After class and on weekends, I’ve had the wonderful privilege to go sight-seeing in the city! My first visit was to the Great Wall at the Mutianyu site, which was an exhausting climb and a spectacular view! And instead of walking back down at the finish of our day, we got to go down a chute on sitting-scooters! It was an incredibly fun ride! We also visited Tienanmen square where official government meetings and conventions are held (and where just recently the National Peoples’ Congress convened, behind closed-doors.) We took a trip to the Forbidden City where former emperors resided, and the ancient buildings are beautiful, with sloping roofs and gargoyles, and beautiful, decorative red, blue, green and gold painting. The golden statues of lions and paintings of dragons have thus far been my favorite! One of my best experiences so far, has been visiting the Temple of Heaven- a site also filled with ancient buildings and relics. But my favorite part about it was seeing the many gatherings taking place just outside of the main entrance! There were many older people twirling ribbons–like the kind you see used in rhythmic gymnastics–doing tai chi and practicing this graceful, impressive performance of twirling and balancing this ball on a racket of sorts (they even tried to teach us and we got some practice, too!)
Everything about Beijing is very westernized and modern nowadays, and among the many things I’m impressed by is their public transportation system which consists of very reliable and new-looking buses and metro trains. While you’re riding, they even have digital display screens showing ads on the tunnel walls outside of the train that keep up to speed with the car somehow so you can view it! It’s ridiculously high-tech. The city has definitely experienced a big boom and it really shows.
Most everything that we see day-to-day makes it seem as though Beijing (and China in general in some ways) really has its act together. Their one-party structure depends heavily on social stability and their active government seeks to maintain just that. However, the city and country still face many problems associated with the pull towards development.
Of the many things we’ve learned in class, the most eye-opening and heartbreaking for me has been about the HIV/AIDS situation here. In the very recent past, both governmental and illegal blood procurement agencies set up camp in poor rural areas where demand for donating blood in exchange for money is high. Unfortunately, blood groups are pooled and unsterile needles are used, and HIV rates (which once were miniscule) spread like wildfire. Essentially, if even one person was initially infected, up to hundreds could end up contracting the disease. In many villages, as much as 50% of the adult population has HIV, or is dying of AIDS. A leader of a local NGO geared at relief-work told us (and even showed us on video) some of the numerous families whose children bear the burden of taking care of their parents and grandparents in their remaining years and days. He spoke of one HIV-negative young daughter in a family of 8 other HIV-positive members, and about the incredible hardships she will have to face while growing up. He said he visited one village on a day that 11 funerals were taking place, only one of them for a person who died of a reason other than AIDS. Though the spread of HIV was an unforseen consequence, it is an even harsher cruetly that these agencies targeted poor areas to get more customers; that rural villages are struck the hardest, and that some are even disappearing is an incredible tragedy. Unfortunately, I have to imagine that there are some illegal underground procurement agencies that are still working today.
We also learned about how the push towards economic prosperity has pulled many farmers to the cities as migrant workers. We took a trip to another local NGO working for these peoples’ occupational health and wellbeing and learned about the intense and constant hardships they face as the prices of their crops fall so that they can no longer subsist on their land. They are forced to work under hazardous conditions in factories and manufacturing companies, at construction sites and at other physically-demanding and health impairing work sites. They are often exposed to volatile carcinogens, or suffer from burns as fires often break out in these unsafe working conditions. Many families that live in rural areas have members who go out to the cities to work and earn money for them, but for some of the most unfortunate, the most money that comes in for them is from the government, in the form of reimbursement for a life lost. Daily, I pass by these migrant workers on the streets or in the metro station, carrying all their necessary belongings (which may in fact be the sum total of all of their belongings) in plastic luggage bags. It is also not infrequent that I see burn victims, but only recently, after this lecture, was I able to put their condition into context. I have no idea what statistics are available that would demonstrate the prevalance of these accidents in society, but their presence is undoubtably noticeable. Sadly and frighteningly, I passed by a man one day sitting collecting change on a bridge who I did not at first recognize as human.
These are only a few of the problems we’ve been exploring. It has been exceedingly hard to conceptualize them even when they’re right in front of me; its even harder to come to terms with them when I see them on an everyday basis. Everything has challenged the way I think and feel about how things work, both here and in the US. I find it amazing that if you look just beneath the surface, you will find so much going wrong.
