions and such in China, be very afraid, they would sell you poisons to make fast money.
What does Bain have to do with China school lunches? Nothing!!! Don't worry, your free bennies will improve now that your man has been reelected. Raise taxes and give more to the 47%'ers who are leeches.
You mean the 53% who are leeches (since 53% of americans voted for Obama, guess Romney got his numbers reversed).
If you want your kids taken care of than act like a parent and take care or you kids yourself. Stop depending on government free hand outs and make your kids lunch yourself.
texasbob, you have no idea how poor the people in the Chinese countryside are, or the "migrant" workers who live illegally in its cities. They simply cannot afford to feed their kids.
And I have worked in low-income schools in the US. Many of the parents of kids in these schools are seriously neglectful or mentally deficient, spending their money on booze, cigarettes, drugs, designer clothes, the most expensive high-tech phones and cable with all the bells and whistles rather than healthy food and activities for their kids. Yes, they should take care of their kids, but the plain truth is that they don't!
As a society we need to take care of our most vulnerable people, that is kids with worthless parents. If we don't, those kids will grow up to be the same.
It may be necessary to feed the kids at school. It is NOT necessary to take care of the worthless parents. Take away the handouts to the worthless and use that money for the school lunches. No problem
Homesick, I know what life is about when one does not have a lot of money. I grew up in a family of 7 with the only source of income was a monthly retirement check from the military. Most of my clothes were hand-me downs or made by my mother using an old peddle singer sewing machine and we never took anything free from the government. I have also spent many years in the military and although I have never been to china I have seen poor in many other parts of this world and we don't have poor in the U.S. we have lazy in the U.S.
@texasbob
Well put. Thanks for your, and your fathers sacrifice and service.
"In fact, like Vietnam, China has almost unregulated Capitalist market, where people would do anything for money. If you ever buy medicines or lotions and such in China, be very afraid, they would sell you poisons to make fast money."
I agree, we used to have snake oil salesmen or patent medicines in the U.S. until the creation of the FDA. Horrid government regulations killing business again and hurting the economy...
"As a society we need to take care of our most vulnerable people, that is kids with worthless parents. If we don't, those kids will grow up to be the same."
That or stupid people should not be allowed to live long enough to breed. A couple hundred years ago most stupid people did not live long enough to breed, even if they did the problem would take care of itself eventually. There needs to be some natural selection or else. We also need to reduce the number of humans on this planet. Hell of a lot less pollution and more food for everyone. We would not be competing or at each other's throats as much either. Some competition is good, but like everything to much of a good thing is bad for you. Everything in moderation (I still struggle with this too btw).
"Raise taxes and give more to the 47%'ers who are leeches."
Taxes aka friction plays a vital role in a system's health. Without something to slow down and limit potentials what stops something from exponentially growing more and more in magnitude? What stops it from acquiring all the money/resources eventually? Without taxes the Federal Reserve is forced to print out more and more money at a faster rate since one group keep acquiring more and more forcing the others in that SAME system to make less and less. If they do not the system runs OUT OF MONEY morons and FAILS. Unless the government prints out more to meet the demand or the system FAILS. What happens when you expect to make exponential returns on savings and investments? It causes the system to FAIL.
With a 90% top income tax rate (which most would never pay anyway) the "system" will last approx 10x longer in duration before needing to print out money versus a no tax system all depending on the number distributions. (I just went through some of the math yesterday in other reply/post look it up if you want.) Not to mention we have to pay interest on that money each time the Federal Reserve prints out MORE money.
I would prefer it if you just cut out the middle man and pay your workers a decent wage instead of being forced to pay a 90% tax rate, but without that high tax rate you would keep all the money for yourself time and time again. You must be forced to make the choice between paying the government tax money or paying your workers more. You could also reinvest it back into the company without needing to be rewarded for it too. Give the money to charity or something else besides paying taxes I do not care. As long as it gets put back into the system I do not care. We will not let you become kings or queens, and you are not better then everyone else at everything, stop deluding yourselves. Getting to have and keep 10 to 20 times more then others is plenty of a "reward" imo how greedy and selfish can you be? Some people should be able to afford to have more cars, houses, children, etc. (natural selection), but once again everything in moderation.
