Economist, Sept 1, 2018

choi

The Sept 1, 2018 Economist has a section titled China. This week's issue has two articles.

(1) Falun Gong | The Party's Scourge; Despite a 20-year effort to crush it, a quasi-Buddhist sect still worries officials.

(2) Public opinion | A Flood of Complaints; The inundation of farms around an eastern city unleashes an online furore.
("WHEN loudspeakers in Kouzi 口子村, a village in the eastern province of Shandong, blared out urgent warnings of floodwaters heading downriver 弥河 toward them, residents were anxious, but they did not panic. They had been told it would be another day before the crest would reach them, and that the water would not cause extensive damage. They took precaution to protect their property as best they could and left as ordered. When they returned a day later they found their homes in chest-deep water and their farms wrecked. This was not only a natural disaster caused by unusually heavy rain during a typhoon [温比亚; English: tropical storm Rumbia], locals allege. It was also a man-made one.  Fo all the ever-tighter controls on public grumbling that has been imposed during the rule of Xi Jinping, flashes of discontent are occasionally visible. The flood on Aug 20th in and around Shouguang 山东省潍坊市寿光市, the city that administers  Kouzi village, has triggered one. The outcry is not so much about the number of casualties -- 13 people were killed in the Shouguang area, compared with [hundreds] * * * caused damage estimated at 9.2bn yuan ($1.3bn). * * * Officials admitted that water discharged through the dams caused flooding in Shouguang. But they said the rain was heavier than forecast, and they had no choice but to open the sluices when they did. * * * In Kouzi, Ms Li [mentioned once before in the article: 'surnamed Li' without proving the given name] declared a near-total loss. Her flat-screen television, fridge and washing machine have all been ruined. But more important to her and her neighbours is the loss of her greenhouses in which they had grown cucumbers, bitter melons, aubergines and peppers [which supply Beijing]V)

Note:
(a) The article carries a photo that came from一个有故事的蛋 (寿光日报社 工作人员). Weibo, Aug 24, 2018.
https://www.weibo.com/u/1917344205?is_hot=1
(b) floodwater (also floodwaters)
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/floodwater
(c)
(i) aubergine (French, from Catalan alberginia, from Arabic)
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/aubergine
(ii) eggplant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant
("It has been cultivated in southern and eastern Asia since prehistory. The first known written record of the plant is found in Qimin Yaoshu 齐民要术, an ancient Chinese agricultural treatise completed in 544 during 南北朝 (420-578)" / )
(d) I will say there is no need to read the rest.