Rick Mercer In Shanghai

Few weeks ago, The Rick Mercer Report went to Shanghai.

Here are a couple of clips. Hilarious!





Nothing beats FREE Poutine!

One of three missing Chinese students found

Source: Toronto Star

One of three teenaged Chinese exchange students who went missing last week, has been found safe and sound, said Toronto police. But the search continues for the remaining two.

Const. Wendy Drummond said Qian Hu, 15, was found on Friday but would not elaborate further.

Hu, Zhiyong Chen, 17, and Kangjuun Fu, 13, arrived in Toronto on July 7 from Changsha City, in Hunan province, for a four-week English as a Second Language program run by the Toronto District School Board.

Thirty foreign students had registered for the Toronto District School Board summer exchange program.

The teens were last seen Tuesday at about 1:30 p.m. during an excursion to Woodbine Beach. A teacher called police when they did not rejoin the group.

The three speak Mandarin with limited knowledge of English and are unfamiliar with Toronto, Drummond said.

Fu's host home was in North York, and the other two were in Thornhill, she said.

Although police alleged that they had planned to go AWOL, they are still concerned about their safety. There were originally rumours that the trio had planned to apply for refugee status.

"They're 13 and 17-years-old in a foreign country," Drummond said. "We don't know if they have any means of support financially at such a young age. Without any means of support it is a definite concern for us."

Chen is described as Chinese, 5'7", 110 lbs., thin build, with short black hair. He was last seen wearing a white cotton T-shirt.

Fu is described as Chinese, 5'7", 110 lbs., thin build, with short black hair. He was last seen wearing a white cotton T-shirt and blue denim pants.

Interesting. So out of the three students, the girl has been found but the two boys are still missing.

Sounds like a poorly-planned defection gone wrong.

Chinese Students Missing in Toronto

Source: CBC

Police in Toronto are looking for three teenage Chinese language students who have gone missing in the city.

Zhiyong Chen, 17, Qian Hu, 15 and Kangjun Fu, 13, were last seen on Tuesday afternoon at Woodbine Beach.

Kangjun Fu is described as a 13-year-old Chinese male, 5-7, 110 pounds with short black hair. He was wearing a white cotton t-shirt and blue jeans.

Qian Hu is a Chinese female, 15, with short black hair and a thin build last seen wearing a grey and white t-shirt.

Zhiyong Chen, 17, is a 5-7 Chinese male, 110 pounds also wearing a white t-shirt.

According to a police news release, the three are "visiting Toronto as part of a four-week exchange program."

The students are from Hunan, China, speak Mandarin, and have limited knowledge of English.

According to police, the students left their group intentionally.

Police are trying to determine if the three took off on a lark, or if they intend to defect.

People still defect? If true, this would be a strange defection. Students in China who are involved in exchange programs either come from really rich families or part of the government structure or both. They are representing China on these trips and have alot of pride bring from China.

Something smells fishy about this cause if they are defecting they need to defect to something or someone. Plans need to be made in advance and they must flee to a relative or an organization.

I fear the worse in this case.

Korean-Canadian sympathy for North Korea?

Source: London Free Press

Past comments by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff are coming back to haunt him as members of the Korean community accuse him of suggesting he would starve North Koreans.

While at Harvard in 2005, Ignatieff said, “I strongly support reductions in food aid” to strengthen the international community’s negotiations with North Korea on nuclear weapons.

“Is that a difficult human rights problem? You bet. But that’s where I would go,” he said at the time. “I would look at the food aid, and all the bilateral stuff we are doing that keeps this odious regime going.”

His comments have now touched a nerve in the Korean community.

“He is realistically saying let’s starve the North Korean people and let’s see if the North Koreans will feed them,” said Jack Kim, executive director of the human rights organization HanVoice.

Kim, who said he only recently became aware of Ignatieff’s comments, plans to ask Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay to clarify them at a roundtable with other Korean groups in Toronto Thursday.

