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<keyword id="4491115" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="ghazipur-opium-factory">Ghazipur opium factory</keyword>, India’s biggest and oldest legal opium factory with premises covering 45 acre of land and sprawling over two adjoining compounds, has been shut down after being operational for 197 years, though for a temporary period of time. The factory was closed down on March 1st, for failing to comply with orders to install an online effluent and emission monitoring system. Once the norms are fulfilled, it would resume operations. Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indias-waste-management-industry-could-be-worth-a-whopping-13-billion-by-2025/articleshow/51779525.cms">India’s waste management industry could be worth a whopping $13 billion by 2025</a> "We are hopeful of fulfilling the requirements in the next two months and restart regular operations," factory General manager Ramesh Kumar told TNN. Even though the machines and the factory are shut, workers are manually testing opium, which takes two to three months for one batch of opium. Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/NGT-shuts-down-industries-near-Bengaluru-lake-slaps-fine/articleshow/58262712.cms">NGT shuts down industries near Bengaluru lake, slaps fine</a> Ghazipur factory was the first factory in India to begin processing of opium. It also saw setting up of an alkaloid plant in 1943 during <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/entertainment/video-games/heres-your-first-look-at-the-newest-call-of-duty-game-set-during-world-war-ii/articleshow/58387937.cms">World War-II</a>. The decision to close down the factory was not taken overnight, shows data from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indias-air-quality-was-among-the-worlds-worst-over-the-Diwali-weekend/articleshow/55227129.cms">Central Pollution Control Board</a>, which had given the direction to shut the factory on February 10. Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/strategy/CPCB-suggests-flexible-office-timings-to-reduce-traffic/articleshow/53114353.cms">Central Pollution Control Board suggests flexible office timings for reduction in traffic</a> In 2015, a show-cause <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/small-business/companies/NGT-notice-to-Coca-Colas-bottling-plant-in-Uttar-Pradesh/articleshow/50313503.cms">notice</a> was issued to the factory, directing it to submit online 24x7 monitoring data to the <keyword id="58791" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="State-Pollution-Control-Board">State Pollution Control Board</keyword>. On failing the direction, an order to shut down the factory was passed on January 19, 2016, but the authorities asked for an extension of nine months. Missing the deadline of November 30, 2016, the factory was given another extension of three months at the completion of which it was shut with immediate effect. (Image source TOI)

Ghazipur Opium factory, country's biggest and oldest, shuts down

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">GettyRory Stewart MP.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>A UK politician vying to become prime minister has admitted to smoking opium while in Iran.</li><li>Conservative MP Rory Stewart, the minister for international development, told The Telegraph that the opium "had no effect" on him when he smoked it at a wedding in Iran.</li><li>Leadership rival Jeremy Hunt also admitted to taking drugs this week, reminiscing about the time he drank a cannabis-laced drink in India.</li><li>Incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May will step down as Conservative Party leader on June 7. Stewart and Hunt are among 11 candidates who are hoping to become the new leader, and therefore, prime minister.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul>A senior UK politician gunning to fill the vacant prime minister's office has confessed to smoking opium in the past.Rory Stewart smoked the banned narcotic while he was travelling around Iran in his 20s, but <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/05/29/rory-stewart-admits-smoking-opium-spell-iran-tells-telegraph/">told The Telegraph</a> it "had no effect" on him because he was "walking 25 to 30 miles a day" during a trek across the country.Stewart, currently the Minister for International Development, said: "I was invited into the house, the opium pipe was passed around at a wedding."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">GettyRory Stewart MP speak to media on College Green in Westminster, London.</div></div></div>"I thought this is going be a very strange afternoon to walk but it may be that the family was so poor they put very little opium in the pipe."Stewart <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/smoking-opium-in-iran-was-stupid-mistake-pm-hopeful-rory-stewart-admits-11731525">told Sky News on Thursday</a> he knew the drug, made from poppy seeds, was illegal at the time, and apologized."I think it was a very stupid mistake and I did it 15 years ago, and I actually went on in Iran to see the damage that opium was doing to communities," Stewart said.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/magic-mushrooms-psilocybin-psychoactive-drug-brain-denver-legal-2019-5?r=US&amp;IR=T">Researchers believe psychedelic drugs could combat depression and addiction. Here's how magic mushrooms affect your brain.</a>Iran is said to have the highest number of opium addicts in the world, with the UN estimating over 2% of citizens are addicted. The drug is smuggled across from Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium.Four days before Stewart's confession Jeremy Hunt - also vying to become prime minister - <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hunt-and-leadsom-square-up-in-new-battle-of-brexiteers-9xxhl76pv">confessed to the Sunday Times</a> he drank a cannabis-laced drink while in India.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Leon Neal/Getty ImagesJeremy Hunt MP.</div></div></div>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-prescription-drug-prices-are-high-graphic-rebates-healthcare-industry-2019-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">Everybody is talking about the high cost of prescription drugs. Here's who's actually responsible for the prices you pay.</a>Incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May announced she will step down as Conservative Party leader on June 7, triggering a battle to become the next party leader, and therefore prime minister. May will step down as prime minister once a new Conservative leader is chosen.A string of Conservative Party MPs including Stewart and Hunt, as well as Boris Johnson,<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-leadership-contest-candidates-to-replace-theresa-may-prime-minister-2019-5?r=US&amp;IR=T?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> have announced they are running.</a> Johnson is considered to be a strong favorite to win the leadership. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gary-shilling-legendary-economist-trade-war-outlook-says-us-will-win-2018-10">WATCH: The legendary economist who predicted the housing crisis says the US will win the trade war</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

A politician battling to become the UK's new prime minister admitted to smoking opium

