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| Where did the past week go? |
| 06.24.04 (11:45 pm) [edit] |
Aiya wo de maya! Where did the week go? I haven't
done anything useful, except get my clothes washed.
Which isn't a lot in any standards... Oh, I have studied
some chinese, explored the city, drank Vodka with
Russian girls, gone to tattoo shop (NO, I did not get a
tattoo!) discussed F-1 with chinese taxi driver...
Yeah, that's one wonderful tale to tell! I went to this
American fast food restaurant (Macd... no I'm not going
to say which one), because I missed the western-style
food. I bought my hambauba, went out, crossed street,
took a taxi(no busses to our school after 19.30)..
And guess what?
I had the same taxi driver who had taken me to bar last
week! "Ni shi na ge Fen Lan ren?" "Dui!" We talked
about formula cars (He knew that Mika Hakkinen is Finn)
and environmental protection. It's very hard subject,
because my knowledge of words is limited. Basicly it
went like this: I study environmental protection in Finland
shit, I have to go. I finish this later!
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| Bees and honeys |
| 06.21.04 (7:25 am) [edit] |
Children today I have a tale to tell. It is very important
so listen carefully. During the story I will tell some
difficult words, but don't be afraid, there's not too many
of them. This story takes place in China, but it affects
the whole world.
Everybody knows honey bees. They are the little buggers
that collect honey and then we humans along with bears
and some other animals eat it. Now in China before the
20th century there were 2 species of honey bees. Other
was the Giant honey bee ([i]Apis dorsata[/i]) and the another was the Eastern hive bee, or [i]Apis cerana[/i].
After the turning of the century scientists found out that
these species actually consisted of several similar-
looking bee species, so [i]Apis dorsata[/i] was divided
into [i]Apis dorsata[/i]and [i]Apis laboriosa[/i]. The
Eastern Hive bee species was divided into [i]Apis cerana
[/i], [i]Apis nigrocincta[/i], [i]Apis koschevnikovi [/i]and
[i]Apis nuluensis[/i]. The last three species don't live in
China, so I don't speak about them later. I just thought
you might want to know about them.
The Chinese bees are very -well- Chinese:) They have
lived in China for tens of thousands of years and are
well adapted to the tropical conditions. Actually, they can't live outside China, India, Filippenes, Japan,
Thailand and Maleysia (and a few other countries). The
Chinese bees have their rituals, their own
diseases, their own predators - and their own parasites.
They lived alone, until recently. "Recently" in here means
about 40 years, I don't know the exact date. Oh, did you
children know that bees have been around for about 30
million years? It's a long and although a single bee
doesn't live very long, only a 25-40 days, 40 years for a
species is not long. Anyway 40 years ago a group of men
decided to bring some European honey bee([i]Apis
mellifera[/i]) colonies to China.
I have to tell you that these men were not bad men, but
they definitely were pretty ignorant men. They didn't
think very throroughly what they were doing - they were
motivated by money and the welfare of chinese people.
They wanted to bring in the European honey bees
because those bees produced more honey and were
better domesticated.
The European honey bees hadn't migrated to China for
one reason - the climate of China was so very much
different from the one in Europe! The bees just couldn't
survive in the tropical environment. However, when the
greedy beekeepers brought the bees, they had special
beehives built, ones that could keep the European bees
alive. They also crossbreeded the bees with Chinese
bees to produce a trait that could survive in China.
Eventually they succeeded, and the European honey
bees adapted to the environment of China. The seeds of
a disaster were sown.
Can you guess why? It happened in Brazil before - 1957
when the African killer bee was created.
The European honey bees went feral, and started to
destroy Chinese bees' hives. They eventually displaced the Chinese bees in many regions, because the Chinese
species lacked the vitality of the new introduced specie.
This in itself was a bad thing. The balance of the nature
had been distrupted and even though the European bees
were indeed bringing in income, the outcome didn't look
good for the Chinese bees. Still, there was more to come.
Remember how I mentioned those parasites before? Well
it just happens that the Chinese bees had parasites that
didn't exist in Europe. The [i]Apis cerana[/i] species is the
original host of a family of mites called [i]Varroa[/i]. This
family has three species, Varroa destructor, Varroa
jacobsoni and "lesser [i]Varroa[/i]".
[i]Apis dorsata[/i], in the other hand, is the original host of
[i]Tropilaeleps clarae[/i] mite. The Chinese bees had
existed with these parasites for long time and of course
they had ways of making this threat lesser. [i]Apis cerana[/i]
for example performed so-called cleaning dance very
often - far more often than their European counterparts.
This dance is, as the name implies, meant to clean dirt
and parasites alike from the body of the bee. Thus the
amount of mites was kept in check and they couldn't
seriously affect the hive.
The European honey bees were severely affected by the
mites which switched hosts when European bees mixed
with Chinese bees. The mites started demolishing the
colonies of European bees and soon had clear impact on
the business. My children, it didn't end here.
At some point the mite-infested European honey bees
migrated or were accidently transported outside China.
Now every continent is infested with the Varroa species,
and only the North American continent is free of the
[i]Tropilaeleps clarae[/i] mite. All species of bees are
more or less severely affected by the mite species -
which have even become resistant to some pesticides.
Guess what? Only the Chinese bees are really tolerant
of the mites - some scientists think that only real way
of getting rid of the mites is to introduce Chinese bees
to severely affected areas.
There is a lesson to be learned in here, children.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed this tale (not fiction though,
every word is more or less true, with added flavour)
which was inspired by my visit to Shenyang Botanical
Garden, where I spotted both the Giant honey bee and
European honey bee, along with other interesting things.
Hop to [url=http://www.xpphotoalbum.com/s...]my picture gallery[/url] and take a look!
Links and references:
[url=http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/pub/... ]Interesting discussion about mites[/url]
[url=http://photo.bees.net/gallery...]Pictures of bees[/url]
[url=http://cyberbee.msu.edu/biolo...]Basic info about bees[/url]
And of course the "[i]Green world tour[/i]"
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| Pictures -- at last? |
| 06.14.04 (8:13 pm) [edit] |
I have stable internet access in the hotel!! There is a
good internet room now, with fast computers and usb
and everrrrything! I will blast your mind with all the pics
I have taken here:)
[url=http://www.xpphotoalbum.com/s...]This is a link to my new photoalbum! Go there and check out the pictures![/url]
When you go to the album page, there is also a couple
of sub-albums of different kinds of pictures, like
flora&fauna, environmental problems et cetera.
It might be that I can't post pictures here until the damn
photobucket.com us up again, but the new album is very
good!
So check out the butterflies, swans, goats, sheeps and
worms I have captured on 'film' in the flora&fauna section!
-Miikka
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| When hot means HOT! |
| 06.14.04 (12:44 am) [edit] |
Yes, today, yesterday, the day before, last week,
tomorrow, the day after tomorrow... this place is like
hell!! Every day from 4 o'clock in the morning to 8
o'clock in the evening the temperature is around 30-35
degrees Celsius. Only the sporadic (but strong) wind
keeps this city inhabitable - without the wind it would be
around 40 degrees (I presume).
Now think about Finland. IF it gets hot, we have our lakes
we can dip into... lots of lakes! Here, meiyou lakes..
witch means that there are NO lakes! Only a couple of
swimming halls I would not step into.
Yesterday me and Elovna walked around the city, doing
some windowshopping. (Or I did, because it is extremely
hard for me to find anything here. The men's style here
is not to my liking, as it is mostly jeans. Nothing to wear for those who like raverstyled clothing.)
She found a couple of things, however. There are so
many places to explore for clothes that you are bound to
find something.
I want to tell you something about the diffent subcultures
here. This city is so different from anything in Finland or
Europe that I feel I have to express my thoughts.
