Look Out World, Here Comes China

Yunnan Province, Southwestern China, May 2009

 

It's a BIG country, with over a billion people, and it's changing, in some ways more rapidly than similar social and economic changes in the western world, and in some ways, hardly at all. So it's impossible to 'describe' China. Even more impossible for me, having been here only four weeks, and then only in a very small part of one province – which apparently is not at all 'representative' of China – and with the added disadvantage of not speaking the language, and there being very few Chinese who speak English. My China, then, will of necessity be limited to a collection of observations, impressions and reflections.

 

Perhaps the strongest and most striking impression I have of China, particularly having been in several tourist destinations – and by that I mean domestic, or Chinese, tourists, not foreigners, who are here in insignificant numbers, not even worth counting – is one of increasing economic prosperity and exuberant 'getting and spending.' 

 

China is on a roll. 

Everywhere we have been we have noticed rampant new construction, mostly of homes and apartments, but also of shops and office complexes. 

We have also seen a lot of people upgrading and renovating their homes. And almost every home has a solar water heater on the roof, and either cable tv or a satellite dish. 

Absolutely everyone, right down to the guy squatting on the pavement selling his few onions and potatoes, has a cell phone. 

One day we saw two guys in a primitive dugout canoe – called a 'pig trough' by locals – on Lugu Lake. One of them was talking on his cell phone. And in China, talk is cheap, so they're on their cells almost constantly. 

Walking down the road, riding on buses, shopping in the market – cell phone to their ear and talking, talking, talking- generally haute voix (there is not other). 

Even more noticeable are the crowds of Chinese tourists, and locals, shopping and buying. Not cheap knock-off stuff, but REAL Gucci bags, Rolex watches, designer clothes and silver jewelry. More and more Chinese have money to burn. Burning fake paper money is an integral part of religious ritual here that is now finding its counterpart in real spending. 

 

It is clear that the Chinese are enjoying their new wealth. They love to shop. They love to buy things. And, more than anything, they love to be seen with the things they have bought. It's all about status, about not only 'saving face,' by having the latest and the best, but also 'getting face,' by being the first to have them. 

From what we can see, the western world can absolutely count on China to 'save' us from the economic mess we have created with our profligacy. It's their turn now. And there are so many of them that even if only a few of them have the money to spend, it's significant, in global terms. 

 

The propensity of the newly rich Chinese to spend, spend, spend is also a phenomenon that is largely beyond the ability of the Chinese government, which controls the minutiae of its people's lives, to control, even if it wanted to. China is fast becoming 'the new America.'

 

And in a word, what I would say about this phenomenon, in terms of its social as well as economic impacts is: “look out world, here comes China!”

 

The burgeoning growth and development of China, the economic and social ascendancy of China in global terms, has profound implications for the west. The west is clearly not ready, mostly because it is so completely ignorant of Asian, and in particular Chinese, culture. Chinese culture, as western as it is becoming, is still vastly different from western. There are more differences than similarities, and some of the differences are going to be hard for westerners to accept.

 

For me one of the biggest differences is the Chinese attitude towards the natural environment. The most obvious manifestation of this is how the Chinese deal with their garbage. In the first instance, everyone simply throws whatever they don't want on the ground, in the ditch, out the window, or onto a growing pile in a vacant lot or by the roadside. There is no concept at all of 'littering.' 

One morning we were sitting at a small table right on the edge of Lugu Lake – one of Ynnan's premier 'natural park reserves' that you pay 80 Yuan ($15) to enter. A man and his little girl were sitting nearby, slurping down their bowls of noodles. When they'd finished, man and girl wiped their hands on a half-dozen napkins and then pointedly threw them on the ground. 

 

They could have left them on the table for the 'waiter' to collect. There was a garbage can not ten feet away. But they almost made a show of throwing them on the ground. Then the man called the 'waiter' (cafe owner and cook) over to pay. The waiter picked up all the napkins as the man and girl looked on. The man pointed to one of them that the waiter seemed in danger of missing. Perhaps this was some kind of power trip.

 

As they walked away, the little girl, skipping gaily and cute as a button, threw one last napkin insouciantly over her shoulder onto the ground. Either the waiter will pick that one up as well, or it will join the litter in the lake of this treasured provincial park.

 

Even in the 'countryside' the roads are lined with refuse – everything from old shoes and scraps of clothing to plastic bags and bottles and bits of metal. At intervals along every road is a mini-mountain or landslide of rotting, stinking garbage, all open (we have seen no 'garbage bags' in China), and all being liberally spread around by wind, birds and dogs.

