News You Might Have Missed: Free Chips and A Lot of Failings

Beijing is going to the dogs ... and offering them free ID chips. The rest of us are dealing with more food and alcohol worries and getting enraged over faulty fridges.

Authorities are hoping to start implanting ID microchips in legally registered dogs throughout Beijing. The chips have been available at no cost to dog owners in Xicheng District through a pilot program that started in 2007. The plan is meant to encourage pet registration, which currently costs RMB 1,000 a pup (with annual renewal fees of RMB 500), a price that probably explains why nearly two million dogs go unregistered in the city.

In a role reversal, China is working on keeping contaminated foods out of the country. (While it exports fake food of its own.) A recently released report lists over 400 imported products that were refused at the border after failing quality tests. The offending imports include French mineral water, such as Evian, and several pork products found to contain clenbuterol and mildew.

While China may be trying to get a handle on the quality of imports, one in five consumers aren’t confident about the drinks they are buying locally. One beverage that we definitely have reason to be skeptical about is alcohol, which remains a problem whether it’s fake or merely failing quality standards. A counterfeit whisky distributor was recently shut down in Tianjin and over 10,000 bottles were confiscated. And if it's not fake, then it's just bad. Over half of China’s red wines fail to meet industry standards. This complete lack of faith in China’s booze leaves us with one solution: Make your own. For some inspiration, take a look at the Beijinger’s beer-making attempts in our December issue. Or you can simply rely on others, like Great Leap Brewing or Slow Boat (who set up a few kegs at Home Plate the first Thursday of every month).

Then there are the folks who are simply fed up with inferior standards. To protest flaws in Siemens refrigerators, a Chinese blogger recently smashed up three of the faulty units with a sledgehammer in front of the company's Beijing headquarters. While a hard-to-close fridge door might not send you over the edge, we'd like to know: Is there anything in Beijing that you would want to take a sledgehammer to?

Photos: telegraph.co.uk, legal.gmw.com