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July 5th, 2007


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Tamil Blogosphere: The Cheroot Store 

This author has no photo Mathy Kandasamy · 17:36
lingua → pt · es
sample image for this post

The Cheroot is a cylindrical cigar with both ends clipped during manufacture. Since cheroots do not taper, they are inexpensive to roll mechanically, and their low cost makes them particularly popular. The word cheroot comes from French cheroute, from Tamil curuttu/churuttu/shuruttu - roll of tobacco. This word could have been absorbed into the French language from Tamil during the early 16th century, when the French were trying to stamp their presence in South India. The word could have then been absorbed into English from French. [Source: Wikipedia]


Lighting up a cheroot in Myanmar - Photo by zrim

Veyilaan talks about a person who worked in a Cheroot manufacturing plant in South Tamil Nadu, India.

சுந்தரம்! ஏன்யா இன்னும் ஒக்காந்திட்டே இருக்குற?
வீட்டுக்குப் போவேண்டியது தான?
போணும் மொதலாளி! கெளம்புறேன்!
சுருட்டுக் கடை மொதலாளி மட்டுந்தான் ‘சுந்தரம்’னு பேரச் சொல்லிக் கூப்புடுவார். மத்தவங்களுக்கெல்லாம் அவர் ‘செட்டியார்’ தான்!

Sundaram! Why are you still here? You should be home already.

Yes boss. On my way.

Only the ‘Cheroot Store' owner would call him ‘Sundaram'. For the others, he is ‘Chettiar'.

Chettiar with bulging belly dressed in tobacco stained torn under-shirt and dirty lungi could always be seen near the ‘cheroot store' doorsteps. He would be there until the store closes. Sometimes even afterwards.

The ‘cheroot store' is not really a 'store' per se. It was a company manufacturing cheroots.

‘Danushkodi Vilas Suruttuk Kampani'(Tamil) - Danushkodi Vilas Cheroot Company.

The company could have been called ‘Cheroot store' because some smokers buy their cheroots here.

If anyone smokes a cheroot, people could smell it four doors down the lane. If a single cheroot could be smelled that far, imagine a ‘Cheroot store'.

‘The Cheroot Store' used to be the landmark for people. Even people asking directions would base their questions on ‘The Cheroot Store'. At one time 40-50 people used to work at ‘The Cheroot Store'. Now barely ten people work there.

Sundaram Chettiar used to work there too. He might have worked at ‘The Cheroot Store', but had never ever smoked a cheroot.

Chettiar would do all the work at the ‘Cheroot Store'. He would seperate the tobacco leaves packed in a bundle. Wash the tobacco leaves in a tub. Dry them under the sun. Cut the dried tobacco into small squares. Roll the tobacco squares. Stick labels. Pack them a dozen to a pack and wrap them. Chettiar would do all the work at ‘The Cheroot Store'.

Chettiar's job was quite sedentary most of the time and he started developing a tummy because of that. And as he got older, Chettiar's work got affected because of the big belly.

The Cheroot Store owner called him up one day and said that he was not quite active and told him to stay at home. But, Chettiar could be still be seen sitting on the steps of ‘The Cheroot Store'!

One day I asked Chettiar, “Why are you sitting here always, Chettiar”? He replied, “I've been working here for years and am not able to break my habit'.

I kept on asking Chettiar whenever I saw him. Chettiar hesitantly opened up, after my persistent questioning.

Chettiar said, “I'm so used to this damn Tobacco. I'm not able to stay at home without breathing in its aroma. I did try as much as I could to stay at home. But, am not able to do anything. I don't know how to talk about it. That's why I'm sitting here every day breathing in the aroma”.

“What do you do at night”?

“Even at night, before going to bed, I would open up a cheroot by my bedside. Only then, I'm able to get a good night's sleep”.

“Did you do this when you worked at ‘The Cheroot Store”?

“No no. Then, even after coming home my body would smell of tobacco. Even my clothes”.

Only then, I knew why Chettiar had been there at the Cheroot Store's doorsteps all day long.

I visited my town a few days ago. And came to know that Chettiar had succumbed to the disease that comes to smokers.

cheroot_making_burma.jpg
Making cheroots in Burma - photo by akimowitsch

DON’T MAKE IT!

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Egypt:Jailed Bogger Sends Letter, Another intimidated, Baha'is Continue Struggling and More This is a Video post

a small portrait of this author Freedom For Egyptians · 14:03

In this week's round-up from Egypt, jailed blogger Karim Amer sends a letter from prison, Wael Abbas gets intimidated by security forces over the phone, a new Baha'i rights website is launched, and a belly dancing festival concludes in Cairo and more.