I like how NBC does not let us comment on the Keystone pipeline article btw...I wonder why? Might be time to start looking for a new site if they keep this crap up. Why are they pushing so hard for the long XL version when the short version will work just fine and use mostly existing pipeline? Spin spin goes our supposedly "free" media...
Dear IMHO. Greed is not a communistic, capitalistic, or combination of both idea. Greed is simply a human characteristic. However, since China started opening it's markets to ease in to capitalism, the greed has gotten worse. By far, capitalistic nations have the worst greed. The average CEO pay in the U.S. is 400 times that of their average workers salary. Go back 40 years, and that number was was 20 to 1. Go back before that, and any CEO in American making more than 10 times that of their workers was considered too greedy and those individuals were often ostracized, even from the wealthy class. Greed has become the norm in the U.S., and I don't see anything that suggests that will change.
Homesick ... the cure for all that - everywhere in the world - is birth control and sex education for both genders, as well as providing education and a safe environment for girls.
littlechanges:
We have sex education...even in the South! I work in a vocation in which the numbers strongly suggest "some people just won't listen" and some have "wisdom" issues. Impulse control issues (risk taking), hormones, worldview and culture (diminishing moral codes, boundary issues, role models, etc), are just some of the contributors. In spite of prevention and "Abortion on demand" being available we still have a very serious problem.
not to worry soon they will have a formula to determin if you will be an unfit parent and if so you will lose your kids and fixed to have no more. The gov will raise your kids and tell them how to think and act you will not be needed but did that work in germany?
Okie, you've got it so correct, it's scary! Folks do not see that liberalism will take us "there" in the FAST lane. Our nation is on the downhill slippery slope, and by the time people realize the seriousness of this, it will be too late. Rights provided by the constitution are being stripped away daily, a little at a time, so as not to shake things up TOO much, one executive order at a time. It is the executive agenda, eliminate the middle class, make the poor poorer and subservient. Wanna get in line for more of that? Oh, sorry, it's too late, you've forfeited your right to vote against it.
IMHO, no, as far as I know, there is no PERFECT system of government on this planet and certainly none that I know of that can or will protect the innocent from the vicious behavior of really sick and greedy people! Maybe sometime in the future, maybe if and when mankind evolves to the point where empathy and compassion is foremost in his makeup, a time will come when the human race will put the love and protection of his children before all else.. Sadly, we have a long, LONG ways to go..
There's a reason slippery-slope arguments are considered logical fallacies.
How is Liberalism the slippery slope? All Governments want a completely subservient people, in fact, China actively enforces it. We still have more rights than most of the world. In fact, it's the Conservatives that want to take rights away from certain couples, take choice away from men and women to do with their bodies as they wish. Don't sit here and spew Hush Limburger crap at me when Conservatives are the one that want to deregulate everything and turn us into China 1.5, while actively enforcing some spiritual law that was though up by angry old men that couldn't get it up anymore and hated women.
If you can't take care of any kids due to being poor, then why have kids in the first place, and have them suffer? IF the parents were poor to begin with, then the "being poor" part is no excuse, and the parents ARE to blame. Why should someone else take care of these folks' children? Sure, there is joy in raising a family, but it also comes with responsibilities.
Are you talking about the US or China, Maximum Kimchi? In the cities in China, women are forced to have abortions after their first child. Many women abort female children because males are highly prized (you don't need a dowery). The Chinese are allowed to have more than one child in certain areas, usually the rural farm areas, in order for them to have people to work on the farms. I don't know if there is a limit to the number of children you can have in those areas, though. However, these poor farm families sometimes can bearly feed their children do to poor crops or because of problems with the animals.
Wow. And I complained about the lunch my children's school was serving. I take it all back.
Hey! Theres No More Twinkies! I'm just as Pissed!
Tell that to CEO who tripled their salary in the last few years to 2.4 millions per year. In the same times, the union has endure the lower WAGES TWICE to keep the company running.