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Koreans please educate me. Why would Korean-Canadian be upset that a leader wants to starve North Korea? Isn't North Korea THE ENEMY? I would have thought they would be jumping for joy.

Do Korean-Canadians support North Korean people cause they think they if you starve North Korea, they will be attacked? What is the motive here?

Becoming Canadian

Source: Metro Ottawa

It has been almost 30 years since she left her native Vietnam.

But while she thrives in Ottawa — a city she’s happily called home since 1981 — lawyer Nhung Hoang remains active in the immigrant community helping people in refugee camps.

“I have been a refugee, so I want to help them,” she said. “They need a place that they can call home.”

Looking back on her arrival in Ottawa, Hoang said the first time she stepped out of the hotel she was staying in, it was so cold that she had to immediately run back inside. It was a sunny day, so she just assumed it would be warm.

After all, the 25-year-old had just flown to Canada after a six-month stay in a refugee camp in Hong Kong.

Before arriving in Hong Kong, Hoang had worked as an English as a second language teacher in Danang, Vietnam.

In July 1980 — unable to tolerate life under the communist regime — Hoang’s parents put her and her brother on a boat to Hong Kong.

They spent five days at sea before the Hong Kong Royal Marine Police escorted the boat to shore.

Because she could speak English, Hoang worked as an interpreter at the Red Cross clinic in the refugee camp until the Government of Canada sponsored her and her brother to move to Ottawa.

When she arrived, Hoang took a four-month course in electronics assembly at Algonquin College.

Despite a degree in education from a university in Vietnam, she could only find work in a factory. After one year in the factory, she enrolled at the University of Ottawa and got a sociology degree, which was followed by a law degree in 1988. Huang was called to the bar in March 1990.

“At the time, my mom and dad were still in Vietnam. My father worked for the former regime and they could hide some gold that they could sell to eat,” she said. “That’s how I could go to school. We were lucky that we didn’t have to work very hard to send money back home to them.”

She married Jonathan Chaplan in 1993; he’s learned to speak fluent Vietnamese. They have a son, 15.

“In Canada, to use the title of an exhibition at Canadian Museum of Civilization … we are Vietnamese Boat People: No Longer,” she said. “Many of us became engineers, computer programmers, medical doctors, dentists, pharmacists, professors, teachers and business people.”

It's a really good story about Vietnamese immigrants coming to Canada in the last 70s and early 80s with nothing and making a life for themselves.

Although the attitude in last quote in the article has always bothered me.

“In Canada, to use the title of an exhibition at Canadian Museum of Civilization … we are Vietnamese Boat People: No Longer,” she said. “Many of us became engineers, computer programmers, medical doctors, dentists, pharmacists, professors, teachers and business people.”

Vietnamese Boat People: No Longer bothers me. No matter how successful you become you're always a boat person. It is part of your identity and your bravery for escaping the ruthless communist regime.

Secondly, why it it always just engineers, computer programmers, medical doctors, dentists, pharmacists, professors, teachers and business people? I've never liked this elitist attitude. People who are these professionals often thumb their noses at the same boat people who aren't as successful, even people on the same boat. Obviously this isn't the case here as this lady has used her position to help other refugees to come to Canada. However I still don't like the quote.


There are just as many successful mechanics, restaurant owners, jewelers, electricians, welders, home designers/carpenters etc etc.

And if you are not aware of how boat people escaped Vietnam. Here's the late Ed Bradley's report on the boat people in 1979.


Youtube Link

It's a son for Isabella Leong

Source: The Standard

What do you give a man who has everything? Ask PCCW chairman Richard Li Tzar-kai.

The second son of Li Ka-shing gave Hong Kong's richest man a grandson with the help of the delightfully beautiful Isabella Leong Lok-si.

The hardest part was the name, of course, and the two tycoons kept it all in the family: Grandpa Li named the boy Li Chang-zhi while the father christened him Ethan.

Leong's manager, Michelle Lo, said the big day was on April 26 in Toronto, Canada, with Ethan Li weighing in at seven pounds.

