Chart: Who Drinks Tea?

Source : Statista

China Moves Toward Ban on Japanese-Style ‘Maid Cafés’

Yang Caini wrote . . . . . . . . .

Japanese-style “maid cafés” have become a common sight in China’s major cities over the past few years. But the future of these controversial businesses is now under threat, after a Chinese court ruled that they are illegal on multiple grounds.

Maid cafés — venues where male customers are served by female staff, usually dressed in skimpy outfits — first became popular in China in the late 2010s. Though they are no longer as fashionable as they were then, there are still thousands of them operating all over the country.

The original case against maid cafés was brought by a local procuratorate in the eastern city of Yiwu, which launched a large-scale investigation in the wake of a sexual assault case in a local venue in 2023.

Local officials found that hundreds of cafés and e-sports venues in Yiwu were offering maid café-style services, with female servers forced to kneel to serve tea, massage male customers, and shout “Welcome home, my master!” to anyone entering.

The procuratorate brought a public interest lawsuit to a local court, arguing that such services “belittle and damage women’s rights to human dignity.” They also said that some local businesses had failed to take measures to protect their female staff from sexual harassment.

The court ruled in favor of the procuratorate in late 2023, and local businesses were ordered to cease offering maid services or face closure. Over the following months, Yiwu authorities reportedly investigated over 800 businesses to ensure they had complied.

Now, this case looks set to become a model for other Chinese cities to follow. Earlier this week, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate published a list of 12 cases for prosecutors nationwide to learn from, which included the maid café ruling in Yiwu.

The list — which the procuratorate released jointly with the All-China Women’s Federation and All-China Federation of Trade Unions — covers a wide range of issues, including the handling of sexual harassment and assault cases, differing standards for male and female toilets, and the denial of land rights to women in rural China.

Maid cafés have been controversial in China ever since the industry first started to take off, with detractors arguing that they degrade women and in some cases become hotbeds of sexual harassment. But they still have many fans; content related to maid cafés regularly attracts massive traffic on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and the video platform Bilibili.

Chen Qianyi, a gender equality advocate from the southern Hainan province, told Sixth Tone that she had been “waiting for maid cafés to face this specific restriction since 2018.”

“Maid cafés have been a symbolic space where women are defaulted to being the subject of sexual exploitation,” Chen said. “The key to solving this problem should be educating the public to respect women.”

In a comment on the Yiwu case, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said that it should serve as a model for other cities because local prosecutors took swift action despite facing a difficult situation: Maid cafés are a new industry subject to little specific regulation and control, meaning that rights infringements were often passing unnoticed.

China’s revised women’s rights protection law, which came into effect in 2023, has given prosecutors new powers by clarifying that violating women’s right to personal dignity is also illegal. In the past year, more than 46,000 people have been prosecuted in China for violating women’s rights to life, health, and personal dignity, a year-over-year increase of 10.7%, according to official data.

Source: Sixth Tone

 

 

 

 

Decorative Sushi

 

 

 

 

Most Adults Don’t Do Enough Strength Training

Lynn C. Allison wrote . . . . . . . . .

Strength training ─ whether you use equipment or your own body weight ─ is critical for long-term health. Also known as resistance training, it increases muscular strength, endurance, and bone density. These exercises also decrease the risk of falls and fractures as you get older, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to CNN, experts recommend adults do muscle-strengthening activities two or more days each week, working all major muscle groups at moderate or greater intensity. Unfortunately, only about 30% of Americans meet this recommendation, and nearly 60% say they do no strength training at all.

Tommy Lundberg, an exercise researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden, and the author of The Physiology of Resistance Training, says that strength training is far more important than most people realize.

“You get improved glucose control, especially if you have Type 2 diabetes,” he says. “You feel better —which is a very important effect, as it can reduce stress levels — and you typically get better sleep. As you age, it helps you function better so you can carry out your daily activities for a longer period of time. It also helps reduce your risk of falls.”

While everyone can benefit from resistance training, Lundberg says that those over 65 may reap the most rewards because of the link between strength training and better physical function, reduced falls, and better balance.

“Resistance training is the only means to effectively maintain or even increase your muscle mass,” he says. “There is no drug available today, or any diet that we can adopt, to get the benefits that we can get from strength training.”

Lundberg adds that as we live longer, it is even more important to incorporate resistance training into our exercise routine. He suggests performing strength training exercise at least two to three times a week, whether you use body weight, free weights, gym equipment or bands. The exercises should include all of the large muscle groups.

“If you want to be more time effective, do one or two sets of each exercise,” he says. “If you have more time, do three or four. But it’s always better to reduce the number of sets of exercise than to reduce the number of exercises.”

Lundberg says that the effort level is also very important.

“You should exercise until you feel a small burning sensation and come to the point where you can’t do another repetition. You don’t need to reach failure necessarily, but do repetitions until you feel that, OK, this is becoming quite heavy now.”

Source : News Max

 

 

 

Gratin of Sardines

Ingredients

2 lb fresh sardines, or small herring or mackerel
2+ tablespoons breadcrumbs
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
chopped parsley
salt and pepper
juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
parsley to garnish

Method

1. Open fish, remove heads and bones, wash and dry. Arrange half the fish side by side in a buttered ovenproof dish.
2. Mix together the breadcrumbs, garlic and parsley, and salt and pepper to taste, and spread half over the fish. Sprinkle with lemon juice and dot with half the butter.
3. Arrange another layer of fish over this, and cover with the remaining breadcrumb mixture.
4. Pour over the eggs beaten with the milk, melt the remaining butter and pour over the top. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F) for 30 minutes or until golden. Serve in cooking dish, garnished with parsley.

Makes 4 servings.

Source: The Cook’s Book

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