Tell'em Coung. Instead of pointing to the last few months for the demise of Hostess, look back over the past 15 years and you'll see a greedily, inefficiently, and unsustainably run company. THAT is not the fault of employees.
From trademark knock-offs to school lunches, the Chinese cheat. I'm not suprised, and neither should anyone else be who reads this story.
Yes, the Chinese cheat and so did the writer of this article. Check the math. The article states the Chinese goverment has allotted 16 billion yuan to feed 26 million poor school children and the article calculates this to come to 3 Yuan (48 cents) per student (I assume 'per day'). That doesn't calculate. If you divide 16 billion by 26 million you get 615 Yuan per student. One Yuan is worth about 16 cents so that comes to 98.40 cents per student per year. Allotting for holidays, the average Chinese student actually 'attends' school a total of 16 days a month X's 8 months = 128 days. 128 days divided by 98.40 per student = 77 cents a day. Now, in China, where food costs about 1/2 of what it costs here (they have this system that elminates the middle man) -- the average poor student is being fed at a rate of $1.54 per day. Still no great deal and no excuse for "a slice of bread and expired milk" but still... another example of how the media likes to elevate us to be "the greatest country on Earth" by exaggerating the downsides of other nations. I'd rather be an American and living in the United States than anywhere else in the world but you don't have to lie to me and 'juggle-the-books' to make me feel that way. I'd still feel that way, even if you just tell me the truth and do your homework Mr. Media.
I spend 1/3 of the year in China for business. My apartment is right smack dab in the middle of a small town. I can eat very well for 50 cents per meal. It doesn't mean that I always do but one of my favorite restaurants is really that cheap. Wonderful people too!
You can't compare the cost of food. It's WAY cheaper in China.
You might want to Google "Nestle and South American blind children".
BSTheClown, have you ever thought that you don't know everything that you should to arrive at the correct calculation? How many days are children in school in China? How many months a year? How did you arrive at your holidays? How many holidays are in the calendar year in China?
Your premise that children "'attends' school a total of 16 days a month X's 8 months = 128 days," is based on what? Based on the American school schedule which is 180-194 days? Are you saying that children in China spend less days in school than their American counterparts? That is laughable! Through some research, I found out that children in China normally attend school from Septemeber to July and, depending on the location in China, from 5 to 7 days per week.
Sir, you are too quick to call foul. I believe the calculations in the article over yours anyday.
In reference to calculations, 1 out of 6 students in American schools is an illegal immigrant.
According to the article, these illegal children attending American schools, are receiving $2.86 per meal. In the meantime, single American taxpayers living on food stamps are allocated $1.40 per meal. We are spending more of our dollars on illegal immigrants than we are our own citizens.
@BSTheClown
Thank you for your calculations. They are accurate with the exception of
The Chinese "system" may have fewer middle men but the food costs are cheaper because everything but the transportation costs(fuel) are cheaper. Labor, land, fertilizer, regulations (testing) etc. A gallon of gas or diesel is on par with most US cities. Anywhere from 3 to 5 bucks per gallon.
Keeping with the 77 cents per day is accurate enough. There is no need to double the amount to $1.54 to show a comparative. A more accurate comparative would be something like. The cost of a typical meal in rural China is between 5 and 10 Yuan,or 80 cents to $1.60. So 77 cents a day for a school lunch is actually pretty generous if they buy in bulk and actually feed the kids instead of lining their pockets.
JW, where did you get that statistic?
JW's stats may have come from something like "conservative" organization against "illegal" immigration - Center for Immigration - puts up similar stats, to promote their 501-C "non profit" status.
BSTheClown
1 Yuan equal 6 cents, not 16. Check the exchange rate.
My bad, 1 dollar equals 6 yuan. I'm not awake yet, need coffee.
DevilsAdvacate
I'm not estimating U.S. food stamp payouts....my figures come from the story of the Mayor of NJ who will try to live on food stamps for one week as a publicity stunt. As a single person he will receive $1.40 PER MEAL....while illegal immigrant children in American schools receive $2.86 PER MEAL according to the article above.
