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Published: August 20th 2007
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Clean water and clean air is the right of all children.
The Children will hold us accountable. Have we done enough to protect their health and environment? "Thank You" everyone for your kind response to the TravelBlog's technical difficulties. I am especially grateful to Jonathan Daniels, my former student at Coral Gables Sr. High School, who is completing his advanced studies at the University of Miami. He stayed up one night until 4 a.m. to recover all but two of the journal entries. Only entries #69 and #70 have not been found. Their photos are recovered, and I will add their text from my hard-copy. I can't thank Jonothan enough and I am envious of his computer skills. Jonothan, Thank You! for your assistance, and a Thank You for the positive suggestions from so many others.
Reflecting on my stay in China for this past year has become easier, especially now that I am feeling better, recovering from a kidney infection. The many good wishes and kind thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Let me share some of my scattered thinking from my moments of noticable physical pain, though the "discomfort" has now mostly vanished :
Staying another year at Taizhou Teachers College was not a difficult decision. If my first year in China was an indication of astonishment and adventure, staying for a second year, as
Beijing hopes for blue skies.
Will the athletes and visitors to Beijing in August of 2008 see the same blue skies I saw on my last visit, looking up at the flag on China's tallest flag-pole in the center of Tianamen Square? China anticipates the 2008 Olympics, should be filled with additional excitement and a continued, greater understanding for a 5,000 year old culture.
The first year at Taizhou Teachers College has passed rather quickly, and the "Kulturschock" is still on overdrive, but the environment around me is beginning to make sense. The consistent sounds of daily life on the streets, 8 floors below me, are more familiar, yet they still often draw me to the windows of the apartment-patio, to have another curious and disbelieving look.
Every sonance that reaches my balcony, relentlessly reminds of 1.4 billion Chinese on the move, 16 hours a day and 7 days a week. Saturday and Sunday differ not from Tuesday or Thursday. Commerce occurs non-stop, while everyone is looking for the next Yuan in their pocket.
Walking the streets of any city in China confirms, that each Chinese at heart makes a good and ever-more prosperous capitalist. The fashionable quest for more money and greater wealth and a better life seems natural to each person I meet. The hopes and dreams of today's Chinese differ little from the folks in the West.
The eagerness to succeed leaves little time to
The excitement in China is every-where and in every-one.
Standing on the Greatest Wall in the world, the visitor is reminded, that China's theme for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is:
"One World One Dream"
rest for the individual Chinese. Only the all-important and colorful festivals throughout the year permit quality time with their families. The rest of the days are absorbed, providing economically for that family.
The focus in China is on the success of the future. They know, that present hardships are only necessary guiding forces to that inevitable out-come.
Commerce in my city of Taizhoui, (a small city of 5 million), is simply everywhere, from the lady moving her little shop-on-wheels to the street-corner, setting up her sewing machine on the sidewalk, waiting for any customer in need of some alterations or a missing button, to the kind old man, with his ancient peddle-key-shop, who will hand-grind and hand-file a spare key or hand-sharpen a knife.
To make a little money, they wait for a next customer, but the competition on all tiers of commerce in China is fierce. Yet these humble entrepreneurs have learned to wait patiently. They know, that the next "Yuan" , (7.7 Yuan = $1), will come and always come "soon."
All available spaces on the street-levels of Taizhou's buildings are occupied by merchants, wanting their fortunes to improve. In a Taxi, on a
China and its Rivers
Few countries have greater dependence and derive so much of their culture from its rivers and canals as China.
rickshaw, on a bike, on a moped, on a scooter, on a puffing old tractor, on one of hundreds of busses, in their more common private cars, or in the black, chauffeur-driven Hondas or Buicks hauling China's movers and shakers, Taizhou's city traffic is always on the move, rarely stopping for the few traffic lights.
So everyone in China is also on the move. With a population 5 times that of the USA, the P.R.C., for now, moves in a less organized fashion, than the pace in a more "automated" and "developed" West.
I once heard the expression: "Things are moving like molasses in winter". It is a perfect expression to describe life's daily, physical movements in and around the city of Taizhou, and it is so in all the places of China I have visited. But tempo and motion are relentless and are ever-more dynamic.
