Save the Trees

Porn for a cause.

If you click on the link above you won't go to the porn site, but to an article with the porn site in it. I'm sure most of you are at work right now, and although I'd be happy to spend most of my work day surfing porn, other people may have more tact than me.

I was a bit of an environmentalist before coming to China. And I mean that in a sense that I'd do little things like walk instead of drive, recycle if there was a bin nearby, I even started declining a plastic bag when offered. After I arrived in China I realized what a vain effort that actually was. If you buy anything in a store here almost each individual item is put in a separate plastic bag. At first I was still used to declining a plastic bag but now I don't bother. It doesn't really matter that some people in San Francisco and Sydney are declining to have their groceries put in plastic bags once a week when literally billions of little baggies are issued out and dropped carelessly on the ground in China every day. The concept of recycling is totally foreign. There is always, always pollution in the air.

In Lin'an people ask me if I enjoy all the fresh air and I just look at them in shock. There is a chemical plant right outside the gates of my university that is constantly letting out shit into the air. I've been jogging in the mornings for the past couple weeks but I'm not sure if it's doing more harm than good. I guess since I've quit smoking my lungs have missed the bursts of regular unnatural pain.

I did a section on the environment in my classes - environmentalist terms and ideas in English. My students knew all the problems and could recite fluently why it was bad and that it needed to be improved. They also could recite that the governement was treating it as it's top priority and new efforts were being released regularly to improve the situation.

Fortunately, I don't think some people are buying it. This town is only a couple hours away from me. I told you I was going to start the next revolution. Only I don't think people rise up in Lin'an.

As for the Japanese protests, I haven't seen any of that either. I'm currently doing a news section in my class. Yesterday I had a little nationalistic jargon, I'm not looking forward to it again today but there's nothing I can do about it. I told my students they weren't allowed to talk about politics in the next class. Anyway, I had them write a pretend story about one of the protester's mother. "China is the mother to all Chinese and she respects the protesters right to stand up against the injustices against her." It really is unbearable.