I've reached my target - finished volume 4 of New Practical Chinese! How disappointing that its final chapter has such dorky readings. One is about the Chinese space program, another about text messages (from the days when sending 30 a month was a lot). 
But the kicker is this, 公蟹，母蟹和鸡爪: He-crabs, she-crabs and chicken feet. It proceeds from contrasting Chinese and American crab preferences - Americans apparently prefer the male, where Chinese prefer the female - to a rhapsody on win-win international comity, by way of Americans' selling male and female crabs at different prices and exporting chicken feet to a grateful China. 美国人赚了钱很高兴；中国人吃到便宜的鸡爪，也很该醒。既然是大家都高兴的事儿，为什么不多做呢？Americans are happy to make money, Chinese are happy to be able to eat chicken feet cheaply; since everyone's so happy why not have more of this kind of thing?
Is that the best they can do? And what's with the picture of a dove of peace／friendship／development 和平／友好／发展 with faces looking more or less Arab, Indian, European and African? Where's the Chinese? For that matter, where are the dove's feet?!
But the kicker is this, 公蟹，母蟹和鸡爪: He-crabs, she-crabs and chicken feet. It proceeds from contrasting Chinese and American crab preferences - Americans apparently prefer the male, where Chinese prefer the female - to a rhapsody on win-win international comity, by way of Americans' selling male and female crabs at different prices and exporting chicken feet to a grateful China. 美国人赚了钱很高兴；中国人吃到便宜的鸡爪，也很该醒。既然是大家都高兴的事儿，为什么不多做呢？Americans are happy to make money, Chinese are happy to be able to eat chicken feet cheaply; since everyone's so happy why not have more of this kind of thing? Is that the best they can do? And what's with the picture of a dove of peace／friendship／development 和平／友好／发展 with faces looking more or less Arab, Indian, European and African? Where's the Chinese? For that matter, where are the dove's feet?!
