First Impressions of China

Anyone who is fairly informed probably has some knowledge or vague impressions of China. We are well aware of China’s breakneck economic growth in the last two decades. We are also aware of China’s hard consequences for its fastidious growth. Beijing recently made the news with record air pollution. The north of China has no water and the central government is actively planning a huge water pipeline from the south to the north. Other stories include Foxconn’s worker exploitation, grave civil rights abuses and vast political corruption.

Living in Taiwan for three years certainly encouraged these impressions and probably added some more stereotypes. The Taiwanese love to to joke about the rude manners and terse sounding accents mainlanders have.

However, I have found that China has been quite… pleasant. It’s different than Taiwan in ways I didn’t expect. I suppose I thought it would be poorer and the streets covered in garbage, but it is fairly well developed. Granted, there are some things about China that are true to the rumors I’ve heard, such as sometimes a public bathroom is nothing more than a shared ditch in the ground. But there are some great things going on here that America could use in the field of sustainable living.

I’ve always found it somewhat obtuse and counter-productive when pundits compare Chinese and American models of economy, politics, or even sustainability. The biggest offender of this charge is Thomas Friedman and his lamentations for building a New Green America. China and the US are such different places with different cultural influences, systems of politics, education, economy, etc. It’s so easy to contrast the two countries when you want to criticize the other. However, despite that, as I am here I feel that I better make a few “Well, in China, they bla bla bla more than America” statements.

One thing that you immediately notice as a traveler is the wide use and popularity of the e-bike. The electric scooter is everywhere and if you’re not paying attention probably right behind you. They are quiet, efficient and emit no carbon dioxide! It’s incredible to see these things in action all over cities. People just plug their e-bike in at night to a normal household electrical outlet and in the morning will have a full battery that can drive about 30-40 kilometers before it needs another charge. Smaller and newer scooters need less time for a charge since bigger vehicles need more power to compensate for the extra size and mass. It does make one wonder, why don’t we have these in the states? You would save so much money on gas. This, however, is when this line of thinking becomes inane. We don’t have these in the states because the oil companies have blocked every move towards electric transportation in the states. There are no government subsidies of comprehensive electric transportation to speak of except California’s subsidizing of hybrid cars, whereas the Chinese government has the ability to outlaw combustion engines for scooters. It’s a matter of collecting inspiration for sustainable strategies and then working to overcome our homegrown obstacles to them. I wonder what would happen if a business in Portland or San Francisco started selling e-bikes that people could power from their house or apartment?

Communal gardens in China

Another thing that I noticed is that China has local food in spades. Local agriculture and gardens abound wherever there is space. In Nanning, we stayed at a friend’s apartment that overlooked a river park where I counted three communal gardens and other crops of food being grown near the river bank. I have heard some Americans complain that vegetable gardens in city parks aren’t pretty (that’s debatable) but I know that Chinese urban areas are a lot more food resilient than most American cities and towns. The older generation of Chinese people still clearly remember the terrible famine that came with the cultural revolution. Americans have no visceral experience of a great hunger and thus have been completely detached from our food and the process to grow it. It is our abundance of wealth that consolidated our food industry which has created vulnerable, poor diets, high health costs and lack of healthy produce.

All hail development! This pristine farmland in Guilin
will be turned into golf courses and condominiums! Yay!

Sadly, China seems to be drunk on development and one soon realizes they have been intently starting at the American model of development as a blueprint for success. The world’s limited resources will not allow this type of development so we had better find a new way of living sustainably or we will be on a sustainable path to not living.

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Editor’s Addition: Most of us in the West are highly, if not completely, ignorant about how the ‘totalitarian’ Chinese one-party political system operates. The video below may be somewhat of an eye-opener for many of you…. In the context of the article above, I’d encourage you to take a watch:

//www.youtube.com/embed/s0YjL9rZyR0