<ul class="generic-article__summary--ul content--ul"><li class="generic-article__summary--li content--li">West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress woos Kolkata’s Chinese community as it faces a tough fight from Narendra Modi’s BJP</li><li class="generic-article__summary--li content--li">Though they do not have the numbers to influence government policy, the head of the Chinese Indian Association says voting is an important activity if you want to feel part of a country</li></ul> Restaurateur Monica Liu, 66, is an ethnic Chinese but has lived in the Indian city of Kolkata all her life. She and her family are among the estimated 6,000 Indian citizens of Chinese origin living in the country – with about 5,000 of them living in Kolkata, many with Hakka heritage. They are mostly descendants of those who fled to India in the middle of the 19th century to escape turmoil caused by the clash between British forces and Qing dynasty troops known as the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2075509/dark-legacy-britains-opium-wars-still-felt-today-amid-fight-against" class="link-text">Opium Wars</a> and the bloody rebellion against dynasty known as the Taiping Uprising. The Chinese community has long been marginalised by Indian authorities despite their presence for over 200 years. Those of Chinese origin born before 1950 cannot get Indian citizenship, leaving them holding on to Chinese and British passports while some have ended up being stateless after deciding not to renew their temporary resident permits. <h3 style="margin-bottom: 2.35714rem; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 300; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 1.71429rem; line-height: 2.42857rem; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; display: inherit;"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3010741/indian-election-explained-how-narendra-modis-good-days-turned" class="link-text">Indian election: how Modi’s ‘good days’ turned bad </a></h3>But for those who are citizens, more have decided to participate in politics after community leaders began mobilising people to get their voter identity cards in the last two decades, said Bean Ching Law, president of the Chinese Indian Association. Kolkata voters will go to the ballot booth on Sunday, the last day of polling in <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3010741/indian-election-explained-how-narendra-modis-good-days-turned" class="link-text">India’s mammoth six-week general election</a> . In recent weeks, election wall graffiti in Chinese, requesting votes for the candidate of the Trinamool Congress party (TMC), appeared on the walls of Kolkata’s Chinatown in the Tangra district. Trinamool runs the state government in West Bengal, where Kolkata is situated.SUBSCRIBE TO THIS WEEK IN ASIA Get updates direct to your inbox Members of the community say it’s the first time they’ve seen this sort of outreach to them. Most think that it is an extension of the Trinamool’s grass roots-level growth in the state. After all, no one from the party has approached the elders of the Chinese community for votes. Also, Kolkata North, the constituency within which the Chinatown falls, will see tough fight between the candidates of the TMC and <a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/narendra-modi" class="link-text">Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s</a> Bharatiya Janata Party, making every vote a crucial one for either side.A history of exclusion Law, a 49-year-old entrepreneur, has fought for the rights for the Chinese community since his return from the US in 2007. One of his strategies has been to attempt to obtain Overseas Indian Citizenship (OCI) for those born before 1950. The OCI, which gives foreign citizens permission to work and live in India indefinitely, will help such individuals avoid having to spend around US$156 annually to renew a permit allowing them to stay in the country. “However, these applications were rejected [by authorities] saying those individuals never showed the need to become an Indian citizen,” he says. “This is false: people applied for passports in the 1960s and were rejected outright. In fact, it was this rejection letter that helped them get other countries’ passports.” Law has been encouraging the community to vote. “Voting is the most important activity if you want to feel part of a country. It differentiates you from a person from another country. It is a sign that you belong here…..For any other Indian, why is it important to vote? The same reasons apply to us,” he said. <h3 style="margin-bottom: 2.35714rem; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 300; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 1.71429rem; line-height: 2.42857rem; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; display: inherit;"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3010707/india-elections-bjp-may-need-allies-narendra-modi-drove-away" class="link-text">BJP may need the allies Modi drove away </a></h3>But he is pragmatic, pointing out that they do not have the numbers to influence government policy, even about themselves. “[This is the] weakness of democracy as far as microscopic minorities are concerned. Democracy is always about the majority; the minuscule minority is dirt,” he said. For Liu, the memory of how her family was snatched from their homes and thrown in prison for five-and-a-half years after the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1452590/1962-sino-indian-war-still-stirs-bitter-controversy" class="link-text">Sino-Indian war</a> , remains.The clash between tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese troops took place between October and November 1962, after a series of border incidents sparked by India’s decision to grant asylum to the Dalai Lama after a failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule. China declared a ceasefire on November 19 but that was when the danger began for India’s ethnic Chinese residents. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, greets her supporters in Kolkata. Photo: Reuters Liu recalls how her mother saw it coming, her intuition sharpened by listening for Japanese bomber aircraft and running for cover in her village in southern China during the Second World War. “She packed bags full of clothes for each of my siblings and tasked me with equipping them with the bags, when the police came for us,” Liu said. It was 5am when the police knocked on the door and explained that all ethnic Chinese were being rounded up, days before India’s Parliament passed a law that allowed the detention of people assessed to be “of hostile origin”. The Indian government has never released the numbers, so estimates on the number of detainees vary: of the roughly 40,000 Chinese-origin individuals in India at the time, between 3,000 and 10,000 were detained, although no one was successfully prosecuted. Mass deportations to China and migrations to countries like Canada, the US and Australia, mostly from the affluent members of community who were Hakka, followed the detentions. Liu’s family was offered deportation to China soon after internment but her father chose to remain in India. “My mom wanted to go. My daddy didn’t want to. Dad said, “I have nobody in China. When I go back, what will I do?,”she said. <h3 style="margin-bottom: 2.35714rem; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 300; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 1.71429rem; line-height: 2.42857rem; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; display: inherit;"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3009682/exploiting-islamophobia-election-winning-tool-india" class="link-text">Exploiting Islamophobia: an election-winning tool in India </a></h3>Indian filmmaker Rafeeq Ellias compared the Chinese internment in India to when Americans of Japanese origin were detained during the Second World War. “People have not even spoken about their experiences even to their own children,” said Rafeeq, who made a documentary, The Legend of Fat Mama, about Kolkata’s Chinese community in 2005. Ellias has also written about the need for the Indian government to acknowledge the internment. The Japanese Americans documented their experience and were able to obtain an apology from the US government. The ethnic Chinese in India have been unable to do that. “They have been so marginalised and so few in number and the young people have all migrated at the first opportunity,” he says. “They don’t even have a sense of history or continuity.” Sinking roots But things could be changing. Singapore-based Rinkoo Bhowmick, who founded the CHA project, said she saw younger ethnic Chinese choosing to remain in India instead of migrating to countries like Canada, the US and Australia because the economy was doing well. The CHA project has been attempting a revival of Kolkata’s Old Chinatown in the Tiretta Bazaar area, which is where the first migrants settled, before pollution regulations forced the creation of a New Chinatown in 1910 in Tangra, about 7km away. The project plans to transform the Old Chinatown into a vibrant public space through events and heritage conservation. “The decision of these youngsters to stay back should eventually give rise to a sense of belonging,” Bhowmick said. Others like Thomas Chen, 42, joint secretary of the Indian Chinese Association (ICA), one of the many organisations for ethnic Chinese, have been working to promote Chinese culture and heritage among Indian society. Chen speaks with pride of teaching a contingent of the Indian Army a Mandarin song about friendship. <h3 style="margin-bottom: 2.35714rem; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 300; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 1.71429rem; line-height: 2.42857rem; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; display: inherit;"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2104347/imagine-what-china-and-india-can-do-together" class="link-text">Imagine what China and India can do together </a></h3>“I also wrote a Chinese song on the Mid-Autumn Festival for the Indian Chinese Association. It was telecast twice last year on China Central Television.” The now-defunct project of the ICA, which has only 10 members, also saw the association organise Chinese-language classes for Indian companies Tata Iron and Steel, and Infosys. Robert Hsu, secretary of the ICA, said he knew of community members who were uncomfortable at how the Indian media took a jingoistic line on the 2017 <a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/china-india-border-dispute" class="link-text">border stand-off between the armies of India and China</a> . Indian soldiers wanted China to stop construction of a road extension project in a location claimed by its ally Bhutan as well as Beijing.But Hsu pointed to the organisation’s name and said it served to show that for India’s ethnic Chinese, “it has always been about being Indian first”. Indian PM Narendra Modi at an election rally in Mathurapur, south of Kolkata. Photo: AP For Monica Liu, who now owns five busy restaurants in Kolkata, the state came knocking at her door again some years back but it was for a more pleasant reason: the then-chief minister of West Bengal wanted to dine at one of her eateries. Asked about her feelings about India and her identity, Liu offered a food analogy. “People always ask me: is your food Chinese Indian or Indian Chinese,” she says. “I reply that my food is exactly Chinese. Is there Indian masala in my food? No. The only thing is that we add more of some ingredients to enhance the flavour for the Indian customer.” Her Chinese identity is rooted in India, she continued. “Indian people have never asked me whether I am Chinese. But I am asked this when I visit China. I tell them that I am Chinese, my parents were from China, I was born and brought up in India, I am doing in business in India and my features are Chinese. I then tell them they shouldn’t be asking me that question,” she said.

