Shenzhen Daily Highlights

On a plane now (though I won't be by the time I post this...), and just received a copy of the Shenzhen Daily newspaper. It's a small 16-page paper that publishes an English version in addition to Mandarin Chinese every Monday through Friday. Matt often buys it for about a quarter from a man with a newstand / snack shop set up about a block from our house, but since I'm flying on Shenzhen Air, I just scored one for free.

Today's paper has a few interesting articles worth sharing. The first is a misprint at the top that would be perfect for late night comedy: "Woman, 125, nation's oldest. Born in 1985, Lou Meizhen from Bama County in Guanxi has been named the country's oldest person."

Oops - I think they meant 1885.

Also on the front page is a photo of 2 men holding lit torches in honor of the Asian Games, which are similar to the Olympics, but focus only on participants from this part of the world. They kick off Nov. 12th and I'm sure will be the talk of the town, kind of like the World Cup was a few months ago.

Page 4 of the paper includes a brief mention of Super typhoon "Megi" (which means "catfish" in Korean). It just pummeled the Philippines and may or may not hit Hong Kong - we're waiting anxiously to see which path it will take. It's strength is estimated to be about the same as a category 4 to 5 hurricane, and even if it turns south on one of the non-Hong Kong paths, we're likely going to experience some serious winds and torrential rain storms toward the end of this week.

I feel giddy with excitement about the typhoon, the way a kid in Atlanta gets when the man on the nightly news predicts a chance of snow for the following day. Will it come our way? I'm supposed to travel into the heart of Hong Kong Wed through Fri to attend the "Mega Show" - will I be able to go? Will our 17th floor apartment sway left and right in the wind? Could we be told to evacuate the city and go further inland? Hainan, an island an hour plane ride southwest from us already advised 140,000+ people to evacuate.

After the typhoon write-up, there are a bunch of boring articles in the middle on topics like property taxes in Shanghai, China Walmart farming processes, AMD chip processors, China GDP rising, and tourism in a city called Qindao.

The last page of the paper includes a photo and synopsis of the 2010 Scream awards that aired in the U.S. last Saturday, a blurb about the new 3D Jackass movie, and an article with the headline "Georgia mom sues Tyra Banks". The first sentence reads "A Georgia woman is suing Tyra Banks for US $3 million after she said her 15-year old daughter appeared without her permission on an episode of Banks' talk show about teen sex addicts."

Great. Next time I meet someone new in Shenzhen and they ask me where I'm from I can now say proudly "Georgia, USA - you know, the place where that woman is from that's suing that ex-supermodel over the teen sex thing?!"

And there you have it, the highlights from today's paper.