Mini-Adventures

I done anything crazy lately, but I'll write about some of my recent mini-adventures.

My roommate and I have been going running in the morning, and we pass many senior citizens doing tai chi. It's not that far off from the “exercise gymnastics” on the plane ride that I described because everyone is exercising exactly in unison. In fact when we pass them in the morning, around the same time each day, they're always on the same knee exercise. I've yet to join them, but I need to. Apparently we're learning some tai chi in kung fu class next week also. (Kung fu is coming along well, you better watch out for my power moves...)

This weekend, some friends and I went to the global center, a hugeeeee mall in Chengdu. It's the second largest building in the world by floor space, second to a terminal in Dubai's airport. (Airports shouldn't count, seriously.) So we get to this massive building, and it feels very American, except when it doesn't. There's an ice skating rink, an indoor water park, a hotel, a movie theater, restaurants, and of course, tons and tons of stores. And lots of foreign stores, too. The first store that I saw was H&M, which had comparable American prices. The mall was very pricey overall for China, and the people walking around were definitely well off. High fashion in Asia is really different and amusing to me. As opposed to the simple, black and white chic that American young women tend to wear, I see fashionistas here wearing animal print pants, floral and chiffon dresses, patterned hair bows, and most noticeably, super high heels. I don't understand how people can walk, let alone ride a motorbike in heels that high.

We also had a field trip to an organic farm nearby.  Many of our afternoon "culture" lectures have focused on the environment: agriculture, organic farming, and waste management. More than I've ever learned about the environment in America, actually. I can tell the environment is such a pressing concern for China from a political and economic perspective. Not only are cities polluted (the sky is not blue, and it's much better than Shanghai or Beijing), but China also is facing a natural gas crisis. I hope that it doesn't take severe air pollution (due to pollution a huge number of Chinese babies are born with disabilities) and natural gas depletion to get Americans to start talking about the environmental crisis.

Another observation is about disabilities of any kind. It seems like living in China with any sort of illness or disability is really really difficult. There's a gate here called xiao bei men (“little north gate”), which literally has a two foot wide opening. (In order to deter motorbikes from entering, I guess.) But it also would definitely deter obese people (who apparently don't exist in China...). Not only that, but as far as I can tell most places don't have wheelchair accessible entrances. And finally, I know someone with Celiac's disease, and she's had the hardest time communicating that she can't eat gluten, even after looking up the Chinese word.

While my political beliefs haven't become radically left since being here, I did just attend a fascinating lecture on family planning in China which may have changed the way that I view the one child policy. Our professor was very open and talked about many of the pitfalls of the policy since its implementing, including coerced abortion, infanticide, child brides, abandoned children, and undocumented children who can never work, get married, or do anything without an ID. (I also learned that in several more rural provinces in China *today*, there are 133 males born for every 100 females...) So while I still think that the one child policy was hugely problematic (and its revised version still is), I don't oppose it for the same reasons I did before. I used to think to myself: what an infringement of people's personal rights to tell someone how many children to have. Now I think that given the system of work communes at the time, the policy wasn't any more intrusive than anything else. Given that people had production quotas, meal quotas, and everything-you-can-think-of quotas... I don't know.