Daily Lesson from Life 25 September 2008

"China looks to space walk
Launch of the Shenzhou VII will be China's third manned space venture since 2003. -Thu, Sep 25, 2008 Reuters

BEIJING, CHINA - CHINA was counting down to its next leap into space on Thursday, with President Hu Jintao hailing as heroes the three astronauts, one of whom will carry out a first space walk for the technologically ambitious nation.

The launch of the Shenzhou VII will be China's third manned space venture since October 2003, when it joined Russia and the United States as the only countries to have sent astronauts into space. The space walk is expected on Saturday."

AND:

"China scrambles amid scandal
It announced an ambitious programme to improve food safety following the scandal that sickened 53,000. -Thu, Sep 25, 2008 AFP

BEIJING, CHINA - CHINA announced an ambitious programme to improve food safety on Thursday as it scrambled to salvage its reputation amid a scandal over tainted milk that has sickened 53,000 babies and killed four.

The government has set up working groups in nearly every single province, and has embarked on a sweeping drive to set up a series of new food testing centres and replace outdated equipment, officials said.

'Our quality inspection authorities are required to establish nearly 400 product testing centres within the next two years, and 80 of these will be food testing centres,' said Mr Hou Linglin, a senior official at the quality watchdog.

Mr Hou was speaking at a food safety conference in Beijing after China and many of its trading partners were rattled by revelations that milk powder and other Chinese-made dairy products contained melamine."

Two contrasting headlines - both about China. Space is the ultimate frontier for scientists really. I can appreciate why so much is spent in that area. It is romantic and sexy and visionary. Food safety is a bit boring! But it affects life! It takes life away when it goes wrong!! It also affect more ordinary people instead of space agencies and those star gazers!

Lessons for me:

1. balance the strategic and tactic actions in creating a brighter future by leaders is a must!!;

2. it is alright to repeatedly said we will do something about it and a different thing to actually do it! It is a systemic issue that need fixing hence it has to start from the mindset of the people in the system. Unless the top people are leading by examples and constantly in their faces, the actual behaviors will NOT change. It will be just 'given the lip service' and nothing substantive will develop. So, say what you think, do what you say is key!;

3. keeping a perspective between strategic and tactical is very hard to do especially when 1 or the other went horribly wrong. For me, the tainted milk power and related products with excessive melamine, produced deaths and revealed widespread 'collusion between the businesses, and responsible government officials! So, the change MUST come from outside the existing system. It must be an 'air-drop' troubleshooter to carry out the task. He must rally a group of committed people who shared the same ideal mindset of: 'No corruption! Only the safety of the products matter!'.

May China comes out of this storm a better place to live in!!