If you aren't sure who Isabella is, she played "Lin", the young girl in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Wow this kid's got it made. Grandson of the richest man in Hong Kong and more importantly, born in CANADA! He might already be the richest man in Canada. The kid immedaitely qualifies to buy a hockey team now.

Non-anglo names barrier for job hunters

Source: Vancouver Sun

Canadians with Asian names face a daunting level of hidden discrimination when searching for a job, University of B.C. economics professor Paul Oreopoulos has found.

“In some cases, applicants are being turned down for an interview because of their name, even if they are the better hire,” he said.

Oreopoulos sent out 6,699 fake resumes to Toronto-area employers in 2008, changing up the applicant’s name, educational background and country of work experience.

Even when applicants had identical Canadian work experiences and educational backgrounds, every 100 resumes with English names resulted in roughly 16 calls from employers. For every 100 resumes with Asian names, only 11 generated calls from employers. That means a resume with an English name was 40-per-cent more likely to generate a call back.

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Sad but true. That's why most Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and to a lesser extent Japanese use English names in North America. It's just easier.

I've heard it around the office too. People dogging on other people's names cause it's too hard. The idea of finding a job is to get your foot in the door and then knock them out with your fabulous interviewing skills. But with a difficult name, sadly alot of people won't get through the first screening at some companies.

How about you? Have you ever found any obstacles with your name?

The Agenda: Ethnic Politics

A good discussion on The Agenda about ethnic politics with the current issues going on.



They addressed many issues but one they sort of missed was block voting in the nomination process. I think in the general election, whether federal of provincial, there are too many voters and block voting wouldn't really work. For example all the Chinese wouldn't be able to get a Chinese candidate of the green party to win a seat in Alberta.

But at the nomination votes for each party, the numbers are very small and a community could get a person nominated. I know of one situation a few years ago where an person won a PC nomination in Alberta with 200 votes. 200! I think most people here could gather up over 200 friends and beat this guy. Bring a PC candidate in Calgary is nearly a slam dunk.

I always get a bit uncomfortable when I read stories that so and so has become the first ______ politician and it's cause for celebration. Often people block vote for someone and get nothing out of it because they go on to bigger and better things and ingore YOU.

Related: Dhalla, nannies contradict each other in testimony

Thailand Cigarette Warnings

Source: chinaSMACK

Cigarette warning are nothing new. Here's one from Canada:



However Thailand has taken it to a new extreme. Look at these!



That's pretty scary! Think people will quit? Probably not.

If I was the government I would put this on cigarette packages:

"Smoking takes inches off your dick".

Teenager May Be Japan’s First Swine Flu Case

Source: Japan Today

The uproar over swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, has been going on for days now. As current strain of flu virus originates from Mexico, people in Asia are not as exposed to risk as our western brothers. However, due to the ease of travel from any part of the world today, there really is no guarantee that the virus will not reach the farthest corners of the world.

Japan, in particular, might have its first case of swine flu. Bloomberg reports:

Japan’s Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said a 17-year-old boy may be the country’s first swine-flu case.

The teenager, a high-school student from Yokohama, near Tokyo, visited the western Canadian province of British Columbia from April 10 to 25, according to public broadcaster NHK, which televised the news conference by Masuzoe this morning.

The youth underwent a medical checkup yesterday after coming down with a fever and cough. Preliminary tests suggested he may have swine flu, NHK reported.

The National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo is conducting additional tests to confirm the diagnosis, the report said.

.....more

If true that would be sad. Interesting that they think it may have come from BC. There have been 3 or 4 cases in BC. If true than BC may have to increase some of it's security as well. There have been two cases in my province Alberta but far away from Calgary. So far they identified the persons and kept them in hospital.

I've been sick as well but I always get sick this time of year. Think it's either allergies or weather change.

Discussion: Canadian Citizenship

Source: TVO

Here are two discussion shows from The Agenda about Canadian citizenship.

First show is about dual-citizenship and second show is about Canadian citizenship in general.

In the second show, I always find it fascinating that the White panelists support multiculturalism and non-white panelists support assimilation.







