I wonder if they daycare staff knew that the paint was poisonous and didn't care because it was cheaper than food coloring or they were just really dumb and uneducated. Anyway, it sucks for the kids and their parents. I doubt a daycare has the kind of compensation money the commenters are dreaming about.
There's a lot of conspiracy theories floating around that the lead-poisoning wasn't caused by the paint at all, because the paint manufacturer came out to say that their paint isn't lead-based at all, and the daycare is really close to a lead-zinc factory.
But I don't really believe in the conspiracy theory at all, because if the factory is leaking runoff into the ground water or something, it would impact way more than a single daycare. And you know, if one daycare in my city had a huge scandal where every kid got massive lead poisoning, even if I live on the other side of town, I would take my kid to be tested just to be sure. If other families are getting affected, we would hear about it, I'm sure.
I find it much more believable that the paint manufacturer is lying.
What I don't understand is who the fuck buys paint to make coloured bread rolls instead of food colouring??? Like, food colouring isn't expensive. At all. Even in China. Sure, industrial bulk paint might theoretically be cheaper? But by what, like, 10 bucks? Saving 10 bucks a month on bread rolls surely cannot possibly be worth the liability risk. Even if it wasn't lead-based, it's not like paint is safe to eat? Like, there's no way you can get away with it without any parents noticing.
I'm very much interested in this "special supplies" system. Reminds me of "special privileges" system in Soviet Union, which was one of the highly contentions things just before its collapse.
Is this "special supplies" thing widespread? How high should civil servant's rank be to be eligible?
It's not just widespread, it's official government policy. It's not even something they're trying to hide. I think it's explicitly inherited from the Soviet Union? Because it was Soviet experts who helped set up the first special farm, Xiangshan Farm, which at the time supplied the heads of the Communist Party. I think the initial justification they used was, "It's for national security, to ensure there wouldn't be any food tampering." Or something.
There's different kinds of "special supplies" depending on what your position is. If you're Xi Jinping or literally someone in his cabinet (or their families), for example, you eat from Xiangshan Farm. Fresh, organic, painstakingly hand-grown and hand-picked farm-to-table produce. All the out-of-season fruits and veggies you could want even in the middle of the famines. And even a special team of people working around the clock to engineer tastier strains of various produce just for you.
That's usually what the government means when they say "special supplies". But when normal people talk about "special supplies", they can mean a lot of other things. like if you're lower down on the totem pole, in the state governor level, existing food brands might set aside especially high-quality products just for supplying your office, or have a dedicated line where they put a lot more effort into QA. That's not law, necessarily speaking. It's just what naturally results when the government has so much power and basically can decide whether or not a business lives or dies, and most businesses already bribe government officials with product. It's a lot easier to defend product as "not a bribe" because the governor's office did pay to get a big order of instant coffee. If that particular batch of instant coffee was significantly higher quality than what you usually make, who's really gonna be able to tell?
In fact, I think Moutai first got its fame as a special supplies liquor before they opened it up to let normal people buy it too. But even so, people say that they reserve the "best Moutai" for government officials only.
If you're even lower down and you're just some DMV worker in a small town, you still get official cafeterias where they'll import western brands of produce but only charge you like 1-2RMB per meal. And this is just a part of the benefits of working for the government. Why else would you accept being paid 1700RMB a month to teach 64 kids to a class, 17 classes to a grade?
I wonder if they daycare staff knew that the paint was poisonous and didn't care because it was cheaper than food coloring or they were just really dumb and uneducated. Anyway, it sucks for the kids and their parents. I doubt a daycare has the kind of compensation money the commenters are dreaming about.
There's a lot of conspiracy theories floating around that the lead-poisoning wasn't caused by the paint at all, because the paint manufacturer came out to say that their paint isn't lead-based at all, and the daycare is really close to a lead-zinc factory.
But I don't really believe in the conspiracy theory at all, because if the factory is leaking runoff into the ground water or something, it would impact way more than a single daycare. And you know, if one daycare in my city had a huge scandal where every kid got massive lead poisoning, even if I live on the other side of town, I would take my kid to be tested just to be sure. If other families are getting affected, we would hear about it, I'm sure.
I find it much more believable that the paint manufacturer is lying.
What I don't understand is who the fuck buys paint to make coloured bread rolls instead of food colouring??? Like, food colouring isn't expensive. At all. Even in China. Sure, industrial bulk paint might theoretically be cheaper? But by what, like, 10 bucks? Saving 10 bucks a month on bread rolls surely cannot possibly be worth the liability risk. Even if it wasn't lead-based, it's not like paint is safe to eat? Like, there's no way you can get away with it without any parents noticing.
I'm very much interested in this "special supplies" system. Reminds me of "special privileges" system in Soviet Union, which was one of the highly contentions things just before its collapse.
Is this "special supplies" thing widespread? How high should civil servant's rank be to be eligible?
It's not just widespread, it's official government policy. It's not even something they're trying to hide. I think it's explicitly inherited from the Soviet Union? Because it was Soviet experts who helped set up the first special farm, Xiangshan Farm, which at the time supplied the heads of the Communist Party. I think the initial justification they used was, "It's for national security, to ensure there wouldn't be any food tampering." Or something.
There's different kinds of "special supplies" depending on what your position is. If you're Xi Jinping or literally someone in his cabinet (or their families), for example, you eat from Xiangshan Farm. Fresh, organic, painstakingly hand-grown and hand-picked farm-to-table produce. All the out-of-season fruits and veggies you could want even in the middle of the famines. And even a special team of people working around the clock to engineer tastier strains of various produce just for you.
That's usually what the government means when they say "special supplies". But when normal people talk about "special supplies", they can mean a lot of other things. like if you're lower down on the totem pole, in the state governor level, existing food brands might set aside especially high-quality products just for supplying your office, or have a dedicated line where they put a lot more effort into QA. That's not law, necessarily speaking. It's just what naturally results when the government has so much power and basically can decide whether or not a business lives or dies, and most businesses already bribe government officials with product. It's a lot easier to defend product as "not a bribe" because the governor's office did pay to get a big order of instant coffee. If that particular batch of instant coffee was significantly higher quality than what you usually make, who's really gonna be able to tell?
In fact, I think Moutai first got its fame as a special supplies liquor before they opened it up to let normal people buy it too. But even so, people say that they reserve the "best Moutai" for government officials only.
If you're even lower down and you're just some DMV worker in a small town, you still get official cafeterias where they'll import western brands of produce but only charge you like 1-2RMB per meal. And this is just a part of the benefits of working for the government. Why else would you accept being paid 1700RMB a month to teach 64 kids to a class, 17 classes to a grade?