If you have a infant in China and you’re using baby formula, then this is for you.

The Problem

After the 2008 melamine milk powder scandal, in which several infants died and hundreds of thousands were harmed by drinking melamine-tainted baby formula, we heard other foreigners multiple times say, “Now’s the best time buy Chinese milk powder — it’s never been safer.” Thankfully, we knew better.

That kind of thinking is what Chinese people call “using foreign thinking to understand China” — in other words: wrong. Now in 2010 it’s all over the news that 170 tons of unsafe milk powder products that were supposed to be destroyed in the wake of the 2008 scandal were simply repackaged and put back on store shelves. Melamine is an industrial chemical used in plastics and adhesives that also creates false, boosted protein readings on quality tests of watered-down milk powder solutions so that they don’t appear diluted. It also causes kidney stones and kidney failure. Despite the very public scandal, people knowingly repackaged and resold a product that they knew was lethal. Silly foreigners; “you laowais can’t understand China.”

It’s not a matter of being overly cynical about the priorities of China’s highest leaders. The system is broken, or rather, it was never designed to protect and empower individuals and the public in the first place (just the opposite; it was designed to empower the rulers at the expense of the people). Even if high-level leaders have good intentions they simply can’t adequately enforce these kinds of policies. In response to a major international scandal in which babies died, hundreds of thousands were harmed and the public was outraged, they executed a dairy farmer and a salesman, shuffled the responsible gov. officials around, and obviously failed to remove 170 tons of the stuff that caused the damage in the first place. (Those ‘disgraced’ officials are now back in same-level or higher positions.)

It borders on irresponsible, in my opinion, to trust the Chinese system more than you have to. Thankfully, when it comes to baby formula, trusting the system is unnecessary.

Breast milk is best, of course, but if you live in China and your baby needs formula, 怎么办？

Our Solution

When we need baby formula, we use Táobǎo to get imported name-brand Dutch formula (inspected by our Dutch friends) for the same price or cheaper than what’s on the store shelves in China. No doubt it includes ingredients made in China, but Dutch babies haven’t gotten kidney stones from baby formula yet.

Taobao.com is the cuter, blinkier, Chinese eBay. Some of your Chinese friends or co-workers most likely have accounts. My Chinese co-workers used to shop on Táobǎo all day before the company blocked the site. Get someone to order imported formula for you or open your own account (opening an account requires Chinese and Táobǎo accounts can be complicated, even for locals).

*Special tip: The first time you order from a vendor on Taobao.com, order a small amount so you can check the product closely to see if anything looks suspicious. You can get fake stuff on Taobao just as easily as anywhere else. If it checks out, you’re good to go! The vendor we use is here.

**Warning: This is not foolproof! By ordering off Táobǎo you’re trusting your ability to spot a fake product. Some fakes can be very well done. Be extremely careful. Ordering imported formula from Taobao is no guarantee, it’s just significantly better odds than domestic formula, imo. For a safer and only slightly more expensive option, see the first and fifth comments below.

If anyone has any other baby-formula-in-China advice, please let us know in the comments!

(This is the first in a series; several more are cued up, in no particular order. We have a baby, so as we discover the tricks of the trade in China, we’ll share them here.)

Related:

• A Foreign Baby in Tianjin Pt. 1 – is this our future?

Other foreign baby in China essentials:

• Foreign baby in China essentials: FRIENDLY STRANGER FINGER SHIELD
• Foreign baby in China essentials: FACEBOOK SUBSTITUTE (or VPN) & SKYPE
• Foreign baby in China essentials: AIR PURIFIER

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

I try to wave the first car through, but he doesn’t go until I look away. But the next car tries to wait for me, too. I look away and wave him through, wondering what the chances are of getting two overly-polite drivers in a row.

They were waiting for me, of course, because I was in the crosswalk and pedestrians have right-of-way. Right of way? For pedestrians? Traffic rules? I thought being in the way gave you right of way. It was so weird to see cars actually voluntarily stop to make way for anything that for a moment I didn’t know what to do. But that’s how it works; I asked my dad when I got home.

In Tianjin if we want the cars to stop for us we just step in front of them and force them to stop, or at least swerve, or adjust their trajectory. But in Surrey, crosswalks are magic!

My autopilot needs to be reprogrammed, apparently.