So what do you think? Is it too easy to become a Canadian citizen? Are people abusing the system? Or do you think the government should to more to encourage people to become citizens?

Air Canada Commercial

Been seeing this commercial alot during hockey games.

Air Canada commercial with mostly Asian themes in it and fingerpainting!


Youtube Link

How many Asian people can you count? :)

Silence of the Lam

Source: CBC

B.C. NDP Leader Carole James says the party's former candidate for Vancouver-False Creek showed a "lack of judgment" over pictures displayed on his Facebook page.

Ray Lam resigned on Sunday over the photographs, one of which showed him palming a woman's breast and another with his pants down and two people pulling at his underwear.

"Ray felt that they were inappropriate. Certainly it shows a lack of judgment, and he made the decision to step down," James said on Monday. "He didn't want it to distract from the campaign, so we are moving on."

James said candidates had been warned something like this could happen, saying even though the pictures were posted on a private page, "once you become a public figure, everything is public."

"I saw the pictures on TV. I thought they showed a lack of judgment. It's his age, you know, we all recognize that, but when you're in politics and you are going to be a public figure, it's important that you recognize that," she said.

I'm not surprised. The dumbest pictures appear on facebook and this guy is 22 years old and he's NDP!

Maple syrup: Think outside the pancake

Chicken in Thai red curry and maple syrup with eggplants

Source: Montreal Gazette

Maple syrup has a complexity that sugar lacks. It is imbued with a more subtle sweetness, with a hint of smoke and caramel – echoes, perhaps, of the sugar maple grove from which it dripped and the long, slow boil over a wood fire that transformed it into this most quintessential trademark of Quebec.

Used in moderation, maple marries well with a panoply of other flavours. Its sweet flavour is a great foil in salty dishes. And it rounds out the edges of spicy dishes. Maple also tames the sour twang of lemon, lime or vinegar in a recipe.

But don’t take my word for it. Take your cue from a host of Montreal chefs who are maple maniacs. Au Pied de Cochon chef Martin Picard poaches eggs in it, then adds it to a duck and maple sauce that he slathers over foie gras. Laurent Godbout’s new bistro La Fabrique does pea soup with maple cream on the side. And – who knew? – there's maple syrup all over the place in the dishes at the trendy St. Laurent Blvd. Asian restaurant Soy.

Soy’s chef-owner Suzanne Liu says one of her restaurant’s most asked-for dishes is shrimp sauté with Thai herbs and maple syrup. It features seared shrimp in a sauce of maple syrup, coconut milk, Thai fish sauce, hot sauce and garlic, served on a bed of bean sprouts.

Liu also loves using maple syrup in a glaze for duck breast. She’ll sear thick slices of duck glazed with maple syrup, then braise the duck and its juices to allow the maple flavour to better penetrate the meat.

“Maple lends a smoother flavour than other sweeteners. It isn’t harsh like sugar,” she says. “It gives the dish a smooth feel, and it doesn’t add a bad aftertaste like sugar or honey can.”

Her customers are sometimes surprised to see maple syrup on an Asian menu. What’s that taste, they ask.

Hmmmm not sure about this. For example when you have dimsum you'd dip the shrimp and dumpling into soy sauce. Could we dip it into maple syrup? I think it's too sweet!

Teen girls trading sex for favours

Source: Edmonton Sun

Somewhere in the city, children as young as 11 and 12 are gathering in basements and playing intricate, graphic sex games.

I first heard about these parties a few years ago from my 12-year-old daughter, who said kids at her school played games where each girl had to perform oral sex on several boys.

Naively, I dismissed the story as another urban myth, like Pop Rocks causing heart attacks and maggots in milk-shake machines.

Turns out, these parties are very real and frighteningly commonplace.

Edmonton is featured in a new book and documentary DVD called Oral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss by Sharlene Azam, where she explores "the growing phenomenon of middle-class girls trading sex for money, drugs and luxury goods."

