First day in Shanghai. We've been in China for over a month now and I still feel as if I've barely skimmed the surface. Beijing, Nanjing, Anhui – it's crazy how quickly time flies by, how fleeting these moments are. I've gotten close to many of the people on this trip and as it nears its end I can feel the nostalgia already creeping in. My brain is saturated with information and my life feels fuller. I only wish that this trip would last a bit longer. We've had such an amazing opportunity to listen to so many different speakers that have given us insight into the country that we're traveling in. I'm so thankful for these kinds of experiences because they allow for me to dig a little deeper into my personal journey and make the best of my time abroad.
The morning started off at 9am when we listened to speaker We Heng, the creator of "Throw it out the Window", a website that has produced a database of news reports on food scandals in China. Hearing about many of the food safety issues before coming to China – rat and fox meat being passed off as lamb in street food, the recycling of gutter oil, dead pigs in rivers– I was a bit weary of eating street food. But after hearing Mr. Wu speak, I discovered that these kinds of scandals happen all over China. Not just in street food! So, I'm pretty sure I've consumed some industrial chemicals and/or food cooked with gutter oil at some points during this trip. Even though this may be true, I'm not too concerned about it because, as Mr. Wu explained, as long as you're eating a diverse diet you should be okay. "Rotate your poisons," he said. I thought to myself, how funny is it that this speaker is saved for the end when we've already eaten our way through three cities. Well… at least it all tasted good!
Aside from these enlightening and slightly horrifying realizations, I also learned a about how the government operates when these kinds of food issues come up. There are ten separate departments that deal with food safety, which means that it is difficult to hold any one of them accountable. The system is unorganized and in that way completely inefficient. What is even more interesting is that the central government officials have their own farms so that they know where their food is coming from and what exactly their eating. They won't even eat their own country's food because they know exactly what is going on. So why is nobody at the government level attempting to regulate food safety in China? Again, we come back to the undeniable corruption in the Chinese government. Being a government official is a very lucrative position and an official's biggest concern is not making mistakes rather than protecting the people. It's better to not do anything than try to implement policy and fail. So not only is no one department or person held accountable for babies dying from formula containing industrial strength chemicals, no one has the initiative to step up and do something about it at the official level. In the end it also seems as if it is the consumers job to "rotate their poisons" and try to choose what they eat wisely. Mr. Wu's website provides much of this awareness and is now almost entirely run by public posts.
After listening to Mr. Wu's talk, the issues seem to be much more complex. It goes back to thinking about why exactly people are selling bad food and who exactly is selling it. Sometimes people need to go to drastic measures to make money for their families in order to survive. Perhaps the people who sell bad food aren't really thinking about the well being of other people and completely detach themselves from their customers. Maybe their consumer's health is not their concern – they're just trying collect their livelihood. Whatever the reasons may be, what becomes obvious is that food safety is a rather big issue in China and is something that needs to be improved. Quality of life is a measure of how developed a country is, and as China becomes more and more developed it needs to pay attention to these pressing issues.
We then moved on to talk with Jenny from ChinesePod. I used ChinesePod in my Chinese class last semester, Spring 2013, so I was very interested to see the face behind the voice. Jenny explained to us that their goal is to make people interested in learning Chinese. They attempt to mirror what people go through in their daily lives and have over 2,200 podcasts available. I thought about how much Mandarin I've learned while I've been here in China and I feel like it's been so much more than what I've learned in the classroom. But I feel like it's only because being in China has added context to my broken Mandarin phrases and pushes me to use them even though I might be embarrassed. When I go back to Los Angeles or Boston it's going to be a little different. I won't be forced to speak Chinese and I won't have a group of people who are also learning Chinese to help motivate me. My mom doesn't even speak Mandarin, she speaks Cantonese. I'm going to have to really push myself to keep up with my Mandarin once I leave China.
After lunch at Hooters in the Super Brand Mall, I realized that it's a little different from the ones in America. It's a bit more of a wholesome family experience here, and I could see that as I ate my grilled chicken Caesar salad. Next we went to meet Charles Wang, an architect who works in urban development in the Pudong area of Shanghai. He is the founder and CEO of Unitown Design Inc. He explained to us that Pudong was composed almost entirely of rice fields just twenty years ago, which is very hard to believe looking at the city now. It has become one of the most important locations in China geographically. Shanghai is the most westernized city of China, it has become an economic and financial center, and it has an exponentially growing population. Mr. Wang spoke of the differences between building projects in China and the US. The government in China is very heavily involved in building projects, which is very different from the US. As China's infrastructure improves, easy access to transportation increases, population also increases. Fast development such as this can generate environmental and pollution issues, as well as human rights issues concerning dilemmas including displacement.
In conclusion, today has given me a very interesting perspective on China's most westernized city. I've been here before with family but would have never gotten these opportunities to listen to these speakers had I come without this Dialogue. There is only one phrase that details all of my emotions about this experience: "Shanghai feichang youyisi." ("Shanghai is really interesting!")
- Megan I.
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