Yesterday, my one-on-one teacher came to class with some medicine that a friend of his had recently ordered on the Internet. The medicine had been shipped from a company in California called EFT (you can check out their website at http://www.ef2t.com), and contained a package of herbal tea, herbal supplement drops (referred to on the package as "cell nutrition") and a vial of colloidal silver drops. He can speak some English, but asked me for help in translating the package directions. The whole thing seemed kind of fishy, so after class got out I went online to try and see what I could find out about the EFT company and colloidal silver.
It's clearly an enormous scam, as both the FDA and the NIH clearly say on their websites that colloidal silver is not only not effective at treating the numerous ailments they say it's good for, but can actually be harmful in large doses - to the point where it can (irreversibly) turn your skin a silvery-gray color. I just didn't know what to say to my teacher, as he was surprised I had never heard of the company (the Chinese website advertises that EFT is a nationally recognized company in the United States), and I think his friend had spent an exorbitant amount of money on it - RMB 30,000 for a set of ten boxes. 30,000 is a tremendous amount of money for a Chinese person - it's not exactly cheap by American standards, either. It made me really, really angry that scams like that exist (the scamming company is run by an expat Chinese, who is basically advertising on his website that since he's tremendously successful and wealthy in the United States, he must be selling something good).
I've tried searching for the EFT Company on the Better Business Bureau website, but with no success (even though their website says they're listed). Going on the FTC, FDA, and NIH websites made me realize what a wealth of information is out there - but also made me realize how hard it is for someone who doesn't speak English, and who doesn't know that these organizations even exist, to be able to find them. Access to information is so tightly controlled in China that it would be ridiculous if it weren't so frustrating. People just literally have no way of knowing about a tremendous amount of stuff that's out there - everything from political history to musicians - I found out the other night that my roommate, who's 25, had never heard of Bob Dylan. I quickly got out my Ipod (I do have SOME good music on my Ipod...) - and it was just the most amazing thing to try and translate the story of the Hurricane into Chinese (v. difficult!).
I am now in the process of sending some English websites to my one-on-one teacher, in the hopes that he'll be able to puzzle through them - he said that if he has enough time, he should be able to translate the general meaning. I also found the U.S. Patent Office for Kids website, which I think I'm going to send to him - it's actually got some good stuff for me on it, as well. I'm debating sending him the "Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids" website, as I don't know if he would find it insulting, or interesting. It's become more and more obvious for me the longer I've been here that the Chinese really have no idea how the US government really functions (not that anyone really knows how our government functions, including those in government...) It's just incredibly complicated, and I keep looking for civic guides for Chinese immigrants - I would love to find a website written in Chinese directed at immigrants to the US telling them how the whole system works, because I think he'd find it really interesting - as would I. For now, if you're interested, you can see a simple explanation of the project I'm currently working on (the Chinese version) at http://www.uspto.gov/go/kids/kidantipiracy.htm. If you look at the right-hand side where it asks you "Can You Tell What's Wrong?" ...that's what I'm working on!
ok... before this gets way too long, I'm going to go get lunch! more later-