Related Articles:

• How to: Ride a Bike in China (Part 2)

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Staying Alive and On Your Bike in Tianjin

Avoiding accidents, reducing traffic stress, and deterring bike theft in Tianjin

We’d only been in Tianjin one week when I wrote home to my family in Canada with my first impressions of Tianjin’s traffic:

…widen the roads and intersections while narrowing the field of vision for which taxi and bus drivers feel responsible, reduce the North American-sized personal space bubble to the area occupied by the clothes you’re wearing, and take note that honking the horn apparently absolves the driver of responsibility for all those within earshot. …you never have those awkward ‘Who’s going to go first?’ moments like you get sometimes at four-way stops in Canada when people arrive at the same time and no one wants to appear pushy. In Tianjin, everyone goes first, and whoever’s in the way has right of way.

That may not the best description of Tianjin traffic but it’s an honest first impression. Newly-arrived foreigners are often appalled by the sight of their first major intersection, and surprised when they don’t witness an accident every five minutes. Even veteran expats who are no longer intimidated can still get stressed during rush hour. But I have good news! Tianjin’s traffic is actually not chaos (really). There is a system, it’s easy to get used to, and there are specific things we can do to make our commute safer and more enjoyable. It’s just that Tianjin’s traffic culture is different from what we’re used to, and we often have trouble seeing and understanding it at first glance.

When we first arrived we were given The Guide to Living in Tianjin, which says, “Believe it or not, there are rules; however, no expat has figured them out yet.” Then it adds (sarcastically?), “Maybe you’ll be the first.” And then to make you feel better it suggests, “A sure bet is to follow the locals; let them be you example, and sometimes your shield.” Do we need shields to ride a bike in Tianjin?!

Metaphors for Tianjin Traffic

Tianijn’s traffic culture (the shared collection of traffic behaviour expectations and assumptions) is different than what many of us grew up with, and explaining it to people who aren’t already used to is a challenge. James Adams has taught English at Tianjin’s Nankai U. for six years, and he offers two helpful descriptions of how bike traffic works here.

Biking in Tianjin is like… downhill skiing. Stop thinking roads, lanes, lines, and well-defined, rigid rules. Instead, think ski-slopes. If you’ve ever been on a snowy slope, you will have noticed that there are no lane-lines, but there are some basic rules:

1. Control your speed so you can avoid accidents.
2. Leave plenty of space when overtaking people, especially children, pregnant ladies, or the elderly.
3. Those in front have right-of-way.
4. Worry about what’s in your forward field of vision, not what’s behind you.

Biking in Tianjin is also like… spawning salmon. Think of adult salmon swimming up a river: a steady stream of bodies all moving in the same general direction. They move wherever they can move, taking any option to move in the right direction. There are no lines in the stream, there is only blocked space where one can’t move, and open space where one can. People will advance as far forward as physically possible when trying to cross the road, and that often means waiting inches from the moving stream of cars or in between streams of cars. Before the Olympics, most people didn’t wait at the line.

Some Collected Traffic Wisdom

You want to turn left at a busy intersection but fear for your life; you’ve never seen a disturbed ant nest this big before. Yet using two crosswalks just to turn left is getting too tedious and pathetic. It’s time to employ…

…the #1 Tianjin bike riding tip: follow a local
This is the simplest and safest way to learn when and how to wade into rush hour traffic. That grandma with a basket full of cabbage doesn’t want to get tagged by chūzūchē (出租车: “rent out car” a.k.a. taxi) any more than you do, and she won’t steer you wrong.

Stay in the pack & go with the flow
Like wildebeest on the plains of the Serengeti, there’s safety in numbers. Stay in the pack and go with the flow. It’s the ones who leave the pack that get picked off by lions… or a miànbāochē (面包车: “bread loaf car” a.k.a. Chinese minivan). Average local biking speed is so slow that collisions are easily avoidable and less potentially dangerous when they do happen. Foreigners often bike faster than locals; this saves time but adds risk.

Don’t make sudden moves (but be on the lookout for them!)
Aside from a few obnoxious school kids, slow, straight, predictability is the norm for riding in Tianjin. This lets cars and electric bikers easily anticipate your movement and safely move around you. You can gesture turns by sticking your arm out. But be aware that people will still often make sudden swerves, stops, or dismounts as if they’re the only person in the bike lane! They’re assuming that the person in front has right of way and that it’s the person behind’s responsibility to pay attention and avoid those in front.

