Fat of the Land
Caption competition - tell me what Mao is thinking here and win a year's supply of chicken feet.
Seriously, if you ever needed evidence of the growing contradictions of Chinese society, look no further than today's BBC News.
On the one hand, there is this:
At least 18 million people have been affected by China's worst drought in 50 years, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
The south-western region of Chongqing has been worst hit, but areas of Sichuan and Liaoning are also affected.
In Chongqing there has been no rain for more than 70 days, and two-thirds of the rivers have dried up, Xinhua said.
Residents in some mountain villages are having to walk up to 2km (1.25 miles) to get water.
China used to be seen as a country with a lean population, but not any more.
Today a fifth of the world's overweight and obese people live in China - and the numbers are rising dramatically.
Professor Wu Yangfeng said this posed a considerable health problem, calling on the Chinese authorities to act now to prevent further increase.
There seems to be a range of underlying causes - from changes in diet to reduced levels of exercise and a rapid increase in the use of cars.
China has become a land of enormous and striking inequalities. The facts - none of which are suppositions from Western journalists (one story is from Xinhua, the other from a Chinese contributor to the BMJ) - speak for themselves.
Comments
What is Mao thinking?
'A tiger never brushes his teeth.'
Posted by: dave | August 23, 2006 11:41 PM