The illegal immigrants are receiving more benefits than U.S. taxpayers that have paid into the system for decades.
How sad that people try to twist my post into some conservative conspiracy. The truth sucks, doesn't it? At least for American taxpayers it does.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-11-30/nj-mayor-to-live-on-food-stamps-starting-tuesday
I heard that somewhere in Chicago school kids were being fed tortilla chips smothered with rat droppings.
Please don't spread silly unsubstantiated rumors.
I pay $3.50 a day for my son's school lunch in Chicago. He prefers school hot lunch over bringing cold lunch from home. I understand some of the money I pay goes to subsidize other kids who may go hungry otherwise, and that is fine with me. Kids cannot learn on a empty stomach, that is why we pay taxes to make sure every kid gets fed at least one meal a day while in school. Kids from needy families also get free milk in the morning. My son gets a hot breakfast at home before he goes to school.
It's not a rumor. It was reported on the news.....Well okay, maybe there wasn't really a smothering of droppings but there were droppings.
All grain made into flour has a limited amount of rat/mouse droppings allowed. Even with regulations, it is impossible to isolate yourselves from the real world. Maybe these tortilla's were higher than the regulated amount. Then we should come down hard on the producers.
Communist - capitalist doesn't matter. Those on top ALWAYS screw those on the bottom, even when it means keeping food away from children. China might want to be realistic and provide more than 48 cents per meal. We can't even get a frigging candy bar for 48 cents! Why would China expect to be able to provide a nutritious hot meal for that amount. Maybe they should pool the food money and make a healthy stew every day. A lot of veggies and a little meat- perfect for the growing china-man
I almost gave you a TU. Then I read the last word. "China-man" has long been considered derogatory. Please consider using another word, like "Chinese".
And here is the real problem. Republicans are crying less government, less regulation. This is what less regulation and less government gets you. People will cheat and steal if you let them. Regulation isnt bad, it prevents this kind of thing as well as bank debacles etc. Most of our problems are due to lack of regulation but the big business party wants less regulation. Gee I wonder why. They cry government is evil, get support for less environmental regulation and who pays for those ads? Well oil companies for one. Why is that not surprising. Come on folks wake up. Government, is US! It is the common person combining their power to hold back the cheating and inhumanity that greed instantiates.
Yes Michael, governments need regulations. The Chinese government has LOTS of regulations. Even in the case cited in this inaccurate article... there are regulations... they were broken and it appears the Chinese government is going to deal with the culprits. For better or worse, I believe the Chinese deal a tad more harshly with those who defy their regulations than those who defy ours which, is the point. Regulations are words on paper. Those who have the means (aka $$$) can and will always find away around the regulations. Corporations will simply pass long the costs associated with having to comply with regulations to the consumer - call it a 'regulations' tax. Regulations can lead to a higher quality product but at a higher price. Regulations protect us and, at the same time, provide a false sense of protection. "Oh, this peanut butter can't hurt me. The USDA has 'regulations' in place to make sure it's safe." The bottomline Mike - until we learn to 'regulate ourselves' to simply do the right thing, control our greed and hunger for power you can regulate 'til the cows come home and people are still going to get screwed.
Regulations only work in a democratic system with free press. You need many eyes to watch over greedy people.
We, the people, can now use social media to enforce these regulations. The government can set regulations but the government just can't be every where to enforce these regulations. It is up to the people to adhere to these regulations and catch those who abuse the system. Without enforcement there will be corruptions due to greed, this is true in every country.
Weibo and cell phones will, hopefully, bring transparency and accountability to the Chinese government. A country that does not invest in their young will always be doomed.
Are you asleep in your adultery? (pun intended) Absolute power corrupts absolutely! More government allows MORE corruption, out of the control of those who must "pay" the fiddler. That's what big government does, it takes away the rights of the common man. That is what liberalism is all about. The though police are hard at work, locking up people who disagree with the government agenda. It's all heading downhill on the slippery slope, folks, sorry you don't like it, sorry.
In the USA we buy almost everything from China so its a shame that we seem to be unable to sell food to China. Is the problem the government's or the supply of food or the shipping or do corporations not want to sell food to China?
