Cloudbusting

by RAF KATIGBAK

When people talk shit about Asians I get kind of defensive. “Hey,” I say, “you shouldn’t joke about how bad Chinese drivers are...even if you CAN just blind them with dental floss.” See how I did that? I made a joke about Asians and got away with it.

That’s because I’m Asian. I can play that card. I can say that the Chinese name their kids by throwing pots and pans down the stairs (Ping! Wong! Ching!) and can tell people we have a Filipino name for their lovable little shitzu that they’re walking (back home we call it “a snack”). I feel bad for white people because all they can do is joke about rednecks, which has been played out ever since people realized Jeff Foxworthy was lame.

When I was a kid, I got tired of being made fun of for not knowing kung fu and for my quiet adoration of the Wok With Yan guy (the only Asian role model on TV back then), so I learned to roll with it. I used to go along with it and joke around. A few times I even played a joke and made pee-pee in their Coke. Nowadays, I just get pissed.

Recently I saw a CNN report about how Americans want to boycott Chinese food products because of what eventually turned out to be a false report on cardboard in Chinese dumplings. The report focused on how hard it was to tell which foods contain ingredients from China.

“Give me a break,” I scoffed at the screen, “as if the quality of food produced in the USA is that much better. I mean, have you seen Cheez Whiz? That shit is made of plastic and looks like alien menstruation. Those xenophobic ignorant jerkfaces. You guys are just jealous because China is the next big thing and you can’t deal with it.” Or so I thought...

Here’s what I just realized: China is totally fucked. This is not just because of the recent recall of over 18 million Chinese-made toys with small magnets or lead paint that could be dangerous to children (following the August 1st recall of nearly one million toys, including their not surprisingly unpopular “Poison Me Elmo”).

Nor is it the shipments of China-made SpringFresh toothpaste, containing an antifreeze ingredient, which made its way to 39 Georgia prisons and other state facilities in the U.S. Or the fact that it seems their industrial growth has them on the road to surpassing the U.S. as the top greenhouse emitter within, perhaps, the next year (have you seen Manufactured Landscapes? Frightening). This isn’t about corruption in government, or repressive acts like making sure that Google China has no links to Free Tibet, Falun Gong or resistance.

Yes, these all suck, but what country doesn’t have its share of problems? Switzerland? Well, did you now they have a serious cult problem there? Not to mention that it’s really, really boring and their cheese has all kinds of weird holes in it. Yes, it’s tragic when that bridge collapsed in Hunan province on Tuesday, killing 29 people. But hey, to us, a collapsing road is just another day on the Quebec highway—we’re used to it. No, China is fucked for its own special reason: they’re trying to control the weather.

That’s right. I just found out that the Chinese government has one of the world’s largest weather-modification programs, spending about $100 million on the projects and training about 1,500 scientists to administer them. Most of the effort involves increasing rainfall for agriculture. It’s called cloud seeding, and it works by using anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers to shoot pellets containing silver iodide into clouds. Silver iodide is supposed to concentrate moisture and cause rain. So, for the 2008 Olympics, the government plans to use this to head the storms off at the pass, ensuring clear skies and clean air for the spectators and athletes.

Is it me or does this sound like some kind of diabolical James-Bond-villain plot? I think there was even a GI Joe episode based around this concept. Don’t they know how badly that ended for Cobra? While I can appreciate the desire to increase agriculture and help out the farmers, the idea of shooting the sky with chemicals so that it doesn’t rain just seems batshit insane. There used to be a saying about how everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Well, China is, and that scares the wontons out of me.

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca