Thursday, November 1, 2007

daunting mental challenge

What would be more challenging for your mental toughness than a workout on a treadmill watching chinese TV political news ??

I got into it and lasted only 36minute at easy speed....

This morning I hit the road (by car) very early so I had to skip the daily outdoor run and resort to a evening treadmill run in my china weekday house (all the large housing complex in china have e gym, pooln etc).

But at 7pm sharp, all the 100+ chinese TV channels simultaneously broadcast the same news program that follows always the same format:
- a report on the day activity of. the President Hu Jintao (visit so me model factory, receive some foreign president, etc)
- a report on the daily activity of the Premier Wen jianbao
- some similar report on Politburo's member
- more report on PCC meetings
- several reportages on how the government is well taking care of the problem of ordinary people
- 2 minutes of international news
- sport (usually Yao Ming...)

After 30 minutes of this torture - hit the remote and switched to the 7.30pm english language news on Hong Kong Pearl TV.
The main news was that Police had raided a famous fashionable homeware store because it was selling a shirt with a logo "K14" that allegedly similar to the banner of a triad society gang !!!!
The 20+ shop assistants and store manager were ARRESTED and now could face up to 5 years jail !!
Beware of the T-shirts in your closet:also a owner of a seditious T-shirt can face the same sentence !!
This can happen only in a place like hong kong where the criminality is almost absent and the Police has anyway to spend the time somehow.

UPDATE: read more about this on the Standard

Watching such a news I was almost tumbling down from the belt from too much laugh. It was anyway too much to bear and I quickly closed the session with 36' at 136bpm
Now I feel ready to run in any circumstance, even watching a Oprah's show !!

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