India election: how will the Chinese community factor play out in Kolkata?

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://martynlawrencebullard.com/">Martyn Lawrence Bullard</a> is one of the most prolific interior designers in the world.</li><li>His clients include Kylie Jenner, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian, Cher, Tommy Hilfiger, and even Kid Rock. </li><li>In an interview with Business Insider, Bullard talked about his design principles and his famous work on Jenner's Hidden Hills home, Cher's LA condo, and Tommy Hilfiger's Miami escape pad. </li></ul>In 2018, <a href="https://martynlawrencebullard.com/">Martyn Lawrence Bullard</a> was designing a home for a 21-year-old client who had some unusual requests for a starter home — she wanted to fill it with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-5-key-art-industry-insiders-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-5">Damien Hirsts</a> and silk Patagonian carpets.Of course, it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kylie-jenner-tops-forbes-highest-paid-celebrities-list-not-billionaire-2020-6">a then-pregnant Kylie Jenner</a>, who at the time had an estimated net worth north of $800 million. And for her Hidden Hills home, he knew he had to bring his A-game. "It was very important for me to be very respectful and to make sure that we brought her the best of the best of things," Bullard told Business Insider. "I wanted to make the house playful … a super-customized home, with a playful young edge, but sophisticated still." <div type="image" title="Kylie Jenner Martyn Lawrence Bullard" height="5437" width="4350" msid="76857240" hostid="261"></div>And so he worked tirelessly, helping the young mogul fill her home with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-5-key-art-industry-insiders-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-5">Basquiats, Warhols, and Hirsts.</a>He picked out the silk, alpaca, and shearling Patagonian carpets which were then laid throughout the home.He carefully situated the dining room chairs, each customized and upholstered in various shades of pink, from cerise to powder, dyed to match the colors found in her lip kits. <div type="image" title="Kylie Jenner Martyn Lawrence Bullard 1" height="2550" width="5100" msid="76857245" hostid="261"></div>The result was a home that, in early 2019, graced the cover of <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/kylie-jenners-hidden-hills-home-is-equal-parts-sparkle-and-sumptuousness">Architectural Digest</a>. It became one of the biggest interior design stories in the history of magazines — amassing over 1.6 billion impressions within the first month of its release."That's a billion more than any other design story at the time," Bullard said.<div type="image" title="Kylie Jenner Martyn Lawrence Bullard 2" height="2625" width="3499" msid="76857248" hostid="261"></div>But it was just another day on the job for Bullard, as Jenner is just one of many celebrities on his roster of clients. There's also the likes of Cher, Tommy Hilfiger, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian, Ellen Pompeo, Kid Rock, and Ozzy Osborne.This doesn't even count his hospitality endeavors — the Jimmy Choo boutiques in London and Osaka, and posh hotels in Switzerland, the land of high-end lodging.<h2>'Each project is very, very individually thought out and designed'</h2>Bullard likes individuality, and when he's working with a client, he makes sure that the home is a reflection of their tastes and style rather than his own. "I ask questions like 'What is your favorite restaurant? What is your favorite place to go on vacation?' Lots of things like that, that will give me a general picture that, when I put that jigsaw puzzle together, it starts to formulate who that person is," he said. Bullard has been a go-to for celebrities since he moved to Los Angeles over 20 years ago to start up his interior design company. Since then, he has made connections with the biggest names in the world and has been able to customize some of the plus riche residences on the planet. <div type="image" title=" Kourney Kardashian 021 Martyn Lawrence Bullard" height="2810" width="4200" msid="76857259" hostid="261"></div>"Each project is very, very individually thought out and designed," he said. "The most important part of design is that you have a connection with your clients — to make sure that you're on the same page, whatever that page may be." Raising the stakes for Bullard is the fact that a house is not just a home for many of his celebrity clients — they also have to replace some of the amenities that non-famous people take for granted. Kylie Jenner and Cher, he notes, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ferris-rafauli-drake-mansion-designer-unveils-hastens-luxury-bed-2020-4">cannot just go to the local theater</a>, or the local grocery store, and now he's building beauty salons, gyms, and movie theatres into his clients' homes. <div type="image" title="Cher Sierra Towers Martyn Lawrence Bullard 2" height="3736" width="4840" msid="76857274" hostid="261"></div>"Your life is not your own anymore," he said. "Their homes have to become their sanctuaries. They have to become the places that fulfill as many of their needs as possible." Some of Bullard's most famous creations are the three homes he created for Cher, including the<a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/cher-los-angeles-duplex-article"> condo in Los Angeles</a> that she sold in <a href="https://www.latimes.com/la-xpm-2013-mar-30-la-fi-hotprop-cher-20130330-story.html">2013 for $5.25 million.</a> According to the Los Angeles Times' Jack Flemming, the condo <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2020-04-27/cher-west-hollywood-condo-for-sale-6-495-million">spans two stories</a> and is complete with two bedrooms and 1.5 baths. "She said to me that she wanted to live like the first wife of a Maharajah," Bullard said. "So I took that directive and went to India and bought the facade of the palaces from Rajasthan, which we brought back … to make the walls in her apartment look like an Indian palace." <div type="image" title="Cher Sierra Towers Martyn Lawrence Bullard" height="6464" width="8304" msid="76857283" hostid="261"></div>He then installed a floating bed, and colonnades painted to show Indian deities and goddesses. As recounted by<a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/cher-los-angeles-duplex-article"> Nancy Collins for Architectural Digest</a>, her tub was made with 19th-century stone, and the kitchen was concealed with hand-carved latticework. The guest room featured a 16th-century Chinese opium bed."To design for a true diva in every sense, like Cher, is an amazing thing to do," he said. "You get to create pure fantasy but on the level of great luxury." <h2>'My taste is all over the place, ever-evolving' </h2>Then there was <a href="https://www.coastalliving.com/homes/tommy-hilfiger-miami-estate-for-sale">Tommy Hilfiger's great Miami mansion</a>, which was completed with scratch-and-sniff banana wallpaper in the bathroom. The home sprawled 14,00 square feet, complete with <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/real-estate/prime-property/fl-bz-tommy-hilfiger-miami-home-story.html">seven bedrooms and 10 bathrooms</a>, and hit the market in <a href="https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/tommy-hilfiger-florida-price-drop/">2018 for $23.5 million</a>. "It's always amazing to work with a fashion designer because you work with a fellow creative," he said. "And you end up with this great unspoken synergy between each other." <div type="image" title="Tommy Hilfiger Martyn Lawrence Bullard 2" height="7418" width="9573" msid="76857292" hostid="261"></div>Bullard described the home as a playpen — "the ultimate fun house." The guest rooms were yellow-and-white polka dots, while the living room had an enormous Caleigh rug that was dyed in shades of pink, purple, and orange to match the colors in a Warhol painting on the wall. "This house had a real '60s-'70s, Studio 54 vibe, yet, because it's on the beach, it still had that element of being kind of a groovy beach house," he said. "When you have clients that are adventurous, you end up with not only an incredible experience but also an incredible result." <div type="image" title="Tommy Hilfiger Martyn Lawrence Bullard" height="7413" width="9853" msid="76857318" hostid="261"></div>And as for Bullard's own homes, well, those too are glamorous escapades. There's his Spanish-Mediterranean-styled Villa, with high-vaulted ceilings covered in black and white Moroccan geometric.<div type="image" title="Martyn Lawrence Bullard" height="5100" width="4183" msid="76859820" hostid="261"></div>His home in Palm Springs has a sunken conversation pit, draped in cerise pink linen with black-and-white marble. It pays homage to the "James Bond '60s vibe" and even has Italian glass chandeliers pendant from the ceilings. "My taste is all over the place and ever-evolving," he said. "A designer's home is really their experiment. It's that place that you use as an experiment before you do that experiment on your clients."

