Friday, December 16, 2011
A Changing China
I love China (in fact, I should say we love China, as S does, too). But sometimes it's painful to love China as vast amounts of it's history and cultural heritage in the way of ancient (and I mean ANCIENT as in B.C.!) buildings and neighborhoods, temples, mountains, and rivers are being gobbled up by the insane development it's in the midst of. Development is inevitable, but the way that one goes about it, is not. First let me share the following particularly illuminating Communist Party slogan :
"Build the City, Construct the Roads, Renovate the Mountains, Harness the Rivers."
(taken from p. 42 of "Factory Girls", by Leslie T. Chang - highly recommend this book if you want to know where virtually everything you ever bought that says "made in China" was made, and more importantly by whom.)
(the Lesser Three Gorges, imagine 90 meters less water in this river)
All of that is good and fine, except it creeps into places that I think will have long lasting and detrimental effects. For example : the Three Gorges Dam (the worlds largest hydro-electric dam for those that don't know). Yes, it's enabled China to harness enough electricity to continue to provide to it's ever growing population.
(one of many new bridges, this is a pretty red one)
Problem is, it flooded over 1 million long time residents (as in people who came from a lineage of 1,000+ years) out of their homes and thousands of villages that were sometimes up to 2,000 yrs. old were completely covered in water, never to be seen again. The river now is 90 meters above where it was. 90 METERS!!!!!! And it goes up and down up to 30 meters every year. What does this do to the limestone (soft and porous) rock that is on the spectacular mountains surrounding the river along it's gorges? They are starting to crumble.
(limestone up close)
(a mountain peak named after the Bodhisattva Guan Yin, representative of compassion)
There is some potentially bright news to this all, National Geographic had an interesting take on it, see it here. But otherwise, it's a bit sad. Mainly because the new towns and cities are not so pretty, they're generic, bland, grey, concrete, the only charm that comes is from the people making it their own in whatever way they can. Yes, many of them are happy that they are living in improved accommodations. No, living in a thousand year old stone house isn't always fun in the winter, sans plumping, electricity, and adequate facilities. But why didn't they knock down all of the "old" buildings in Paris? Because then it's not Paris. It's just another city. AnywhereCity.
(one of many landslides, this one killed a whole lot of people - don't know the numbers as they weren't provided - on a boat that was passing by at the wrong time)
When I lived in Beijing the hutongs were at risk too. Luckily some are being preserved because there are a few people out there that are smart enough to have the foresight that the hutongs make Beijing. It also makes us all a little closer and more connected versus stuck in a nondescript high rise, not knowing our neighbors, not knowing our corner store guy, and for our guests coming to visit us - not being able to find us! (trust me this happens, all the time in China). I don't think I'm being an idealist here. The elderly in China are the ones feeling it the most, as their structural community has been pulled from under them. They are finding themselves lonely, lost. That is heart breaking. Architecture was not built for profit only before, it had a thoughtful sense for social interactions. Now it's cheap, it's tall, and it's for the most part, ugly.
(Chaotianmen, old port area of Chongqing)
This has all gotten to me as of late since hearing that a beautiful part of Chongqing, Chaotianmen (the old port area), built in approx. 400 B.C. (!!) is going to be completely knocked down and they are going to build this monster. You will see the inevitable mark of death on buildings, in red, the Chinese character for "knock it" aka. demolish, chai... 拆. It is written everywhere. The knocking down has begun, Chaotianmen's days are numbered.
(sweeping the streets of Chaotianmen, to the left, a demolished building)
(some young guys having fun taking a picture of something random, and behind them if you look really close you can see the Chinese character for demolish in red)
(building to the right was being demolished by 5 construction workers, piece by piece, as I took this picture)
I've been asking many locals what they think of this as I was concerned that it is my purely Western idealistic mind wanting to keep China "quaint" that was saddened about the so called progress, and for the most part the response I get is no different from mine: it is sad. They are losing their history. But they are more practical about it, what can you do? Money is too powerful, and in a sense it is about money (the developers are the new ruling class here). I also learned that there are up to 100,000 riots and protests a year in China, mostly about land (or about labor). Having said all this, I don't think that this issue is endemic to China, it is a worldwide issue. We all play a part in it.
(empty buildings, ready to be knocked down)
(strolling past the already shuttered stores of closed buildings)
I did hear one amazing story about the so called "nail house" as it was being referred to back in 2007 here in Chongqing. Developers were building another enormous mall after knocking down an old part of Chongqing and there was one couple who refused to move out of their house that had been handed down generation after generation. They held fast for 3 long years, becoming the ONLY house in the middle of a large pit while construction went on all around them. Finally, in 2007 they succumbed to the developers and probably got a decent deal out of it, but it makes me smile to know that one couple managed to hold on for that long in the face of such insanity all around them! It's worth reading the story, go here.
If you want to see what's left of China, you better come quick before it becomes one big strip mall.
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