If the girls wanted money, they'd call a man named Luu Chi Dang and tell him that they wanted to work.

He'd pick them up and take them to one of three homes, where a dozen or so middle-aged men were waiting.

For each man the girls had sex with, they'd be paid $60. Dang got $40.

Said one girl: "I just had to lie there. The lights would always be off, and the few times it bothered me I would think that I could go get Boston Pizza after or something. The best part was getting paid. I did it for the money. It took 15 minutes and I would have $500."

Azam described Dang as a "really nice guy, very polite and deferential." He never recruited anyone. The girls took care of that.

"Most of the girls said they wanted to make money to go shopping. When their friends saw them shopping they would tell them, 'If you want to make money contact Luu' and I would hook it up," he told her.

Azam offers advice for parents who fear their girls are being sucked in. It's all common-sense stuff, like communicating, spending time with them and building up their esteem. She also reminds adults that they have a job to do.

"Don't be afraid to assert your authority... your daughter might not thank you for keeping track of her whereabouts, but it does not matter," she says. Azam adds: "The biggest problem is that parents aren't worried enough."

Exactly, where are the parents? And how can parents not know what's going on with their daughters. My mom always knows what's going on with me no matter how much I try to hide it. When I started to see a boy in High School, my mom knew immediately even before she met him. I just acted different. When I lost my virginity in University, my mom questioned me even before she knew I had a bf, "you been having sex haven't you, I can tell by your figure". Later in University, I got into a bit of trouble with gambling and poker (from a bad boyfriend) and my mom, who knows nothing about poker, knew I was gambling cause I looked suspicious around the house and whenever someone mentioned money, I'd jump. Moms know EVERYTHING! These kids either have moms who don't care or don't have moms at all.

Chan wins silver at worlds

Source: CBC

Two small errors in his free skate likely cost Patrick Chan a gold medal Thursday night at the world figure skating championships in Los Angeles.

Toronto's Chan finished second behind American Evan Lysacek and just ahead of France's Brian Joubert, who took home the bronze.

Chan's silver marks the second year in a row Canada has medalled in the men's event. Jeffrey Buttle of Smooth Rock Falls, Ont., won gold last year.

"Jeez, I thought I was just going to walk home with a bronze, but to win a silver medal is just like icing on the cake," Chan said after watching Joubert fall twice during his free skate.

"Getting off the ice, I had a huge smile on my face because I just didn't expect to be where I am now after just my second worlds, and I'm only 18. It's a big shock. It's going to be weird going back to high school, because I have to be a regular guy again."

I watched a bit of the figure skating this weekend and I have a real beef with the scoring system. I used to understand the old system. Each of the nine judges would give a technical and artistic mark. Highest would be 6.0. Plus they would rank all of the skaters. For example if skater A went up against Skater B, Skater B might lose to Skater A by 5 judges to 4. Yes it could cause cheating but at least I understood it!

But now? Someone beats someone by 155.55 to 153.67 and we have no idea how that mark came about. No more 6.0s! Similarly, gymnastics no longer as a perfect 10! It's now 16.38 or something dumb like that. Similarly Olympic boxing has judges pushing buttons. You can hit a guy five times and get no points. Judged sports are getting dumber and dumber. Diving might be the only one that makes sense still.

Here is his long program, almost flawless!


Youtube Link

Related stories:
Chan takes another bite out of judges (Globe and Mail)
Chan pleased but puzzled about judging (Toronto Star)

Canadian researchers uncover vast Chinese cyber spy network

Source: National Post

A 10-month investigation by a team of researchers at the University of Toronto uncovered a broad Chinese espionage scheme that reached into foreign embassies, news services and even the office of the Dalai Lama.

The researchers says the system - called GhostNet - sent e-mails that introduced malware into host computers, which in turn fed information back to servers located on the Chinese mainland.

"The GhostNet system directs infected computers to download a Trojan (horse) known as ghOst RAT that allows attackers to gain complete, real-time control," the authors write in Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.