In Finland (Heck, in all western countries!) one can find
strong subcultures. We have punks, goths, rockers,
ravers, metallists(can I say so?), rappers, hippies and all
kinds of flowerpower fellas:) (don't feel bad if you got
left out). What I mean by strong is that despite Finlands
small population you can see plenty of described people
in the streets. They are a real part, a contributing part, of
Finland.
This city, inhabited by 7 million different persons, has no
such variety of subcultures. I have tried to roam the city
and question people, I have befriended wild and weird
persons, but no signs of the kind of people I would find
anywhere in the Europe. I spend a lot of time with one
Dada, he is a chinese heavy metallist who owns two
shops dedicated to all things metal. He says that chinese
people don't understand (or don't value) subcultures to this extend, at least not in Shenyang. He says that those
people who try to be different than the rest of the society
are shunned out (maybe a little bit too strong word) and
treated badly in terms of law and justice. For example
getting a visa would be very difficult to Dada, as he has
about 15 piercing in his face:)
I have seen here in Shenyang 2 girls I would describe as
hippies, a couple of metallists (mainly because I stay in
Dadas shop), one punk girl and one punk boy and that's it.
Why am I interested in this?
Because I want to find a place to buy clothes! This city
has fewer places to buy good clothes than Lahti in Finland
and thats pretty sucky, right? I have even sunk so low
that I bought jeans, because my only pants were starting
to wear down. I would like to buy some clothes to wear
in raves back in Finland, but I tell you folks, don't come
Shenyang to buy clothes! Come here to do some serious
studying.
Oh, one more thing to tell about. Do you have any notion
how big this city is? I don't. I can say that I have to this
day seen only one edge of it, and I have walked about 10 kilometers from that edge to the center of the city.
( you have to understand that that 10 kilometers is the
the center of the city,maybe more:)
Tampere is going to be so small after this city...
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| What is happening in China? |
| 06.02.04 (3:26 am) [edit] |
Last week I made an interview with a chinese boy. I
asked several questions from him, namely about
environmental problems here in Shenyang, about
his knowledge of nature and such stuff. We spoke
animatedly for about 2 and half hours - the subjects
ranging from history to politics.
I did the interview for two reasons. I want to understand
the motivating force of the young people I meet here. I
want to glimpse behind the masks and see what kind of
people this strange society is growing - I feel that these
youngsters are a byproduct of melting pot that tries to
mix(dunno if it is a good word) several different
cultures into one.
I constantly come across situations where I see the old China, the country that is far from democratic or free. In the other hand, I encounter things that are not possible in Finland, which is by far very free. Is this freedom in China just an illusion, is it freedom because there are no laws yet governing some things?
The second reason is that I want to get credit units from
my school:)
The boy told me that environmental knowledge in large
is very scarce among the young people. He admitted that
he knows nothing about nature, only the things he reads
about and sees in television. He told me that nature is
not easily accessible here... and also that the
government has a file about every student, with pictures
included. Behave wrongly and you get a mark in your
file.
Life here has been very interesting. Parties and studying,
I speak chinese every day a lot and try to write english
into my notebook, because I feel my skill in english
is diminishing as my ability to speak chinese grows. I
have met a nice russian girl Elovna and we spend a lot
of time together. She speaks very good chinese, and it is
our primary way of communicating. We spent the
monday night cycling around the city and talking, I
borrowed a bike from my friend Hasan and she had her
own bike (flat tires, and it kept terrible squeaking noise).
I like the city in the night, not so many people and the air
is fresher. It is 7km from my school to the city, and as I
tried to find my way around I had to ask for direction 2
times! And I could, I know just enough chinese to ask
for help, directions and I learned how to say "please speak more slowly" in the weekend:)
Next week will be 'Fenlan cai xing qi' because I will be making finnish food in our small community here!
Thanks for your comments, I feel that you are here with
me when I read your messages to me! It gives warm
and fuzzy feeling inside, you know:) I hope my stories
interest you.
-M-
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