Alpaca carpets, Saint Laurent surfboards, and Basquiat paintings: Meet the interior designer who worked with Kylie Jenner on her lavish mansion in one of LA's ritziest suburbs

Hands that should be ploughing the fields, minds that should be busy in shaping the future of the country are busy injecting lethal cocktail of drugs, rolling up joints, sniffing it up, thereby damaging the brain irreparably. 
 
As you dig deeper, the drug menace in Punjab also gets dirtier, revealing shocking facts how the drugs enter the northern Indian state and how it is ruining the youth of the nation. 
 
Thanks to the controversy surrounding Bollywood movie Udta Punjab, which addresses the issue, and special thanks to censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani that the issue of drug menace is now being talked about everywhere. 
 
The severity of the drug problem can be gauged from the statistics that point out that 50 per cent of the drug-related cases in India are from Punjab alone. 
 
As per the Punjab Opioid Dependence Survey (PODS), about 76% opioid dependent individuals in Punjab are in the age group of 18 to 35 years. The worst affected regions are Bathinda, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Moga, Patiala, Sangrur and Tarn Taran. 
 
The most common opioid drug used by this group is heroin. Another village, which is on the outskirts of holy city of Amritsar, Maqboolpura has earned the sobriquet of ‘Village of Widows’ as almost every household here has lost breadwinners due to drugs. 
 
One of the main reasons behind this growing menace is Punjab’s proximity to the Golden Crescent- Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, which are known to be the world’s largest producers of opium. 
 
Meanwhile, the fight against drugs is not easy in Punjab. The number of drug de-addiction centres may be rising but there is no break in the supply chain. 
 
To further understand the story, a documentary-GLUT: The Untold Story of Punjab-is a must watch. 
 
The documentary by Smaran Sahu will reveal how deep-rooted is the issue and what are the challenges that the society is facing. 
 
The documentary also throws light on how youth staying near border areas, in the presence of security forces, get SIM cards, coordinate with peddlers and get the drug. 
 
It is just a matter of few hours and a person sitting in Delhi will get what he/she wants and there is no trail left. 
 
