Monday, May 27, 2002

From: Meg Thomsen meginchina@yahoo.com
Subject: A Daisy Through Concrete
Hello Friends and Family,

Nature's an odd concept here in China. China's had its fingers on every little piece of Sichuan, stroking it into fertile farmland, coaxing rice and vegetables out of every piece of land. Dizzying mountains, hillsides, valleys, all are cut up and divided into terraces. And after you pull on your fancy Vasque hiking boots to scale the hillside and are proud of yourself for making it to the top, you see the farmers everywhere. Rope sandals, bamboo poles, baskets laden with lettuce and potatoes. Walking up and down hills, down endless roads, always carrying fresh food. We live in the "rice bowl" of China.

Development is changing China. China's modernization crazy, and it can seem like the entire country should just be slapped with a yellow sign labeling it "Under Construction". Whether this is good or bad is not for me to say.

This weekend, I went to Deyang to visit my host family. The main drag that leads to the House of Qin used to be one of my favorite streets. Tianshan Lu followed the path of the river, and was the place to go walking on summer evenings. The sun went down, and everyone went walking in the cool evenings, to listen to the breeze whistle through the weeping willows, to walk their fluffy little white Pekingese dogs, to play mah-jong, to meet neighbors. The other volunteers and I used to frequent a restaurant on this road, an informal place simply known as "the corner restaurant". It reminded us of the park in "Love in the Time of Cholera" where Florentino Ariza sat smelling the bitter scent of almonds and dreaming of Fermina Daza. We sat there nearly every night drinking Snow beer and shouting over the noise of the cicadas in the trees, watching everything go by, so new and so beautiful, all the while scarcely able to believe that we were in China.

So I returned to Deyang this weekend, and found my beautiful street reduced to a pile of dirt. Bulldozers like dead oxen rested on the dirt piles for the evening. Stones were tossed carelessly; there were nothing of the trees but gaping holes. The corner restaurant was nothing but two or three tables jammed into a tiny space. Most disturbing, it was quiet. No birds, no cicadas. No tinkling bells of the rickshaws, no laughter from the fisherman. No life. "Why?" I asked. "Development!" everyone told me cheerfully. "We will have a new park here. We are so lucky." I looked at the scene before me. "But how can there be a park without the trees and the grass?" "There will be new trees. You'll see."

Sadly, I went inside. After dinner we went for a walk, and I did see. Even though there is nothing but a construction site where this beautiful street used to be, everyone was outside. The neighbors waving to one another, the fluffy white dogs, the children playing. Everyone was still out for their evening stroll. And they didn't see the dirt pile that I saw. They saw new trees, a new park.

We came from nature. Nature has amazing powers to regenerate herself. In the biggest cities, there you'll see her power. A scraggly weed pushes itself up through the pavement; moss grows over the faces of great men statues in the park. And new trees will grow. Even as I question the banality that prompted the destruction of a beautiful street, I have faith that new trees will grow.

Students came over to my house today. Tomorrow, they will perform a play that they wrote about the endangered red-crowned crane, and they will do a red-crowned crane dance. They wanted music, and I played them Saint-Saens' Piano Concertos. They had never heard them before, and suddenly, all around my apartment, they were dancing. Twelve college students pretending to be red-crowned cranes leaping crazily around my apartment. They are the next generation of leaders in China. New trees will grow.

I'm not an idiot. I teach environmental education. I've done my homework, read "Green Rage" and "The Monkey Wrench Gang", am a member of both Earth First! and the Sierra Club. In no way do I think that environmental degradation has no consequences on our planet. But I also know that nature is wise, and the world is wiser than we. And new trees will grow.

Be happy and well. And enjoy your May, your spring.

Meg