 

We've seen several garbage trucks. The garbage workers go round, masked but bare-handed, sweeping and shoveling the loose garbage into buckets and baskets and tossing the contents up into the trucks. We presume there are even bigger piles of garbage somewhere outside the cities, although we haven't seen them – yet. 

 

There are some wonderful small-scale and long-standing recycling practices in China. In the cities we've been in so far, we have seen men and women with bicycle-powered carts who go round collecting cardboard, paper and metal. They carry little scales, weigh the metal out, and pay the householder for it. 

 

We've also seen people collecting slops from homes, businesses and restaurants. We don't know whether the collected slop is fed to pigs (presuming they like their food hot, as most of it is here) or used for compost. Either way, it's better than combining it with the garbage.

 

Even sadder than the garbage on the roads is the garbage tossed into China's streams and rivers. Additionaly, liquid waste is often dumped into rivers and streams. 

In cities, we watch people coming out of their homes with a pail of sudsy, greasy or dirty water and pouring it into the cement-lined gutter/stream that borders the sidewalk. Just 'downstream,' someone is washing their dishes or doing their laundry with that same water. Someone else is brushing their teeth or washing their hair. 

 

The little streams that run through cities and towns often stink like sewers, although many support goldfish and carp, as well as healthy populations of plastic bottles and bags. In the countryside, the majority of the rivers we've seen have been dammed, with plans in the works to dam more, and bigger. We've seen many almost dry river beds downstream of these dams – trickes of water where there used to be torrents. We've seen no fish ladders. 

 

China's demand for electricity, consistent with the new found wealth of its people, and their demand for all things electric, coupled with increasing demands from the rampant economic and industrial growth, is almost insatiable. China is also building dams in Laos, and buying power from Vietnam.

China is also cutting down its forests at an alarming rate. 

Here in Yunnan, many houses are constructed not just of wood, but of huge timbers. 

The biggest timbers, some two feet in diameter, support the two-story structure. 

More timbers are used for joists and flooring. And more wood is used for elaborate carved gates, doors, windows and decorations. 

 

Both here and even more in the north of China, wood, and sometimes charcoal, is also used for cooking and heating. It's burned in open fires, either outside or inside the house, where holes in the roof are the only escape for the smoke. These fires are dreadfully inefficient, requiring large amounts of wood to produce sufficient heat for cooking. 

 

We were quoted a horrific statistic about China's use of wood: 6 tons per person per year. At that rate, China's forests will be gone in no time. Furthermore, according to a young American we met who had been working in northern China for an environmental NGO, China has so far had little success with its re-forestation projects. 

 

In his view, this is because the Chinese have insisted on planting trees that are not suited to the climate or conditions of the natural environment. They are more concerned with 'aesthetics,' wanting the trees all to be the same, and all in perfect rows – appealing to their sense of order – than with biology. Certainly we have seen many denuded hill-sides, and several areas where planted trees have not taken hold.

 

In terms of their cities, what we see is that the Chinese tend to favour 'pretty' and 'cute' built environments. Old houses and neighbourhoods give way to new boutiques and malls. Several of the cities we've been in have a sort of Disneyland feel – the new buildings are done in a 'traditional' style, but lack authenticity. Art installations, meticulous plantings of flowers and shrubs, old-timey light fixtures, and dramatic night lighting complete the effect. 

 

In many cases, the Disneynification is completed by tourists having to pay an entrance fee to get into the city. In Li Jiang, the fee is 80 Yuan, or $15. Once that's paid, there are additional fees, usually around $5, for individual 'attractions' within the city – like viewpoints, lakes, parks and historic buildings. These fees appear to apply to Chinese tourists as well, although the Chinese tend to travel in large groups, getting similarly large discounts for such things as hotel accommodation and entrance fees. So where we pay $15, they may pay more like $5, or even less.

 

It's difficult to speculate whether Chinese attitudes towards the environment will change fast enough to prevent the complete devastation of the Chinese environment (and that of parts of Laos and Vietnam). Given the sheer numbers of Chinese (over a billion), I would doubt it. Rather I would see Chinese demand for raw materials and for consumer products continuing to grow at an increasingly rapid rate. 

 

What this will mean, in global terms, is sobering, to say the least. It has made us wonder about the ongoing value of environmental regulations and restrictions in the western world. Compared to the damage that may be done satisfying the exponentially growing needs and wants of over a billion Chinese, what difference will our efforts make?

 

“Look out world, here comes China!”