 
Watch the documentary here: 
 
 
 
 
(Video: YouTube)

See how drugs are smuggled into Punjab from Pakistan and what is the reality of its destruction in the State

<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Aung Hla Tun A <keyword id="16488" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Jade">jade</keyword> merchant inspects the most valuable jade lot that will be auctioned at the Mid-Year Emporium in Yangon November 13, 2007.</div></div>
HPAKANT, Myanmar (Reuters) - Tin Tun picked all night through teetering heaps of rubble to find the palm-sized lump of jade he now holds in his hand. He hopes it will make him a fortune. It's happened before.
"Last year I found a stone worth 50 million kyat," he said, trekking past the craters and slag heaps of this notorious jade-mining region in northwest Myanmar. That's about $50,000 - and it was more than enough money for Tin Tun, 38, to buy land and build a house in his home village.
But rare finds by small-time prospectors like Tin Tun pale next to the staggering wealth extracted on an industrial scale by Myanmar's military, the tycoons it helped enrich, and companies linked to the country where most jade ends up: China.
Almost half of all jade sales are "unofficial" - that is, spirited over the border into China with little or no formal taxation. This represents billions of dollars in lost revenues that could be spent on rebuilding a nation shattered by nearly half a century of military dictatorship.
Official statistics confirm these missing billions. Myanmar produced more than 43 million kg of jade in fiscal year 2011/12 (April to March). Even valued at a conservative $100 per kg, it was worth $4.3 billion. But official exports of jade that year stood at only $34 million.
Official Chinese statistics only deepen the mystery. China doesn't publicly report how much jade it imports from Myanmar. But jade is included in official imports of precious stones and metals, which in 2012 were worth $293 million - a figure still too small to explain where billions of dollars of Myanmar jade has gone.
Such squandered wealth symbolizes a wider challenge in Myanmar, an impoverished country whose natural resources - including oil, timber and precious metals - have long fueled armed conflicts while enriching only powerful individuals or groups. In a rare visit to the heart of Myanmar's secretive jade-mining industry in Hpakant, Reuters found an anarchic region where soldiers and ethnic rebels clash, and where mainland Chinese traders rub shoulders with heroin-fueled "handpickers" who are routinely buried alive while scavenging for stones.
Myint Aung, Myanmar's Minister of Mines, did not reply to written questions from Reuters about the jade industry's missing millions and social costs.
Since a reformist government took office in March 2011, Myanmar has pinned its economic hopes on the resumption of foreign aid and investment. Some economists argue, however, that Myanmar's prosperity and unity may depend upon claiming more revenue from raw materials.
There are few reliable estimates on total jade sales that include unofficial exports. The Harvard Ash Center, which advises Myanmar's quasi-civilian government, has possibly the best numbers available.
After sending researchers to the area this year, the Harvard Ash Center published a report in July that put sales of Burmese jade at about $8 billion in 2011. That's more than double the country's revenue from natural gas and nearly a sixth of its 2011 GDP.
"Practically nothing is going to the government," David Dapice, the report's co-author, told Reuters. "What you need is a modern system of public finance in which the government collects some part of the rents from mining this stuff."
<h3>HIDING STONES</h3>
Chinese have prized jade for its beauty and symbolism for millennia. Many believe wearing jade jewelry brings good fortune, prosperity and longevity. It is also viewed as an investment, a major factor driving China's appetite for Burmese jade. "Gold is valuable, but jade is priceless," runs an old Chinese saying.
Jade is not only high value but easy to transport. "Only the stones they cannot hide go to the emporiums," said Tin Soe, 53, a jade trader in Hpakant, referring to the official auctions held in Myanmar's capital of Naypyitaw.
The rest is smuggled by truck to China by so-called "jockeys" through territory belonging to either the Burmese military or the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), both of whom extract tolls. The All China Jade Trade Association, a state-linked industry group based in Beijing, declined repeated requests for an interview.
Hpakant lies in Kachin State, a rugged region sandwiched strategically between China and India. Nowhere on Earth does jade exist in such quantity and quality. "Open the ground, let the country abound," reads the sign outside the Hpakant offices of the Ministry of Mines.
In fact, few places better symbolize how little Myanmar benefits from its fabulous natural wealth. The road to Hpakant has pot-holes bigger than the four-wheel-drive cars that negotiate it. During the rainy season, it can take nine hours to reach from Myitkyina, the Kachin state capital 110 km (68 miles) away.
Non-Burmese are rarely granted official access to Hpakant, but taxi-drivers routinely take Chinese traders there for exorbitant fees, part of which goes to dispensing bribes at police and military checkpoints. The official reason for restricting access to Hpakant is security: the Burmese military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) have long vied for control of the road, which is said to be flanked with land-mines. But the restrictions also serve to reduce scrutiny of the industry's biggest players and its horrific social costs: the mass deaths of workers and some of the highest heroin addiction and HIV infection rates in Myanmar.
There are also "obvious" links between jade and conflict in Kachin State, said analyst Richard Horsey, a former United Nations senior official in Myanmar. A 17-year ceasefire between the military and the KIA ended when fighting erupted in June 2011. It has since displaced at least 100,000 people.
"Such vast revenues - in the hands of both sides - have certainly fed into the conflict, helped fund insurgency, and will be a hugely complicating factor in building a sustainable peace economy," Horsey said.
The United States banned imports of jade, rubies and other Burmese gemstones in 2008 in a bid to cut off revenue to the military junta which then ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma. But soaring demand from neighboring China meant the ban had little effect. After Myanmar's reformist government took power, the United States scrapped or suspended almost all economic and political sanctions - but not the ban on jade and rubies. It was renewed by the White House on August 7 in a sign that Myanmar's anarchic jade industry remains a throwback to an era of dictatorship. The U.S. Department of the Treasury included the industry in activities that "contribute to human rights abuses or undermine Burma's democratic reform process."
Foreign companies are not permitted to extract jade. But mining is capital intensive, and it is an open secret that most of the 20 or so largest operations in Hpakant are owned by Chinese companies or their proxies, say gem traders and other industry insiders in Kachin State. "Of course, some (profit) goes to the government," said Yup Zaw Hkawng, chairman of Jadeland Myanmar, the most prominent Kachin mining company in Hpakant. "But mostly it goes into the pockets of Chinese families and the families of the former (Burmese) government."