Imprisoned Blogger Karim Amer Sends a Letter from Prison:
Karim Amer was sentenced to four years in prison for his writings on his blog. He is the first ever Egyptian blogger to be jailed. Wa7damasrya received a letter from Karim. He wrote from prison in a letter that he is worried that he could be a reason that bloggers won’t be as encouraged as before to blog. He says that he has a special position because he was writing with his real name and he did not blog anonymously which made it easy to condemn him. He says that his only reason why he did not want to be anonymous is that people with backward and retro ideas are not shameful to hide them. They try in every means to impose their extremist ideas and sometimes through violence and terror. He says also that he would not have been in prison if he did not admit that he wrote what he wrote. He believes that the fact that he was a student from Al-Azhar (a religious Sunni institution) was the main reason for his imprisonment. Al-Azhar was the reason of accusing him of insulting Islam in which he is spending three years in prison and one year for defaming the President of Egypt, which are highly controversial issues. At the end he concludes by saying that he does not want other bloggers to be afraid or think that they could face his destiny. It is worthmentioning that Karim Amer has progressive ideas regarding women's rights.

Free Kareem is encouraging readers to send him letters in prison to let him interact with his supporters. Free Kareem has been adopting a worldwide campaign to free Kareem.

Phone Threats Against Bloggers Continue:
Arabawy reports a new intimidation to blogger Wael Abbass. He says that Abbass succeeded in recording the phone call that was meant to threaten him. Several bloggers have been following what happened to Wael. Ahmed Sherif is one of them and he provided an English transcription.

Wael Abbass is an activist blogger who does not spare an effort to expose irregularities. Among his famous campaigns are the anti-torture ones that bring to the surface how some police officers torture innocent helpless citizens.

New Site for Baha’i Rights:
Baha’i Faith in Egypt blog reports the creation of a new site called “The Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights. The authors of this site are “Muslim interfaith activists who are deeply concerned with the treatment of Baha’is within the Middle East.” Baha’is in Egypt are still struggling to issue official papers acknowledging their faith and identity. They face numerous problems related to the fact that their ID papers are incomplete or not issued.

Egyptian leading intellectual Taha Hussein curtailed from Education System:
Taha Hussein is the first visually impaired minister of education in Egypt. He is one of the leading intellectuals who brought an enlightenment era to Egypt through his books, his battles to give access to all Egyptian citizens to the education system at a time when some Egyptian where only privileged to complete their education for their social status. He believed in the empowerment of women. Blogger Ashraf Nasr in his recent blog post is exposing a “scandal”. He reports that some of those who are deciding on high schools curriculum are omitting some parts of Taha Hussein biography book, “The Days”. His biography is a masterpiece. Hussein was not only a a highly-educated intellectual but an amazing writer with an extraordinary life story. The blogger is so surprised that those officials are saying that Hussein’s book will spoil the manners of students. The blogger is thinking that dropping the book will be much better than deforming its rich text.

Belly Dancing Festival Concludes in Cairo:
7rnksh attended the annual Egyptian festival for belly dancing in Cairo. The blog reports that more than 1200 dancers come from all over the world. The festival is accompanied by an exhibition for all sorts for dancing suits and accessories. The blog applauds the seriousness of all participant dancers when compared to current commercial singing in the Middle East. 7rnksh had the chance to talk to one of the visiting dancers. She happened to have a PhD degree in belly dancing and owns a dancing school in California. Something he thought is very impressive!

I will leave here with this entertainment news until I see you next week!

1 comment · »»

An Insider's View of the Japanese Meat Industry 

a small portrait of this author Chris Salzberg · 11:43
lingua → es · bn
sample image for this post

Living in a country chronically lacking in food security, one that imports 60% of calories consumed within its borders and heavily subsidizes the domestically-produced remainder, it is nothing new for Japanese to be concerned about where their food is coming from. With 17% of their imported food coming from China, a country recently embroiled in a series of high-profile scandals involving exports tainted with various toxins, it is also not surprising that many Japanese tend to direct their fears at imports from their populous and rapidly-expanding East Asian neighbour [Ja].

The contrast between this anxiety about imported foods and the regard typically accorded to food produced in Hokkaido, Japan's resource-rich northernmost prefecture known for its assortment of culinary delights, could not be greater. There's a rumour that simply labeling a product with the word “Hokkaido” alone can double sales. Given this situation, the widespread shock expressed at the recent scandal over ground beef is understandable.

