OSHA, where art thou?!?

There is a lot of construction, or perhaps demolition is a more apt description, on the old campus of my university. This is where I live. The university sold the old campus property because it is more centrally located, got a fist full of yuan, and moved the new campus further away from central Chongqing. Apparently, this is a pretty common occurence with universities these days, but I digress. What this means is that most of our surroundings look like Dresden, Germany circa February, 1945; i.e. totally shagged. It also means that the campus is constantly filthy from all the dust that is kicked around; whatever.

The reason that I bring this up, is that it affords one a glimpse into the working conditions of the innumerable migrant workers that come to Chongqing city. OSHA would not approve. Take for example the guy I watched standing on the ledge of a 10 story building sans any kind of safety gear. That in itself isn't shocking, but the fact that he was wailing away with a sledge hammer upon the bricks he was STANDING ON made the whole scene an odd mix of one man's willingness to do whatever it takes to better his lot in life and the very real possibility of seeing natural selection in action. In a country of over 1,000,000,000 people, that has a very old social construction that determines who people care for based upon whether they are in or out of one's circle (guanxi, I'll certainly touch more on this at a later date), it is not surprising that people don't have great regard for the safety of others. However, it is surprising when you see what most of us would look at as utter disregard for one's own safety. Not just the example your man on the ledge, but I see this quite often. Getting distracted, back on topic.

Then, a couple of days ago I was coming home from a run with my bowl of fried rice in tow. I was walking up the street to the apartment, when I saw it was cordoned off for about 10 yards. They were about to bring down another on of the old apartment builings. Here again, the difference between safety standards between the US and here is really night and day. You can make a strong argument that all the regulations in place in the US deter economic growth and companies' ability to operate a business efficiently and without interference, but I'm better understanding why we have OSHA, the Department of Health and Human Services, etc., after seeing some of the stunts they pull here, where there is no one to protect the worker. Though they certainly could be streamlined and made less intrusive, those entities are there for a good reason. I digress!

The way they demolish these apartments is thus: they have the lads with the hammers knock out some support within the building, then they get a Caterpillar type machine (Chinese brand mind you, but you'd never know!) with a big old jackhammer on the end of it, and send the unlucky bastard who drew the short straw (I assume that's how it's decided) to drive the machine down and hammer away on the last support pillar until it comes down; a risky endeavor, to be sure. I got lucky with my timing the other day. I joined the crowd of people gathered not 100 yards from where this building was coming down, ate my dinner, snapped a few pics, and got to see it come down. Quite a dinner show.

So, that happened. A good time. Here are a couple of pictures and a short video. They are all on my phone, so not the best quality, but you'll get the picture (get it?).

Before the fall:

Dinner:

After the fall:

Two other things:

1. Thanks a ton to anyone who went out to pick up a bottle of 2Gingers and say hello to my dad. He mentioned he saw several of you, and was glad for it.

2. I heard a pretty funny story on the BBC the other day. I was unable to find a link to just the particular segment that had this story (the whole episode was 30mins+), but I found a related news article on The Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/17/butt-out-pakistan-telecom-text-ban