"Our investigation reveals that GhostNet is capable of taking full control of infected computers, including searching and downloading specific files, and covertly operating attached devices, including microphones and web cameras."

What began as a case study of allegations of Chinese spying, centering on Tibetan institutions, turned up a network of nearly 1,300 "infected hosts" in 103 countries, including the Dalai Lama's private office and the Tibetan Government in Exile.

How is it China can censor anything we do but we can't figure out what they're up to?

Nice research guys, now Toronto will be the second target after the Dalai Lama's office!

PhD in India, security guard here, made right move

Source: Toronto Star

A university professor from India, Vijay Bhosekar never thought he would don a security guard uniform and walk his beat in malls and condo buildings in Toronto.

But that's what the gregarious 49-year-old agricultural scientist has been doing since he arrived here in April 2005.

The pay, just above $10 an hour, is meagre but Bhosekar is taking it in stride while enrolled in courses to upgrade his skills and acquire credentials to be a certified environmental practitioner and earn a professional designation in agrology.

"My view is, relative to other survival jobs, this job can give me better exposure and networking opportunity to meet different people," said Bhosekar, who had taught at his alma mater, the University of Agricultural Sciences, Hyderabad, for years. "The job is quite interesting. The thing about Canada is, I don't feel I lose my dignity. People respect me for what I do."

Bhosekar and his wife, Vaishali, an elementary school teacher, came to Canada so their only daughter, Meghana, 19, could get the best education. She now majors in environmental science at York University.

"I felt I was well qualified for a lot of jobs with my line of work and expertise," he said. "But it was a horrifying reality when we got here."

It is unfortunate that people from other countries come to Canada and cannot qualify for the same jobs as in their homeland, mostly because of skill set and language. However this is the right attitude because the parents came to Canada for their daughter, not for themselves. Being a security guard in Canada may have a higher wages than a doctor in alot of other places. The goal is to work hard and get by so that the daughter has all the opportunities possible in Canada that she would not have in India.

Bar school over Chinatown cemetery, says B.C. group

Source: CTV

B.C. group warns school development could disturb former Chinese cemetery

The demolition and construction of a high school in a Vancouver suburb could disturb a century-old Chinese cemetery and one of the last links to a Chinatown that has long since faded away, says a local Chinese-Canadian group.

New Westminster, south of Vancouver, once had a bustling Chinatown district with about 1,600 Chinese living in the community by the late 1800s.

Those who died there were often buried in one of a collection of cemeteries adjacent to an old public cemetery -- the current site of New Westminster Secondary School.

The school was erected, largely on top of the various burial grounds, in 1948.

I wonder how the school was allowed to be built on top of the cemetery to begin with!

"It's not our intent to stop children from going to school. However, we always need to bear in mind that nobody should pit the living against the dead, either."

It's unclear how many bodies, if any, are still buried underneath the school and the surrounding parking lots and fields.

It was traditional at the time for Chinese families to exhume bodies and return them to China, and the school board believes that would have happened to nearly all of the remains.

But Chu said it's possible not all bodies were removed, and more work needs to be done to be sure.

So the Chinese would exhume bodies to return to China but they can't view skeletons in video games. I think this dispute could be easily settled over a game of WoW. :)

Toronto street vendors to offer ethnic dishes

Source: Globe and Mail

Souvlaki, salsa karahi, jerk chicken and pad thai will be on the menu this May when the city of Toronto rolls out a street-food program to showcase the multicultural dishes of Canada's biggest city.

“We will be introducing Toronto to a new way of thinking about fast food – the polar opposite of burgers and fries delivered through a fast-food window,” Toronto councillor and city board of health chairman John Filion said Tuesday at a press conference naming the first eight chefs selected for the new “A La Carte” program.”

He said the new street food, offered in addition to the familiar hot-dog stands on Toronto street corners, “will be healthy, personal, interesting and may introduce us to cultures we are not familiar with.”

Cool! Maybe they can combine stuff. Like a jerk-chicken corn dog! That would be really spicy! They've done this in LA with the Korean beef tacos!