When it was revealed just about two weeks ago that the charmingly-named Meat Hope Company was selling pork disguised as beef, apparently because stocks of beef had run out, and was also suspected of disguising Brazilian chicken meat as domestic and shipping it for use in school lunch meals, public trust in their food was undermined again. In total, it was reported that, since last July, the company has sold 368 tons of falsely labeled meat products to 18 companies, with earlier cases dating as far back as 1983.

Hokkaido
Hokkaido, the bread basket of Japan - photo by Taro416

While there were various reactions to the news about Meat Hope [Ja] from bloggers in Japan, one stood out as particularly insightful. Blogger Here There and Everywhere, a worker at a meat processing plant in Japan, wrote last week about their first-hand experience in the industry:

私は食品会社に勤めているものです。連日のミートホープ社の偽装工作報道の件に関して私の会社での現実をお伝えしたく書き込みをさせて頂きます。連日の報道では「食の安全」と謳っていますが、食品会社の現状の体質からして真の「食の安全」は到底望めない事と感じております。恐らく会社サイドはこの騒動のほとぼりが冷めるのをただ待っているように思えてなりません。偽装は全国の食品会社では起こっている事だと思っております。決して全ての食品会社がそうとは限りませんが。

I work in a food company. I write this entry to transmit to you the reality of [what is happening in] my company, in response to the nonstop coverage of the Meat Hope Co. falsification and deception incident. In this daily coverage [of the Meat Hope incident], [the media has been] making statements about “food safety”, and yet I have the feeling that, speaking in terms of the actual condition of food companies, true “food safety” is not something that we can ever even possibly hope for. It's hard not to feel that this company is simply waiting for the commotion [about this scandal] to simmer down. I think this kind of food mislabeling and falsification is happening at food companies across the country. Of course, not every food company is like this, but…

私の勤めている会社では主に精肉を取り扱っています。会社内の工場には金属探知機が置いてあるのですが、これは本来精肉の中に包丁の刃の金属の粉が混入しているか否かを感知する為に設置してありますが、通常は金属探知機は一切使用しません。使用する時といえば取引先や得意先等といった外部からの査察や工場見学の際に探知機を使用している事を建前上見せる時にしか使用していないのが現状です。もし人体に影響を及ぼすことになれば取り返しのつかないことになります。

At the company I work for, we mainly handle processed meat. A metal detector has been put in place at the company's factory to detect whether any metal fragments from the knife blade have gotten mixed in during processing; this metal detector, however, is never used on a day-to-day basis. The reality is that the metal detector is only used to present a public facade for appearance's sake, for example when trading partners or clients visit for an inspection or company tour. If there was some kind of impact [from meat contamination] on the human body, there would be no way to undo it.

通常、精肉はしんたま、肩ロース等といった牛の各部分の原体からスライスしたものを商品としているのですが、その原体はミートセンターから食品会社へ送られる際に個体識別番号や賞味期限等が記されたラベルが貼られているのですが、これは本来商品の安全の為、出荷の際に正しい個体識別番号や賞味期限を表示したラベルを食品会社で発行してから出荷するのですが、実際は異なる個体識別番号や賞味期限を改ざんして出荷しているのが場合があります。時には原体を保存している冷凍庫から賞味期限が1年以上前に切れているものを精肉にして出荷している事も過去にあります。あと商品そのものの改ざんやあと原産地域の改ざんもあります。

Normally, meat from each part of the cow — sirloin, chuck, and so on — is sliced into products to be sold. At the time when the meat is sent from the meat centre to the food company, labels are attached indicating individual identification numbers, “best before” dates, etc. And this is the essential step in assuring the safety of the product: the issue of whether, when meat is shipped, the label which the food company produces, indicating the product's identification number, “best before” date, etc., correctly [matches the label attached at the meat centre]. The truth, however, is that there are cases in which meat with falsified identification numbers and/or best before dates is shipped. There have been instances in the past where meat which has overrun its expiry date by a year or more has been taken from the fridge and shipped. There are also cases of alteration of the product itself, as well as alteration of the [label indicating] where the product was produced.

この事から私が思うには「知らぬは消費者ばかりなり」です。この事に関して私は社内ではまだ低い地位なので、意見を出せる身分ではありません。ですから私はこの事実を一人でも多くの方に知って貰い、消費者の皆様が安心して食品が食べられるような状況になればと思い、この投稿を決意いたしました。最後に個体識別番号検索のリンクを貼って締め括りたいと思います。

Considering these incidents, I have to think: “The only people who don't know about this are the customers.” I have a fairly low position within my company, so I don't have the standing to voice my opinion on this issue. For this reason, I would like to let as many people as possible know about these facts, and hope that the situation will be improved so that all of you, who are consumers, can consume thses food products without any worry, and that's why decided to post this. Lastly, I conclude this post by attaching a link to a look-up of individual identification numbers.