Other players include the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (UMEHL), the investment arm of the country's much-feared military, and Burmese tycoons such as Zaw Zaw, chairman of Max Myanmar, who made their fortunes collaborating with the former junta.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Minzayar Hand-pickers search for jade through rubble dumped by mining companies at a jade mine in Hpakant township, Kachin State July 8, 2013.</div></div>
<h3>THE CHINA CONNECTION</h3>
Soldiers guard the big mining companies and sometimes shoot in the air to scare off small-time prospectors. "We run like crazy when we see them," said Tin Tun, the handpicker.
UMEHL is notoriously tight-lipped about its operations. "Stop bothering us," Major Myint Oo, chief of human resources at UMEHL's head office in downtown Yangon, told Reuters. "You can't just come in here and meet our superiors. This is a military company. Some matters must be kept secret."
This arrangement, whereby Chinese companies exploit natural resources with military help, is both familiar and deeply controversial in Myanmar.
Last year, protests outside the Letpadaung copper mine in northwest Myanmar triggered a violent police crackdown. The mine's two operators - UMEHL and Myanmar Wanbao, a unit of Chinese weapons manufacturer China North Industries Corp - shared most of the profits, leaving the government with just 4 percent. That contract was revised in July in an apparent attempt to appease public anger. The government now gets 51 percent of the profits, while UMEHL and Myanmar Wanbao get 30 and 19 percent respectively.
China's domination of the jade trade could feed into a wider resentment over its exploitation of Myanmar's natural wealth. A Chinese-led plan to build a $3.6 million dam at the Irrawaddy River's source in Kachin State - and send most of the power it generated to Yunnan Province - was suspended in 2011 by President Thein Sein amid popular outrage.
The national and local governments should also get a greater share of Kachin State's natural wealth, say analysts and activists. That includes gold, timber and hydropower, but especially jade.
A two-week auction held in the capital Naypyitaw in June sold a record-breaking $2.6 billion in jade and gems. But jade tax revenue in 2011 amounted to only 20 percent of the official sales. Add in all the "unofficial" sales outside of the emporium, and Harvard calculates an effective tax rate of about 7 percent on all Burmese jade.
It is, on the other hand, highly lucrative for the mining companies, whose estimated cost of production is $400 a ton, compared with an official sales figure of $126,000 a ton, the report said.
"Kachin, and by extension Myanmar, cannot be peaceful and politically stable without some equitable sharing of resource revenues with the local people," said analyst Horsey.
<h3>THE PECKING ORDER</h3>
At the top of the pecking order in Hpakant are cashed-up traders from China, who buy stones displayed on so-called "jade tables" in Hpakant tea-shops. The tables are run by middleman called laoban ("boss" in Chinese), who are often ethnic Chinese. They buy jade from, and sometimes employ, handpickers like Tin Tun.
The handpickers are at the bottom of the heap - literally. They swarm in their hundreds across mountains of rubble dumped by the mining companies. It is perilous work, especially when banks and slag heaps are destabilized by monsoon rain. Landslides routinely swallow 10 or 20 men at a time, said Too Aung, 30, a handpicker from the Kachin town of Bhamo.
"Sometimes we can't even dig out their bodies," he said. "We don't know where to look."
In 2002, at least a thousand people were killed when flood waters inundated a mine, Jadeland Myanmar chairman Yup Zaw Hkawng told Reuters. Deaths are common but routinely concealed by companies eager to avoid suspending operations, he said.
The boom in Hpakant's population coincided with an exponential rise in opium production in Myanmar, the world's second-largest producer after Afghanistan. Its derivative, heroin, is cheap and widely available in Kachin State, and Hpakant's workforce seems to run on it.
About half the handpickers use heroin, while others rely on opium or alcohol, said Tin Soe, 53, a jade trader and a local leader of the opposition National League for Democracy party. "It's very rare to find someone who doesn't do any of these," he said.
Official figures on heroin use in Hpakant are hard to get. The few foreign aid workers operating in the area, mostly working with drug users, declined comment for fear of upsetting relations with the Myanmar government. But health workers say privately about 40 percent of injecting drug users in Hpakant are HIV positive - twice the national average.
Drug use is so intrinsic to jade mining that "shooting galleries" operate openly in Hpakant, with workers often exchanging lumps of jade for hits of heroin.
Soe Moe, 39, came to Hpakant in 1992. Three years later, he was sniffing heroin, then injecting it. His habit now devours his earnings as a handpicker. "When I'm on (heroin), I feel happier and more energetic. I work better," he said. The shooting gallery he frequents accommodates hundreds of users. "The place is so busy it's like a festival," he said. Soe Moe said he didn't fear arrest, because the gallery owners paid off the police.
<h3>MOVING MOUNTAINS</h3>
Twenty years ago, Hpakant was controlled by KIA insurgents who for a modest fee granted access to small prospectors. Four people with iron picks could live off the jade harvested from a small plot of land, said Yitnang Ze Lum of the Myanmar Gems and Jewellery Entrepreneurs Association (MGJEA) in Myitkyina.
A 1994 ceasefire brought most of Hpakant back under government control, and large-scale extraction began, with hundreds of backhoes, earthmovers and trucks working around the clock. "Now even a mountain lasts only three months," said Yitnang Ze Lum.
Many Kachin businessmen, unable to compete in terms of capital or technology, were shut out of the industry. Non-Kachin workers poured in from across Myanmar, looking for jobs and hoping to strike it rich.
The mines were closed in mid-2012 when the conflict flared up again. Myanmar's military shelled suspected KIA positions; the rebels retaliated with ambushes along the Hpakant road. Thousands of people were displaced.Jade production plunged to just 19.08 million kg in the 2012/13 fiscal year from 43.1 million kg the previous year. But the government forged a preliminary ceasefire with the Kachin rebels in May, and some traders predict Hpakant's mines will re-open when the monsoon ends in October.
When operations are in full swing, the road to Hpakant is clogged with vehicles bringing fuel in and jade out. Such is the scale and speed of modern extraction, said Yitnang Ze Lum, Hpakant's jade could be gone within 10 years.
"Every Kachin feels passionately that their state's resources are being taken away," a leading Myitkyina gem trader told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "But we're powerless to stop them."
(Andrew R.C. Marshall reported from Myitkyina; Min Zayar Oo reported from Hpakant; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing <a></a>