Actually, China is our biggest customer for grains. Wisconsin alone sold $118 million of grains to China in 2011. Iowa exported over 259 million pounds of pork in the first 4 months of 2012. China is our biggest soy bean consumer. I live in the midwest and I know how vital China is to our economy here. All the political posturing from Romney before the election had me worried that we will lose our biggest agricultural customer.
Wow! I did not know the Chinese governement offers free lunch for students.
GTran --- there is no 'free lunch'.
This Chinese school lunch compares to what the "moderate" Republican school lunch would be the US, while removing the biscuit and milk is the "conservative" Republican school lunch, really . . .
Really! :-o
Ah..no. The Republican lunch would presumably include more meat.
No. The republican lunch would be Soylent Green.
I can remember when i was in school and we got sour milk and most likely bad food but for the most part the food was decent. I can also remember going to college and the food was great. Feeding kids in China a piece of bread and bad milk just don't cut it. Surely the USA can help them out with some decent food.
Lack of food is not the problem. Pocketing the budgeted money to buy food is the problem.
3 yuan is plenty to cover a nutritious lunch in China, where last time I was there eggs and vegetables cost about 10 cents a pound and meat not a lot more. My daughter attended an all day Chinese kindergarten and was served three very nutritious and tasty meals and the monthly tuition fee was about $22. I ate three solid restaurant meals a day for about 10 yuan. If only American school cafeterias served such great food my daughter would be willing to eat in them. She and I both miss the wonderful food in China.
The milk and bread school definitely involves somebody (probably several somebodies) dipping their hands into the till, i.e. stealing money from the food budget.
When were you here?!?! I'm in China now, and it would take me at least 25 yuan to buy three restaurant meals, and they wouldn't be fancy, either.
Thanks Lisa for a perspective of someone who's 'actually been there' and doesn't buy into whatever propaganda we're typically spoon-fed as Americans. I've also spent time in Asia, Europe and South America. There are always things about America that make me miss it when I'm away and, all things considered, I truly do believe ours is the greatest nation to live, work and raise a family in. But I don't need media BS and poor math (as in this article) to make me feel good about my country. 80% of Americans who say this is the 'greatest country' have never been east or Long Island or west of Santa Monica. There's 'good' everywhere... there's 'bad' everywhere... 'beauty' everywhere... 'ugly' everywhere. There should be a new bumper sticker "Earth. Love it or Leave it."
SooLong... 25 Yuan for THREE MEALS! What's that, about $4.16 for THREE MEALS?? Man, you got it rough. You should work for the U.S. media and let us all know how corrupt they must be to be fleecing you like that. You should hurry home where that same $4.16 can get you a poisoned peanut butter sandwich and half a bottle of water.
Three solid restaurant meals for 10 yuan? How's that even possible? I'm Chinese and I can tell you even at the cheapest restaurants you'd at least need 20 yuan for a solid meal. You'll be hard pressed to find anything under 8 yuan on the menu these days, and to be considered as a solid meal you'd probably at least order 2 to 3 different things to eat.
Add two shots of expresso and it's a $7.50 (US) breakfast at Starbucks, really . . .
Really! :-o
Michael...Republicans never said NO regulations. You've been listening to the msm's B.S. and hyperbole. Even you should know there are both necessary regulations, and unnecessary, costly, redundant ones solely so the government can get more money for the pork barrel and waste on out of control spending. If the House doesn't take the country's credit card away Obama, China will be planning our kids lunch menus.
Baldenario.......Couldn't be worse that Michelle's idea of a good lunch. She already has some grazing on greens, roots, bark and berries. If we could have gotten rid of Oblameo, not so many kids would NEED a free lunch.
So what your saying is the Republicans will provide kids in schools free lunches by paying more tax's?
Kids won't need a free lunch. Parents will be able to provide one for them. Get it?
I find it very odd that the schools would serve western food - bread and milk. Why not rice? And most Chinese kids don't drink milk at home.
We also grow rice in the USA.
Dairy is not a usual part of the Asian diet - unless you're a Mongolian in a yurt. They have a higher incidence of lactose intolerance too.