Speed here is only limited by the fact, that there are so many people on the streets going "somewhere". The rules of the road in a small city of 5 million, like Taizhou, have far less meaning and are not taken so seriously as they are now in China's mega-cities of
Little has changed over the centuries along China's rivers and canals.
Much of China's life is still closely associated with its waterways. But some of my collegues and students lament, that once they could swim in clean rivers. 10-20 million people.
Before the 2008 Olympic invasion, it will be incumbent on these largest of China's cities to develop road-etiquette, modify social-customs, and adjust cultural-behavior, that may otherwise shock the first-time visitor to the China. The changes in other smaller cities will take additional decades and more sustained education of the population to become successful.
The expectations and progress of mega- cities like Beijing and Shanghai will showcase not only to the world but also to the rest of China's smaller cities, what needs to be accomplished, to restore to all citizens the rights to travel save roads, to breath clean and healthy air, to drink and bath in clean water, and not be over-whelmed by super-quantities of unnecessary noise.
But I venture a guess, that it will take China as many years to devolop its thriving economy "responsibly" as it took the now "developed countries" in their rush to industrialize, when dangerous equipment and questionable methods were pervasive during their "Industrial Revolutions".
If similar methods are now employed around China in the name of modernization and growth, I can only hope, that China's development comes with this greater responsibility and challenge: "To learn quickly
It is still a man's world in China.
Daily chores are accomplished along China's canals by the women, while the men play card-games and board-games under the shade of the umbrella. from the mistakes of "those" who feel, that they are now responsibly developed.
As in other parts of the world, the weather in China has been hot, humid, and unpredictable, ideal for shedding a few extra pounds. Humidity, embraced by industrial smog and smoke, often keeps the sun at bay, with less ability to penetrate.
During harvest time, it doesn't help, that straw from wheat and rice is burned openly in thousands of fields, and fires are often visible at night. The humidity permits smoke to escape only with time. As the economic revolution of China advances, pollution remains a painful issue and the greatest challenge to its economy, its standard of living, and the quality of life for its population.
There is a verbose desire for better air quality, cleaner rivers, and reduced noise levels, and billions are spent around the nation. Billions more are being poured into China's Capitol, Beijing, for it is in Beijing, that China will show-case itself to the world in less than a year.
Questions are raised continuously on China's only official English TV Channel (CCTV9) and its current affairs programs. The discussions center on the government's efforts to protect
Rivers of dreams
Modern Chinese weddings are often photograped months before the actual wedding, and are displayed during the later ceremonies. Rivers continue to be the romantic setting for many future brides and grooms. the athletes and visitors, and offer the best-possible air-quality a city must offer its guests from around the world. The proximity of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing has brought an ominous momentum to the gravity to the question and for now it will remain China's most pressing and most costly dilemma.
For the moment, Beijing has imposed heavy fines for public spitting by its citizens, though I have the feeling, from personal experience, that this is the only way the average Beijing citizen is able to discard the accumulated phlegm, brought on by the irritation of so much particle-matter in the air.
It may well be, that this "forbidden" spitting and rasping by visiting athletes from around the world, or the lack of it, will indicate the measure of Beijing's air quality at the time of the Olympic competitions in August of 2008. If it happens, how much will the athletes be fined?
Progress in solving China's pollution of air, water, and noise will achieve more notable gains, when all the citizens are educated about the benefits of a "pure" surrounding and environment, and their impact on national health issues.
When each Chinese citizen understands and
Life along the waterways of China.
A little puppy is carefully encouraged, as it learns how to swim along the canals of Suzhou. embraces "individual" responsibility, will progress become meaningful, real, and lasting; but I fear, that will take many decades and a huge investment of capital.
Progress and advancement come at a price to all developing nations. No citizen of the world is spared the consequences. But individual responsibility for combating pollution in all its forms must go hand in hand with corporate and political determination and will. We are also still learning this in the West.
****I have been having difficulties with my Bellsouth e-mail, where my mail is deleted almost daily without having the opportunity to read it or answer it. ATT has given no response to my complaints. It may be better to send any e-mail to my MSN address at: HansSchneider102@msn.com
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allan
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have a good trip
It is a long time since we meet last time.How is your travelling in China? Actually I like your personal blog very much,no matter what photos and article leave me great impression. Hopefully you have a very nice trip during this summer vacation.Looking forward to seeing you on the campus on september.