October 29, 2008
Dear family and friends,
We completed our two and a half week tour of China and are now settling into life at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. Our journey through China was the culmination of our five-week stay, which started with our time in Shanghai where we were taking a class with Professor Lin (Frank) at ECNU on Environmental issues of China. Though the trip was intended mainly to give us a better sense of the many levels of diversity within China we also took time to have lectures and visit sights relating to China’s environment.
Our trip started with an overnight train from Shanghai to Jinan, and then a bus to Tai’an. From there we visited the town of Qufu, the ancient home of Confucius and his descendents. The highlight of our time in Tai’an though, was the hike up Taishan, one of China’s most sacred mountains. The trip to the top was a long climb with too many stairs to count but when we got to the top the view was worth all of our effort. From Tai’an we took a train north to Beijing to see the traditional sites (Forbidden City, The Great Wall, and the Temple of Heaven) but also to see parts of the city not as well known to the passing tourist. On our second day in Beijing we visited a local market with Meg’s friend Kendra who lives in the city. There were definitely tourists at the market but it was also very much a local scene. In the afternoon we visited a neighborhood that looked like it could have been in New York or San Francisco, with dozens of art galleries and boutique shops selling organic cotton and tie-dye. This art gallery neighborhood has sprung up in the past 5 years. What a contrast between the free spirited young Chinese enjoying the art and African drumming in the Dashanzi Art District and the rigid and unsmiling guards we see all around the country!
On our last day in Beijing we had two guest lectures discussing various environmental issues of China. The first speaker was a French scholar and journalist who took a less positive view of the prospects for change than our Chinese Professor Frank. Her research was on air quality and she made a very interesting observation: the changes that occurred in Beijing just before the Olympics were due to the temporary shutting down of polluting factories to the southeast of Beijing--not, as Western and Chinese sources were reporting, because of the smaller number of cars on the road. The car situation in China is significant, with 1000 new cars on the road each day in Beijing, and the traffic getting worse and worse; but it would make a greater difference in the air quality to stop big factories from polluting. Something that shocked all of us was the suggestion by both Frank and the lecturer, that given how much coal China has and how easy it is to use, it is likely that China will use it for the next few hundred years because it is so much cheaper than any alternative.
Our second lecturer was Dai Qing, a Chinese Journalist who is not allowed to publish in China. She has been an outspoken opponent of the Three Gorges Dam project since its serious conception in the 1980’s (the idea was first suggested in 1911). She has since become opposed to the project for environmental and human rights reasons, but her original objections were political. It was fascinating to hear about all the steps people tried to take to prevent the plan from going forward and how the Chinese government got around them. She also talked to us about the recent milk scandal and how she hoped that because of the truth being revealed the Chinese government might be more accountable in the future.
Our next stop after Beijing was Yichang, a town along the Yangtze River where we visited the Three Gorges Dam. Unfortunately, the day we visited the Dam it was raining and hazy so we could only see a very small portion of it which was really not that impressive. When we took into account the fact that the small portion that we were seeing probably wasn’t even a tenth of the entire structure, it gave us an idea of how large of a project it is. We were all very excited for our next destination: the Province of Yunnan and visits to Kunming, Lijiang and Dali. Yunnan is in the southwest of China and was very different from what we had seen so far. Although Kunming, the capital of the province, is a major Chinese city, the feeling there was less hurried and the air may have been a little cleaner. In Kunming we visited the Stone Forest, which is a rock formation that was created millions of years ago with jagged rocks sticking up everywhere, creating the impression of trees. We also got to visit a local park and watch the locals enjoy themselves on a Sunday afternoon, sitting and chatting, and riding in paddleboats. Older folks sat around playing music on instruments like the arhu and what looked to be the Chinese version of the banjo. There was even a man playing a leaf.
Lijiang and Dali were two of our favorite places. Getting off the plane in Lijiang was a relief, with cold air that reminded us of home and clear blue mountain sky. In Lijiang we all enjoyed getting lost in the old town and looking at all the shops; we also had a lecture about how the residents of Lijiang have been using water responsibly for thousands of years, with specific times of the day for using the water that runs through the canals of the city for different purposes so that people were not using water to cook their food in that was used to wash clothes. On the drive from Lijiang to Dali we drove past innumerable rice fields in various stages of the harvesting process- harvesting by hand, threshing, piling the leftover stalks, burning the stalks, and turning the fields to prepare for the next crop. The different patterns and colors flying by the car window were incredible. Dali was equally fun, with a walled old town and beautiful scenery. Our time in China was amazing, with so many incredible sights and experiences that its impossible to try to share them all.
We moved in with our host families in Chiang Mai last weekend and will have many more stories to tell, but for now that is all. We are all happy and healthy, though maybe a little homesick.
Sa-wat-dii Kha,
TIAers 08-09