Myanmar's Old Guard Is Clinging To An $8 Billion Jade Empire

<div class="image-container" style="width:800px"><div class="image">REUTERS</div></div>
When those of us in the Western world look at <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>, we often do so through the prism of the expatriate, usually a young(ish) Westerner living in one of the country's major metropolitan areas. 
However, these expats are not always the most reliable narrators. Even websites that cater to expats are full of stories of foolish, usually drunken, <a href="http://shanghaiist.com/2013/06/14/nanjing_police_help_french_laowai_find_his_apartment_after_he_forgets_which_building_he_lives_in.php">"laowai" humiliating themselves in one manner or another</a>. 
Given how this community is a window into China — and perhaps also China's window into into the West — they probably deserve study, and a new book out this week in the U.S. attempts to do that. 
Tom Carter, both an <keyword id="6468264" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="expat">expat</keyword> and "laowai" in China since 2006, chronicles the expat experience as editor of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unsavory-Elements-Stories-Foreigners-Loose/dp/9881616409/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1">Unsavory Elements</a>" (a Chinese nickname for foreigners, perhaps one step above "foreign devils"). Featuring 28 essays from foreigners, the book is meant to show some kind of unifying experience amongst a relatively disparate community.
While most of the essays are by relatively established writers (the New Yorker's Peter Hessler is one notable example), they offer a good glimpse of the variety of the expat experience in China. Perhaps the seediest story is Carter's own story, a snapshot of a his trip to a brothel in an unnamed Chinese city (a story that was "so insensitive," <a href="http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Books__Film-Book_reviews/11883/Unsavory-Elements.html">Time Out Shanghai felt forced to ask Carter about</a> "his motives for writing it") but others offer more family friendly fare (for example, Alan Paul’s road trip through remote Sichuan province with his young family).
"Unsavory Elements" comes out in the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unsavory-Elements-Stories-Foreigners-ebook/dp/B00DKMP0KK/">United States this week and you can buy it on Amazon here</a>. Business Insider spoke with Carter in an effort to understand what he really things about the experience of foreigners in China. 
Business Insider: What made you want to edit this book? Your previous book was photography-based, why the shift?
Tom Carter: During my 2-year, 35,000-mile journey across China back in ’06-’08, my backpack was constantly filled with <keyword id="5050" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="books">books</keyword> – more books than anything else, which made my pack quite unwieldy – including the memoirs of many of the authors who would later contribute to Unsavory. The snapshots that I took during my travels ultimately resulted in the creation of my own book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/CHINA-Portrait-People-Tom-Carter/dp/9889979942">CHINA: Portrait of a People</a>, which was well received and inspired me to pursue photojournalism professionally.
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:480px"><div class="image">Courtesy of Tom CarterTom Carter (R)</div></div>But, as it happened, in the following years the photojournalism industry basically collapsed (due in part to the decline of print media and the advent of digital devices). While I was sitting around waiting for interviews and job offers that never came, I started working on other literary projects, such as this anthology, for fun.
I conceived Unsavory Elements as a tribute to all those expat authors in China that had inspired me during my travels with their tales and prose. I reached out to them to commission all-new stories – I did not know any of them personally but everyone was accessible and receptive – and found I had a knack for editing. It was an entirely organic, grassroots project that perfectly exemplifies the unpredictable, fluid spirit of expatriate life in China, where anyone can reinvent themselves, and where even if one door of opportunity closes on you, another will usually open.
BI: Is there something unique about the expat community in China as opposed to say, expats in Japan or France?
TC: I can’t speak on France – my only knowledge of the expatriate scene there comes from Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer – but I did used to live in Tokyo. Gaijin and laowai share many quandaries, such as our host countries’ deep-rooted mistrust and openly xenophobic attitudes towards outsiders (“No Foreigners Allowed” signs are just as common in Shinjuku as they are in Shenyang).
And yet, my impression was that Japan’s expat community has an air of privilege and conceit to it; gaijin appreciate Japan for its opulent comforts, its meticulous perfections, its soft-spoken sensibilities, and seem to abhor the uncertainties and disquieting disorder of a developing nation. They really are quite precious, those gaijin.
China’s expat scene, on the other hand, is like a great big rowdy saloon from America’s Wild West days,

with dusty explorers, try-your-luck prospectors and even the occasional outlaw laowai riding in from the hazy horizon to find their fortunes in this final frontier … or simply to get in adventures that no developed country like Japan could ever offer.
BI: Why do you think so many people move to China?
TC: China truly has become the new land of opportunity, where westerners of all walks, defeated by this ongoing global recession, have replaced the Chinese as the world’s economic refugees; a “floating population” of blonde-haired, blue-eyed migrant laborers blown in by fate and free-trade treaties onto the red shores of China, destitute and dragging plaid peasant bags bursting with emotional and financial baggage.
I’m being lyrically sensationalistic here, but beneath my playful prose is the harsh truth: America is seeing its end of days. China is our largest foreign creditor – the Communist Party basically owns us – we’ve exported most of our manufacturing base (that iPad you are reading this article on was assembled by an adolescent from Anhui), and our “land of the free” ethos has regressed to a totalitarian police state echoing Cultural Revolution-era China.
The irony of this reversal of roles is not lost on me, nor on the nearly 1 million foreigners living and working in China today, an (unofficial) number that has increased 10% year-on-year for the past decade. All said, I am less inclined to think we are moving to China so much as we are fleeing the west.
BI: Do you think the view of foreigners in China has changed over the years?
TC: Mark Kitto, a contributor to the Unsavory anthology, writes a humorously-vain account about how local authorities wanted to immortalize his likeness into a statue – and as soon as they did they tore it down! I think this story is an apt metaphor for China’s historical love-hate relationship with foreigners, where one moment they are idolizing westerners like superstars and the next they are fumigating us like some invasive species (an analogy that Jonathan Watts touches on in his essay).
If you look back at history, China is one of the few countries that have instituted systematic purges of “foreign devils” over the centuries, most notably the wholesale slaughter of thousands of Christians during the bloody Boxer Uprising and the Cultural Revolution persecutions of any Chinese who associated with westerners.
Foreigners in China have advanced (some might argue regressed) over the centuries from unremitting missionaries and exploitative opium operations to backpackers and businessmen, but the purges continue to take place to this day at the whim of the ever-capricious Communist Party, including last year’s state-sponsored looting of Japanese businesses and vehicles, and the campaign’s official government artwork of a fist smashing down on the characters for “foreigners.” My anthology’s title “Unsavory Elements” is a cheeky reference to one of the Party’s many pet names for us.
BI: Could you make out any common themes? Did anything in the stories surprise you?
TC: The lighthearted tone of the book is emulated in part after my backpacking days when I’d just sit around a hostel laughing and swapping short stories with other travelers and transients about our various adventures.
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:300px"><div class="image">Via Tom Carter</div></div>But beneath the fun reading I was surprised to find a subtext of heavier themes shared by all the writers, such as how modernism and the country’s break-neck development have done more to disrupt the society than enhance it, yet, for all of New China’s pretentious pomp and steel-and-glass glitz, there remains an undercurrent of thousands-years-old traditions that will always define this culture and dictate their decisions.
BI: There are a lot of stories about the bad behavior of foreigners in China floating online. In Unsavory Elements, some of the stories (including your own) perhaps further the image of foreigners as, well, unsavory. Do you think that the influence of foreigners on China is a good thing?
TC: To be fair, the anthology is a well-balanced mix of family-friendly fare – such as Alan Paul’s “National Lampoon’s Vacation”-esque road trip across Sichuan with his family, and Susan Conley and her children using street food as a means to acclimate – as much as the backpackers behaving badly, or should I say Gweilo Gone Wild, contingent, like Dominic Stevenson tossed in a Shanghai prison for drug dealing or Susie Gordon during her decadent evening of ketamine, cocktails and karaoke.
Admittedly, my own story, about a boy’s night out to a brothel, has made the most ripples: Time Out Shanghai called it “offensive and implicitly exploitative”, which I accepted gracefully as their professional interpretation. I was prepared for this critical fallout and decided to martyr myself because, as the editor, it would have been disingenuous to exclude a story about prostitution, which is rampant in China.
But then the Time Out review online was overrun by clique of “fem-pats” (not my phrase; I borrowed that from one of the website’s comments; I think it refers to those angry, lonely, single female expats in China who are overlooked by western males seeking Chinese girlfriends) who, not even having read the book, knee-jerkingly called for my “arrest and deportation from China” because, they believed, I patronized an underage prostitute.
All things considered, I think China is more of an influence on the expats who live here than we are on it…though, if my own story is any indication, this “When in China” outlook can get us into trouble.
BI: Is there a danger when writing about the expat experience, of "otherizing" China — playing up the weirdness too much, falling into tropes?
TC: Absolutely. There are many “gonzo adventure” books out there – I don’t want to name them because they are rather lame – about how “unusual” and “mystifying” China is.

