News from China

Recent news from Shanghai Daily:

Can you believe that? Less than 40 euros! And she was gone five years, if I correctly understand? One year before the husband informed police, and police investigated four years. That is just unbelievable. But true. They say.

Isn't it great I am here to keep you informed and up-to-date on all the important stuff? I am sure you can appreciate that ;o) What do you think they would have gotten in Finland? Maybe two years in a low security prison, released after one because this is first sentence... Wife would have gotten 1 month parole. Finnish legal system is pretty useless. It doesn't keep the criminals in (in order to keep the other people safe and to prevent new crimes), it sure as heck doesn't prevent most crimes and it doesn't appear to correspond with the general sense of justice of most people I have spoken to (which of course is not a statistical sample of any sort. Actually, I would think someone has researched that..?). Sigh. I fell so much better already.

Today, I was told, is the first day of spring. That makes me happy :o)

We were wondering with a friend of mine about the weather: later than this time last year, it was snowing and pretty darn cold in Shanghai. And now, already last week one day we had a temperature of + 18 degrees (celcius). Ain't that something. Most days the temperature is now around 10-12 degrees, but you can hear birds singing, and my friend insisted she had seen some leaf buds (silmuja puissa). It took us a day to realize (we both figured it out, separately), that the Chinese calendar makes all the sense, much more so than the western one: spring festival last year was in mid February, now it started 25th(?) of January. So the spring should be here earlier, and it is. Western calendar only tells us it is February, but it doesn't tell whether it is wintern or spring. Chinese calendar, lunar calendar that is, is so much better!

I read from City Weekend that in Suzhou, which is a close by city, the famous plum tree blooming time is beginning soon. I think I have to pay a visit there when Susku comes from Finland to visit us in few weeks...