The post concludes with a link to a look-up function to track individual identification numbers [Ja].

2 comments · »»

Kazakhstan: Bloggers discuss politics 

a small portrait of this author Adil Nurmakov · 11:23

Not a week may pass in the Kazakhstani blogosphere without the president getting a mention. It’s quite natural, taking into account the power he enjoys – sarimov posts (RUS) a very indicative joke on this topic:

- Investments in fixed capital decreased by 0.6%!
- It’s again Nazarbayev behind this.
- Why?!
- If not he, then who? Me?

Mursya (RUS) is amazed how fast things can become when the matter is about the president’s will. Another city in Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk, was renamed just two days following the president’s suggestion. The new name, Semei, means nothing both in Russian and in Kazakh, being rooted in slang.

The alleged reason for renaming is to cut away negative associations with the Semipalatinsk nuclear test ground, which had been heavily used in Soviet times. “It’s interesting, what would be the use of that for the towns' inhabitants, who have problems with receiving their social benefits as victims of the test ground”, mursya says.

“The Aliev affair” (in which the President's former son-in-law is being held in Austria for charges brought against him in Kazakhstan) is still discussed by bloggers, even though the news from Vienna are very few. Tuganbaev, a Kazakh born and living in Moscow, believes that Nazarbayev had to sacrifice his son-in-law for the sake of gaining legitimacy (RUS).

Weathercock, a Kazakhstani living in Australia, says the Aliev story foreshadows inevitable future problems that will come up in the post-Nazarbayev epoch (RUS). Megakhuimyak, pondering over the ban on use of right-hand steering wheel cars, opines that information flows within the power structures are biased, and the president doesn’t receive objective data (RUS):

“The Security Council doesn't check or deliberately distorts information that it is discussing. The Presidential Administration also does not check the information that is being voiced by the president. The President's control over the force structures has weakened - in earlier times they would not have dared to misinform him”.

Meanwhile, members of the youth movement Nur Otar are posing like mock monarchists, and in continuing their public actions “in support of the president-for-life amendments” are wearing sheep’s masks. Ivanalmazoff posted a brief report on the movement’s last flash-mobs, featuring also a couple of videos (RUS).

Adam Kesher hosts a discussion on the low level of patriotism in Kazakhstan in his livejournal, where most of the Kazakh bloggers concluded that the main reason of that are lacunas in information policy, ideology and education, as well as in fragmentation of the society, and a lack of civicism (RUS).

Irene posts review of migration trends on cj.kz: “Although Kazakhstan is the 9th most attractive country for migrants in the world, most of the migrants work here illegally, have low salaries and bear high risks due to poor working conditions”.

These two weeks on neweurasia-Kazakhstan were most notable for Irene’s shocking story of how impudently the Kazakh officials sometimes behave – it’s about bandit-type not paying the bill in a restaurant (RUS):

We can speak a lot about democracy in Kazakhstan, the government can spend lots of taxpayers' money for PR-campaigns and receptions for foreigners. But until we don't get rid of such cases of impudence, we will be perceived as a “third world” country, and the inflow of investments will be very low.

Georgex criticizes the poor implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in Kazakhstan: two years of participation in the initiative, but so far no results (RUS):

It looks as though Kazakhstan's joining to EITI was a sort of PR-action, a government's concession to the West. Now EITI commitments in Kazakshtan are totally overlooked both by the authorities and the oil companies.

Elena keeps on updating about the situation around Mittal Steel Temirtau – workers reached out to the British trade unions telling them about their poor working conditions (RUS). Adam informs about a new Kazakh billionaire (as usual, it’s an “inner circle” man, this time the president’s confidant Bulat Utemuratov), problems with car parking in Almaty and the destiny of casinos in this city, which was declared as “the most Russian among non-Russian cities” by a BBC blog.

1 comment · »»

Rwanda: Foreign aid workers who live like kings 

a small portrait of this author Jennifer Brea · 00:46
lingua → fr

Foreign aid workers in Africa and elsewhere are often criticized for living far removed from the populations they are supposed to serve. How can people who spend their time zipping around in air-conditioned SUVs, tinted windows rolled to the top to shut out the noise and the dust and the people hope to be effective, the argument goes. Les aventures du Civiliste Guillaume writes about the legion of aid and relief agencies station in Rwanda, finding reasons both to criticize and defend those who have come to help. (more…)

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