Avoid unnecessary stress factors
Foreigners in Tianjin traffic often add to their own irritation in two stress-creating ways: speed and unadjusted expectations. If it’s rush hour and you want to bike faster than everyone else, you’ll likely get irritated at the way people are always in the way. But if you aren’t looking to pass everyone, then almost nobody will be “in the way.”

Pining for home-style traffic will only add to your frustration. Our deep-rooted expectations – that people should move in straight lines with minimal weaving, that they should look behind themselves and signal before turning or changing lanes, that there even is a “lane” and that they should stay in it, and that red lights are like a door slammed shut – are inappropriate here. Don’t trust lines and laws; trust what you see in front of you. Traffic in Tianjin is much more fluid and less rigidly defined by lines.

Honking… with Chinese characteristics
In Canada if someone is honking their horn at you it either means there is imminent danger — you’re about to crash or there’s an emergency — or it means, “Hey! Get out of my #@*!^% way, you #%^*@!” In Tianjin, horns don’t mean they’re frightened or cursing you out. Honking is a regular part of everyday driving. It lets people know, “I’m here!” or “Here I come!” It’s a safety thing, almost a courtesy, like they’re honking so you don’t have to bother checking your blind spot. Usually, a honking car is merely saying, “Don’t move left, I’m coming up to pass you,” or “Edge over a bit, I can’t get by.” They’re not angry.

Vehicles you should especially fear:

• Black cars with license plates starting in “AV…” These are government officials’ cars, and they drive like the unaccountable big-shots that most of them think they are. Most police are not dumb enough to pull them over for traffic violations, though it happens occasionally. Same goes for military cars, which have white license plates. Both are easy to spot because aside from their special plates, government and military cars are kept conspicuously clean.
• Dump trucks at night. They’re kept off the roads during the day, and they will make up for lost time in the dark on Tianjin’s poorly lit streets by speeding and blowing through red lights.
• Long-distance buses. Big, fast, unyielding, and with horns so loud you can feel it in your teeth.

Watch out for open manholes
Manhole covers occasionally go missing; keep an eye out. This especially stinks at night in the dark. Usually someone will stick something (anything, like a branch) in the hole to let people know. Also, the covers are often loose, especially in the winter, so avoid riding over them when you can.

Anti-theft Techniques: You Need Them

It’s no secret that bike theft is rampant in Tianjin. Most people I know have lost at least one bike, often more. One friend of a friend is on his twelfth. These are the collected theft deterrence techniques of people I know personally:

• Always lock your bike, even when you’re “just going in for a minute.”
• Use two locks, one on each tire, so it can’t be wheeled away.
• Lock your bike to something whenever you can.
• Make your bike look unique, noticeable, recognizable, or undesirable. I know three people who painted bright yellow striped on their black bikes, like a bumblebee or Stryper, that 1980’s Christian heavy metal band. My wife’s bike has purple splotches of paint all over it. Mine is just old and ugly. Odd-looking or older bikes are harder for thieves to re-sell.
• Choose your bike carefully. High-quality, name brand bikes like Giant have a higher resale value and are more susceptible to theft.
• Always park in a guarded parking space, when available. It only costs 5 máo.
• Don’t get too emotionally attached! I hate to sound cynical, but even if you take all these precautions, your bike could still get stolen. Hold it lightly.

Special thanks to James Adams, a nine-year China biking veteran and English teacher at Nankai U., for contributing to this article and for first teaching me how to buy and ride a bike in Tianjin.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

[A.] The #1 Tianjin Bike Riding Tip: Follow the locals.
This is the simplest and easiest way to ‘safely’ get a feel for the rules of the road in Tianjin. When you’re on your bike and unsure of what to do, just pick a local who looks like she’s going your way and follow her. I found this especially helpful during my first few weeks on wheels, especially when making left turns through busy intersections (like the one between the JHF office and Zǐ Jīn Gōng Yù).

[B.] Bike Theft is Rampant.
Many if not most associates and local staff have had their bike stolen at least once (many people have had bikes stolen multiple times). That said, here are some common things some associates do to deter bike thieves:

• Always lock your bike, even when you’re “just going in for a minute.”
• Use two locks, one on each tire (so they can’t wheel it away).
• Lock your bike to something, when you can.
• Make your bike look unique/noticeable/recognizable. Two associates painted their bikes with black with yellow stripes like a bumblebee or Stryper, that 1980′s Christian heavy metal band. Jessica’s bike has purple splotches of paint all over it. Mine is just old and ugly. Odd-looking bikes are harder for thieves to re-sell.
• Always park in a guarded parking space, when available. It only costs 3 máo. Many associates have lost bikes at RT Mart near Zǐ Jīn Gōng Yù, but they weren’t parked in the guarded parking spaces.
• There is a good chance that your bike will eventually get stolen. Don’t get too emotionally attached! ;)

[C] From [our NGO's Chinese office manager]:
Be especially careful when riding near elderly people and pregnant women. Sometimes people can still be startled by the sight of a foreigner. Go slow.

