He chuckled. "It's funny that none of my students realize just how polluted this country is. They've lived with it their whole lives and most of them have never even visited the western part of China. Whenever there's anything in the news about pollution it's about how much the U.S. and Europe are responsible for global warming. They're pretty shocked when I show them statistics that China has like 22 of the 30 worst polluted cities in the world but it's true even when they look it up themselves."
I took his bag of food we'd bought at the House of the Inscrutable and Venerable Colonel as he unlocked the door. Tony had been the first American I met in China who wasn't completely piss drunk, though in all fairness the other ones I'd seen were around Nanjing Road at four o'clock in the morning. He and his Atlantan wife have been English teachers here for a couple years and live just a couple blocks south of my campus-- I had literally bumped into him at the corner bank.
The apartment was well furnished and more comfortable and well-lit than the exterior building
suggested. A pair of Taiwanese guests were also there, but all three women spent their dinner talking amongst themselves in heavily accented Chinese and cooing over Tony and Charity's baby daughter while Tony and I compared notes about life over here (ok, I admit I cooed at the baby too).
Pollution is being solved here the way it seems the government solves all their problems-- massive remobilization. Since March, all construction on new structures has ceased in Beijing and all urban factories have been relocated to the edges of the province. Even still it's unlikely that the air will clear up well enough for the Olympics but I should have a better notion of that once I go to Beijing next week.
As Tony reiterated, what mattered the most were peoples' perceptions. There's a particular Shanghai native I encountered at the expats' weekly lunch in Zhongshan Park (lunch wasn't actually in the park but at a restraunt in the shopping complex nearby). Anyway this fellow is a 22-yr-old econ student named Yao (no relation) Zhang (no relation) who was too eager to talk with me after lunch was ended. First I told him that I was going to get on the train and he said 'oh me too we can ride together' and then I changed my mind and said that I needed a walk after eating such a big meal and he said 'oh that's a great idea i'll come with you'. Unable to be rid of him I cross examined him as we strolled around the park.
Shanghai was the greatest city in China, Yao boasted, much cleaner than those dirty crime-ridden towns Guangzhou and Shenzhen to the south and much clearer than Beijing. Indeed it was the first sunny day I'd experienced downtown and I took as many pictures around the park as I could. When I asked what he thought of China's leaders he was forthright and unhesitant with admiration for them, though he regretted that officials have become more corrupt since the reigns of Mao and Deng. I asked what would happen if uniformed men appeared at his door one night to send him to a farm as was common in the 1960s.
"They could not do this," he said.
"There are laws?" I asked.
"Yes, Deng Xiaopeng made new laws."
"But the laws could change?"
"No, this all happened when China is very poor."
On the one hand it's unfortunate that I don't speak the language and must resort to asking leading questions and putting words in people's mouths but even still I found our exchange over the One Child Policy bizarre. I prefaced my questions by reminding him that the U.S.S.R. encouraged women to have as many babies as they could and special awards were given to those who had ten children with the same husband.
"What if tomorrow Hu Jintao said families could have more children? You just said that the population was too high but would you agree if the One Child Policy were suspended?"
"Yes."
"You'd be ok with that?"
"Yes."
"And if they changed it back you'd be ok with that as well?"
"Yes."
Yao's English had proven very fluent earlier but he offered no provisos or parentheticals. At a loss for words I patted him on the back and offered to buy him an ice cream cone.
Other people like Junjian, the teacher and laser fusion researcher who works in the office next to mine, are more consistent. She sees the Policy as a grim necessity though she looks wistful when she says she wants two children. "You want a little girl and a little boy?" I ask.
"Yes!" she beams. Junjian has a thirteen year old brother which was permitted since she herself was born before the policy went into effect, or something along those lines. Yes, this woman is older than me:
When 31 years old you reach, look as good you will not
And they're excited about western culture. Most popular American products among the Chinese are the NBA, music videos, KFC and Mickey Mouse. They share a unhealthy predilection for inappropriate t-shirts as well.
The portending doom question that journalists like to ask is whether Chinese admire American independence more than American wealth. I don't know if you'd even make a definitive statement about Americans with regards to that. I am uploading an English assignment that a student gave me to correct for her. I ended up correcting more of her teacher's grammar than her own but the content of the passage was more interesting. Next week I will meet up with the other American students in Beijing. I don't know whether I'll be able to post another entry but at least I should have plenty of things to talk about when I return.
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