Wednesday 7:15am. Foggy and humid, those massive flies rubbing their wings, making cicadas sound like lullabys. Another night spent sleeping under a soaking bath towel. July cruising into port. The odds-and-sods man cruising by on his loud-speaker bicycle. A solitary woman tai chi fan dancing outside the kindergarten. A car horn in the distance. Five purple morning glories getting a raw deal on this ethereal grey day.
Another day of work ahead, but this one not too bad with only my EF4 (adult class) to entertain. This time round their names are better than fiction; could anyone come up with anything more pleasing to the ear than Pinky, Livra, Wilson, Fish, God, Moon and Leo (a girl)? Slagging matches in class yesterday between Pinky and Fish, who have taken to calling each other Piggy and Dog. Sometimes its wisest to simply sit back and enjoy the funfair.
Listening to West African music (Toumani Diabate with his akora, soulful song and chorus of girls) in a city that seems to be at the other end of the earth, where 95% of my students will never have heard of Mali (would that figure, I wonder, be any different in England?).
Beautiful music for soulless city, where art, religion and scholarship were stamped out so thoroughly in the Cultural Revolution. They certainly did a good job obliterating anything the Japanese missed in WWII.
After 30 years, creativity and imagination are only just beginning to sprout back through the cracks in the concreted earth. This land of chanting and marching does its best to stifle any right-brain activity, but human nature is just too strong to be stifled forever.
Ha! Take that Chairman Mao!
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The Party have recently made a constitutional amendment recognising protection of private property, which runs contrary to communist principles. This unconstitutional move is perhaps a reflection of changing attitudes and values towards property, the environment and hygiene. Perhaps the old attitude of 'It's not mine, so why should I care?' is finally becoming old hat?
One looks at the grimy buildings, the forlorn broken windows, old plastic bags clinging to bars on windows, dirty streets. If this were England, there would be men and women on ladders scrubbing their patch, making their walls and windows glisten and gleam, and not touching a brick beyond their own. A metaphor for 'keeping up with the Joneses' style capitalism: we can only evaluate our own worth by comapring it (favourably) to others'.
Here, even if the apartments do belong to individual property owners, so many years of living with the knowledge that your home could be confiscated at any moment has induced a lack of regard for aethetics. What's the point in allowing yourself to be proud of your possessions when tomorrow they may be snatched from your hands? Communism explains more than just a lack of individual pride in ownership; it extends to a lack of respect for the environment, which belongs to 'the people', aka the goverment, aka no-one, and no-one cares for it, so 'why should I?'.
'Right now, political instability and crime occurs because too many people in China have nothing to lose. In a way, the party's agenda has come full circle. Remember, it was Mao Zedong himself who once said, 'The land should be given to those who work on it.' Finally, that is about to happen.' - Lawrence Brahm, Sth China Post, 08.03.04
But how do you reverse a social trend that has become so ingrined that it is now part of the national mentality ('It is in my nature to destroy nature')? It's not that I personally would get a kick out of seeing the locals out on ladders scrubbing the front of their buildings (although that would indeed be a bizarre sight to see). But how does one instill environmental pride in people who see environmental pride as pointless?
After climbing The Mountain That Flew Here in Hangzhou, and exploring a few different areas of China, it has become evident to me that there is some sort of 'Keep China Beautiful' campaign that is getting through. One has to presume that there is a fairly heavy north-south divide scorched across the land (and, dare I say it, that north-south divide can only be the Great Wall, built to defend the 'civilised' south from marauding northern barbarians). If you picture the area north-east of Beijing as one big polluted smoggy industrial cess-pit, you are on the way to understanding why people up here don't seem to give a damn about their physical environment. What's the point, when the Big Men are already doing their best to kill the place, a slow death for every northern citizen via heavy, cancer-inducing air.
Looking out of my window though now, I see that it's beginning to clear up. It's already difficult to remember the disgustingness, the air thick with gluggy coal smoke, that was winter. Blue skies, green trees, grass and flowers, a glimpse of pretty green hillsides between the glistening pink buildings of Shi Ji Hua Yuan. It's truly a glorious day.
Have I just contradicted everything I've just said?