October 9, 2014
As industrialization has developed in China, environmental problems have emerged. Globally, the environment has become severely polluted because cities are usually busy and crowded, which causes smog, litter and an effluence that contaminates the air we breathe and the water we drink. Growing up in the city of Shanghai gave me little sense of how polluted China was becoming because Shanghai, with a population of more than 23 million people, is such a clean and wonderful city. I didn’t pay close attention to China’s environmental problems until I saw the sharp contrast between my home country and the United States.
When I was 18, I went on a vacation to Hawaii with my friends. I enjoyed a few relaxing days at Waikiki (spouting water) Beach and fell in love with the natural beauty. The golden sand was as smooth as silk, and the fresh water caresses the beach like a mother lulls her child to sleep. Seagulls flew across the clear blue sky, and people walked on the beach with bare feet. Everything was tranquil and delightful. Nature and humanity were in harmony.
Unfortunately, I encountered a completely different situation in China when I was on the beach. After my high school graduation, my family decided to go to Hainan (south of the sea), a famous southern island in China. Before we arrived, I thought the beach at the island would be as wonderful as Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. I imagined the gleaming sun shining on our faces and the water fresh and cool. However, everything turned out to be a huge disappointment. The ocean was full of trash with plastic floating on the water surface, and the beach was awful as litter was mixed with the sand. People crowded into the water like dumplings boiled in a hot pot. Compared to my trip to Hawaii, the vacation at Hainan Island was such a bad experience. I started to be aware of the environmental problems in China, but I consoled myself by saying that famous vacation places always attract a lot of tourists and Chinese people have poor ethics.
A later trip to my hometown made me more conscious of the severity of the environmental problems. Pollution is not only harmful to mother nature but also toxic to the human body. When I was little, I used to live in a house next to a placid lake in a serene countryside. The lake was so clear that I could see fish swimming in groups and rocks lying on the bottom. Every morning I woke up in a breeze of fresh air with a song from the pretty birds. I enjoyed pleasant days in the green fields, feeding the tame poultry, trying to catch the wild rabbits and listening to the songs of the skylarks. When the summer was over, my family moved to the city because my dad transferred his business, and I had to go to kindergarten.
My family didn’t return to the small town until we heard from a relative who was dying from cancer. I was surprised to see how in a decade the countryside had been transformed. The tranquil lake beside my old house was now dirty and polluted, with plastic bags and dead fish floating in it. Huge factories had been built in wildflower fields that were once the natural habitats of undomesticated furry animals. The sky, darkened by the smoke from the factories, had lost its beautiful blue color, and there was a strange smell similar to poisonous gas in the air. People on the street wore masks and walked rapidly. Everything wonderful in my memory was now distorted. I never could have anticipated such a huge change. I stood in front of my house in shock. Yet this was just one of the many striking transformations. When we went to visit our relative in his home, he told us 12 people in the town had died from cancer in the past decade, and more people were diagnosed with some form of the disease.
I was infuriated with the reality that the factories were continuing to be built despite the risk to public health. As I calmed down, I found that I couldn’t simply hold the factories accountable because I was indirectly benefitting from those industries. My currently delightful life came at the price of others’ unhappiness; I could do little to change this truth. A country had to develop; shutting down the factories would cause an economic recession. But can we not find a healthier way to develop the economy? The idea of “recycle, reuse and reduce” needs to be enhanced, and more awareness about the concept of a green community needs to appear in the media. At the recent Climate 2014 Summit, Chinese leaders publically stated that global warming is changing lifestyles in China. People are worried about the future. I have this dream that one day my beloved motherland will recover from the egregious wounds we have caused, and we, the people, will restore the earth to its natural beauty.
“From Where I Sit” is a column dedicated to the international voices of Hamilton’s campus. If you are an international student and are interested in contributing a column, contact Sarah Rahman (srahman@hamilton.edu).
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