Side note, the US raises rice, but Japan's government subsidies to its rice farmers makes our rice pricey to them.
So that's how China manages to ward off a recession.
Just remember in the USA a slice of pizza is considered four of the food groups bread, cheese, vegetables and meat.
So
It's the same in the US, except in an even more extreme fashion. The wealthy dine on plenty of the best, while the poor may go hungry, unable to afford anything to eat at all. A carton of expired milk and a piece of stale, moldy bread would be manna from heaven to them.
Chinese officials claimed to have detected 15,000 cases of substandard food. Dairy products, edible oils, seasonal foods and alcoholic beverages were among the major food categories targeted during the inspections. Unqualified food additives, product quality and microorganisms were the major problems found. There’s mercury in the baby formula. Cabbages are sprayed with formaldehyde. Gelatin capsules for pills, tens of millions of them, are laced with chromium. Used cooking oil is scooped out of gutters for recycling, right along with the sewage.
Accounts of dubious or unsafe food in China are as mesmerizing as they are disturbing — “artificial green peas,” grilled kebabs made from cat meat, contaminated chives, chlorine showing up in soft drinks.
There have been stories of imitation soy sauce made from hair clippings, ink and paraffin being used to dress up cheap noodles, and pork buns so loaded with bacteria that they glow in the dark.
Many make a lot less than that and they manage to live on it and save some too.
Let's see you live like them...below average!! I bet anyone anything that you do not have the balls to change your lifestyle...it is too beneath you to do so!!
You say the school administrators were Florida Republicans ???????
You going to change your profile name to "RomLost"???
I like that Juliann!...Very witty indeed...You made my day !!!!!!!!!
A country is not a business. A country's government should not be about CAPITALISM. Mitt Romney's plan would have been along the lines of the Bain Capital model...take from the poor and give to the rich, regardless of costs or consequences (bankruptcies, lay-offs and executives walking away with the cash). Corporations are not in business to employ people; they are about profiting with the least amount of expenses. The problem with today's corporations is that they only see what is in front of them (short-term goals with the highest possible risks) rather than what it means for the future (long-term goals with less risks). Republicans want the same thing as corporations...just look at what they did to the USPS!
Countries like China are not poor by any means. Their government puts too much emphasis (spending) in the wrong areas while neglecting their own people. They have the largest military but have the lowest standards (health, well-being, wages, safety, etc....) for their people. This is exactly what Mitt Romney and the GOP was pushing...more spending on the military while taking from crucial social programs (social security, medicare, foodstamps). Businesses may be posting record profits, but in the long-term forecasts they are failing miserably for their investors so the businesses put up a shield while conjuring up ways to keep up the false momentum...the way the financial banks (housing bubble) burst!!
Julieann - you sound an awful lot like that dude Maddow on MSNBC. The election is over, your savior won. Time to move on and watch the clown in chief mess up the next four years like he did the last four. Hopefully the Dims will wake up and realize the emperor is wearing no clothes, but I doubt it. Leftist sheeple never seem to learn their lessons.
China is and always will be a communist country, it does not have a free market. Trying to draw a line between the Chinese government and Mitt Romney is just more leftist BS. Get a f'ing clue why don't you. Stop bawling about "too much greed" and "nobody cares about us" and realize that the people that own and operate business, at the end of the week SIGN paychecks. If you don't care about that, jump into your Prius drive the airport and take the first plane to Beijing. I am sure a few years in China will give you a better understanding of a free market and how nice it is to be an American.
RealityBites, (patting you on the head) what a clever, republican boy you are referring to to Rachel Maddow as "that dude Maddow." You live up to your party's reputation.
Finally!
An uplifting story about future communist for me, and people like me to kill in the next war. Walmart will be pissed though. They will have to import more trash from other asian nations.
Shoot em in the face
Kick em in the junk
Did anyone check for melamine in the milk? Chinese 'officials' seem ready, willing and able to grab every chance they can to make money at the expense of the public. Corruption just keeps finding ways to steal money from everywhere and everyone.