Commercial publishers, especially travel magazines, love to otherize this country and its people, as it plays off the west’s ignorance, which is unfortunate because beyond the obvious cultural differences, it is a beautiful, traditional culture with a complex, rich history.
 
My photo-book CHINA: Portrait of a People sought to dispel the widely held belief that the Chinese are a single, homogeneous race – there are over 56 different ethnicities of Chinese – so I am conscious about the tendency to otherize China. And I think the final result of Unsavory Elements echoes the comedic if not slightly tragic reality of our situation here as outsiders: we, not the Chinese, are the weird ones.
BI: How has the book been received by the expat community? Has the Chinese reaction been different?
TC: It’s been a mixed response from both demographics. We debuted Unsavory Elements to a sold-out session at the Shanghai Literary Festival: over 250 attendees. But our session at Beijing’s Capital Literary Festival was only 25 people! Having lived in both cities, my interpretation is that the rough-and-tumble expats in Beijing are more likely to go seek their own adventures, whereas Shanghai’s colonialist-minded expats have less opportunity, or inclination, to explore “real China”, and therefore prefer to experience China vicariously. That’s just my cursory analysis.
As far as the Chinese, I can’t imagine many if any are aware of this or other English-language books. China’s book market is growing fast, however, so getting Unsavory Elements translated into Chinese is a priority for my publisher. We’ve received positive reviews from all the state-operated English-language new agencies such as China Daily and Global Times, so there is obviously an interest in our lives here as “waiguoren,” outsiders.
But truthfully, I think the Chinese government couldn’t care less about what foreigners in China are up to or what we have to say so long as we don’t speak it in a language that 1.3 billion people can understand, and so long as we are not raising hell about the Three Taboo Ts.
BI: A lot of people featured in the book began as English teachers — do you think that influences the relationship they have with the country?
TC: Indeed, many of this anthology’s most respected writers such as Peter Hessler and Michael Meyer got their start as English teachers in China. And yet there is this stigma surrounding English teaching where we are utterly despised by the white-collar expatriate community and even by our own Department of State. Whether this is due to our perceived status as bottom-feeders detritivorously foraging Asia for any job that will hire a white face, or because they think we are aiding and abetting America’s successor, I don’t know, but the derision towards English teachers is palpable.
I too got my start in China as a teacher (after responding to an ad on Craigslist which turned out to be a scam and left me homeless and jobless my first week here) and eventually wound up teaching 1,500 primary school students entirely myself, a baptism by fire if there ever was one. I then went on to teach business English to companies in Beijing. Honestly, I can think of no other career path that places you so directly in the heart of Chinese culture and society like teaching does, or gives you a better ground view of the future of this country.
For this reason, I was adamant about including at least a couple stories from the classroom, including Michael Levy’s account of being offered vast sums of money by the principal of his school to write college entrance exams for his students, and Matt Muller’s observational piece about being in a class full of indifferent high school students with no ambition for higher education. When read together, these stories offer a contrasting glimpse into China’s widening economic disparity, from perspectives that no executive and no journalist could ever obtain.
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo96K5YLcb8&amp;feature=player_embedded">Reuters / Youtube</a></div></div>BI: A lot of the people writing in the book have since left the country, and some — such as, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-expat-businessmen-are-leaving-china-2012-9">famously Mark Kitto</a> — have said they intend to leave soon. Do you perceive there to be an exodus of people leaving? If so, what would you put that down to?
TC: Regarding the so-called exodus, I don’t believe that more foreigners are departing China than arriving. Sure, certain western corporations are looking for the next burgeoning nation to exploit now that China’s economy is on a downturn. But good riddance to the expense-account expats. Of the laowai who are leaving because of pollution or whatever, in the past year it’s become a kind of trend to publish your “Why I’m Leaving China” goodbye letter. What most people don’t know is that Mark Kitto, who is to be credited, or blamed, for starting this trend, never left!
And this fact speaks volumes about our love affair with China, a love-it or hate-it kind of place, to the point that even when we want to leave, we really can’t. I had this happen to me too, where after living here for four straight years I moved to Japan for a year, and then to India for another year, but each time I found myself drawn back to China. I now concede this is where destiny intends me to be.
But of the authors in this anthology who have left, such as Pete Hessler to Egypt and Jon Watts to South America, the fact that they can continue to write so passionately about China is a testament to how close to our hearts this culture and its people are.
BI: After editing the book and hearing many stories, what advice would you give to a young man or woman about to move to China?
TC: Read. There really are so many inspirational memoirs and travelogues about China, including all the ones penned by the contributors of this anthology, which will give you a good understanding of what you are getting yourself into. But I feel a bit hypocritical proffering this advice, as I myself had not ever read a single book about China prior to moving here – I came on a lark because I wanted to travel the world and go on adventures but didn’t have any money to do so – and was completely oblivious of Chinese culture and its history. I learned as I went along, total immersion, which upon reflection was not the easiest way, especially in a challenging country like China. Reading memoirs, and learning from the first-hand insight of others, can help ease your transition.

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