1. Home
  2. China

Chinese Company Offers “Help the Elderly” Insurance to Combat Scams

So a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan walk down a road…heard this one before? Luke 10:29-37? Fine, so it’s not a joke. No, the now-famous parable for the Bible lesson of “love they neighbor” tells of three men walking separately down the Jerusalem-to-Jericho road, each coming across a man injured, bloodied, and lying on the road after being robbed by bandits. The first two men cross the road so to avoid the poor soul and pass by, while the third, the now-named Good Samaritan, stops and gives his assistance. If there is one lesson to be learned from this, it is that the first two men must not have had “Help the Elderly” insurance. Available for sale since October 16 on Alipay, Chinese altruists can now be protected against scam artists seeking to take advantage of naïve do-gooders with an insurance plan from Sinosafe Insurance (Side note: does everything China-related have to use the prefix “Sino?”) at the low annual cost of 3 yuan ($0.47). What, you say, insurance against scams that target helping hands? Unfortunately, such is the case. China has been plagued in recent years by a scourge of elderly scam artists that prey upon the few remaining non-cynics in China by “falling” then accusing any would-be helper of knocking them down. The bemused Good Samaritan is […]

Uncategorized Nov 2, 2015

Zombie Meat yet another Reason to Go Vege in China

  I have lived in China for around five years now, and much of that was spent in blissful ignorance. By that I mean that one of my favorite things to do in Beijing on a fine summertime evening was to sit around a weather-beaten plastic table that belonged on a patio back when patios were invented and eat chuanr, otherwise known as skewered meat liberally seasoned with cumin and chili. To sit in the nighttime humidity and chow on lamb shish kebabs while complaining about the air pollution and drinking lukewarm Yanjing beer seemed like a truly Beijinger thing to do. But oh how that ignorance has me looking back in wonder that I did not contract rabies or some other equally delicious disease carried by members of the Canidae (dogs, foxes), Mustilidae (badgers, minks) or Muroidea (rats) families. And if not for the dubious “lamb” that I ate, then what of its age? Was it in fact older than I, originating from a cache of “zombie meat” aged 30 years for flavor? Piquant yet nostalgic. I bring this up now as there has never been a better time in China to be a vegetarian. My in-laws are rabid vegetarians for a myriad of reasons, and being the son of a New Zealand sheep and beef farmer I have […]

Uncategorized Jul 14, 2015