[D] Accidents.
Normally when there’s an accident, the first order of business is to suck the guilty party into a loud, public argument. This draws a crowd, and that prevents the guilty party from getting away. “Fault” is decided by the crowd, and people would often rather have money change hands and settle it on the scene than involve a lot of trouble with the police. So both people argue until public opinion forces one person to pay a negotiated price. When police arrive, they often act as mediators.

Often if someone is knocked down, they may stay laying in the road even if they aren’t hurt, causing a hopefully sympathetic crowd to gather. This also prevents the other person from getting away. Most recently I saw a woman on Bīn Shuǐ Dào stand pressed against the front bumper of a taxi with her bike partly underneath the front of the car (preventing the driver from leaving), scolding him with the help of an elderly passerby. You will probably see this kind of thing happen eventually.

If you are in an accident, the best thing to is (1) immediately call the Office (——– during office hours) or [office manager's cell] (———–) or [local NGO director] (———–) when the office is closed, and (2) wait for the police. If you have been knocked down into the road and you get up, you are hurting your chances for a judgment in your favour, and possibly giving the other person a chance to ignore you and drive off (this happened last spring with an associate). If you are injured and need to get to a hospital, call the police (110). If you are injured but able to get in a taxi, take a taxi to the hospital (this is faster than waiting for the ambulance). If you are not hurt, damage to your bike is negligible, and the other party is willing to simply let it go, it’s best to take the opportunity to leave the scene.

[E.] Don’t ride hard.
Even the more expensive bikes here can be a little flimsy sometimes. Pedals sometimes snap off, or brake pads go flying, wheels get bent and wobbly… each of those things has happened to me, and I’ve also witnessed them happen to other associates. So take it easy, accelerate slow (even when you’re late to class!), and don’t go mountain biking down stairways.

[F.] Manholes.
Manhole cover theft is pretty bad; they go missing occasionally. Keep an eye out. Usually someone will stick something (anything, like a branch) in the hole to let people know. Also, the covers are often loose, so good rule of thumb is just to avoid riding over them when you can. (I read somewhere that they go for 30 kuài a piece at the smelters.)

[G.] Don’t make sudden moves.
Punk kids on electric bikes aside, most people don’t make sudden moves or swerves when riding. If you suddenly swerve around manholes, it might surprise people around you. Slow, straight, predictability is good for riding in Tianjin. And you can gesture turns by sticking your arm out in the direction you’re turning.

[H.] Finally, don’t feel bad about feeling hesitant, scared, etc.
Those are totally normal feelings for foreigners considering joining the cycling masses of Tianjin. People here operate with a different set of road rules and expectations, and to most foreigners it looks like potentially lethal chaos at first. However, with that said, we encourage you to consider eventually getting a bike, even if you don’t want one now (Jessica walked for several months before beginning to ride). I say this because it is a very significant advantage of convenience to use a bike, which you will notice if you walk for a while. With a bike you can get virtually everywhere you need to for daily activities. Also, Tianjin is an interesting city with some fascinating modern history and historical/cultural sites, most of which are within biking distance.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

We’ve more or less followed her advice, but even in the supermarkets things can look dodgy – like a row of glass vinegar bottles that all have different amounts of vinegar in them with sloppily glued on labels.

Today I didn’t follow this advice, and stopped at a first-floor window to get a bottle of jiaozi vinegar on the way to eat lunch (fantastic Muslim beef sandwiches from a different first-floor window shop). I carried the vinegar bottle into the school since I was heading straight to class after eating, and a classmate joke, “You bringing beer to class?” Then I took a second look at the bottle, which you can see on the here.

Now, I’m all for recycling (it was routine for class pop bottles to be reused as pop bottles when we were in east Africa), but I’m not so sure I trust this one.

Sorry Xu Laoshi! Next time I’ll 听 your 说的话！

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

“Son! Tonight… we will become Canadians!”

You can read a short bit on how we understand “fitting in” in China here.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.