I didn't come to China for glittering shopping malls and designer brands, real or faked. I came for tiled roofs, mosaic murals lining the canal, street markets, leafy neighborhood parks where old men exercise while waving swords or whips, tiny shops selling glimmering lengths of silk in rich jewel colors hanging from bamboo poles, pieces of white and green jade carved into amazing sculptures, wizened old peasant ladies with flowered blouses and gold teeth who seem to regard Life (and foreigners) as a cosmic joke. Boshan has all this, check, check, check and check...
Zibo City includes five districts. Zhangdian district, where I live, has all the modern conveniences. But for picturesque beauty, give me Boshan District. Boshan has more hills, or rather low mountains; it's greener, the air is cleaner and the temperatures are a little cooler. The streets are narrower, the traffic is even crazier, and you can see Old China on every street corner, from the old man selling birds from large wicker birdcages to the little boy in the alley pulling down his pants to take a -- okay, it's all incredibly quaint.
I didn't come to China for glittering shopping malls and designer brands, real or faked. I came for tiled roofs, mosaic murals lining the canal, street markets, leafy neighborhood parks where old men exercise while waving swords or whips, tiny shops selling glimmering lengths of silk in rich jewel colors hanging from bamboo poles, pieces of white and green jade carved into amazing sculptures, wizened old peasant ladies with flowered blouses and gold teeth who seem to regard Life (and foreigners) as a cosmic joke. Boshan has all this, check, check, check and check...
0 Comments
Many years ago, my husband and I had a chance to hear columnist Gwynne Dyer speak in our town. It was during the "holiday from history," after the end of the Cold War and before the rise of militant Islamism. Dyer pointed out that the world was basically at peace (as it was at that time). He pointed to what he saw as the greatest threat looming on the horizon -- if China and India industrialized to Western levels of prosperity, he warned, the planet would not be able to sustain all the pollution they would generate. At the time, I was indignant on behalf of the Indians and the Chinese, as he seemed to be implying that they simply could not be allowed to aspire to the same things that we had. But I probably misunderstood him. In this more recent column, he acknowledges that if China and India were to put environmental curbs ahead of economic growth, many of their citizens would remain impoverished. He concludes that the developed world should pay the freight for keeping the planet clean. I arrived in China at Beijing airport and and took the train the following day to Zibo City. The entire region is heavily polluted, folks. I arrived on a day when the pollution was especially bad; the sky was grey from horizon to horizon with no hint of blue. Fortunately, not every day is that bad -- today for example, it was clear enough that you could see blue sky and even fluffy white clouds, which are usually invisible in the hovering murk. The grime settles thickly on the windows and the window-screens. So that's just the way it is. China burns a lot of coal and there are a lot of factories in and around the region. As Gwynne Dyer pointed out, the West got a head start on ruining the environment. The old premier of my Canadian province, WAC Bennett, used to say that the stench from the pulp mill was the smell of money. And London was once notorious for its "pea soup" fogs. Once upon a time, all men lived and worked by wood smoke and candle flame. In the short term, if you are thinking of coming to China to teach, research the pollution levels in the areas you're interested in and ask yourself what level of psychological and physical discomfort you can put up with. I'm not crazy about the pollution, of course, but it came as no surprise. What has been a pleasant surprise is the number of trees in the city and on the campus. There are many city parks, all beautifully tended. Soon large planters all over the city will be filled with summer bedding plants. The cherry blossoms are gone, but climbing roses are in bloom and calendulas are budding out everywhere. Today I also saw some gorgeous peonies, the nation's national flower. All the greenery helps a lot. In contrast to the little smiley face cartoon characters who represent authority figures in Zibo, the architecture of public buildings is designed to impress and awe. The vocational institute where I work has three campuses and each campus features lavish use of public space, huge plazas, granite columns that wouldn't be out of place in Karnak, long flights of stairs and imposing (in one case cantilevered) buildings. At these temples of knowledge, the lone human being takes on ant-like proportions. A former teacher told me that walking across the plaza is not fun in winter with a stiff breeze in your face. To be fair, there are also lots of trees and plantings on the campuses and even an ornamental lake at the South Campus. It's not hard to spot government buildings in Zibo City. They are huge and often more architecturally interesting than the equivalent structure back home. Take the government buildings in the city where I used to live in Canada. Kelowna's school district headquarters, its City Hall, the college, and the auto insurance office, are one or two-storey buildings that have a sort of modular, semi-permanent look to them. In China, an orgy of building means lots of new government buildings.
Living in a foreign country means that every day you are confronted with a succession of little surprises, as you realize that procedures, routines, even hand gestures that you took for granted, are different in your new home. In Canada, when our government posts a safety notice or warning to the public, it's a sober, matter-of-fact pronouncement. For example, below is a bilingual notice about radio frequency radiation.
Outside the hotel, another large sign offers family planning advice, while down the street, Smiley internet policeman warns underage patrons to stay out. (Or so I am told -- I am entirely reliant on my students and new friends to explain things to me.)
|
About the author:I blog about my research into Jane Austen and her world, plus a few other interests. Welcome! My earlier posts (prior to June 2017) are about my time as a teacher of ESL in China (just click on "China" in the menu below). More about me here. Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
© Lona Manning 2023
|