We are sorry to hear of the death of Chinese environmentalist Liang Congjie who died in Beijing recently of a lung ailment. He was 78. Liang was the founder of Friends of Nature, the first legally-recognized environmental group in the People’s Republic of China.

Historian and teacher Liang and three of his colleagues decided to establish a citizens’ environmental group in 1994. He said in a 2000 interview, “We knew from television about Greenpeace, but there wasn’t anything like that in China. My friends and I began wondering, why not here? We decided to try.”

Friends of Nature has worked on important campaigns to preserve China’s forests and its indigenous wildlife, including bird species and the rare Tibetan antelope.

You can read Liang’s obituary in the New York Times at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/world/asia/30liang.html

and in the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) at:

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=3bb545025737c210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=China&s=News

Friends of Nature is found at:

http://www.fon.org.cn/channal.php?cid=774

Our original itinerary, for example, included one night’s stay in Danyang, a small town just outside of Shanghai and along the Yangtze River that is well-known within China for its production of high-quality, inexpensive eye glasses. But our Shanghai host, Zhou Jing, quickly assured us that we could obtain the same fab frames right downtown – near the main railway station, in fact – for roughly the same price, while simultaneously saving ourselves the hassle of a long bus ride to some remote ex-urb. Naturally, we jumped at the chance, climbed into the subway and zoomed off towards our retail destiny.

On the way, we passed a number of storefronts reminding us of familiar names: Coca Cola, Nike, Pizza Hut, Ikea, Walmart, Samsung, KFC, Nokia, McDonalds, Apple, and on and on. These loud advertisements for foreign companies are ubiquitous in urban China, dotting the Shanghai landscape alongside a variety of equally-garish promotions for Chinese brands. Like alters to global capitalism, the world’s many businesses have erected an untold number of absolutely massive commercial malls, discount outlets, and near-labyrinthine shopping complexes; it’s a temple garden of concrete, steel, glass, and elevator music. The Chinese, for their part, have accepted this soft invasion of private capital with open arms, graciously orchestrating an unprecedented construction boom unlike anything the human species has ever seen. What once was a relatively pollution-free vista from the quiet second floor of a Shanghai “li nong“ has mutated over thirty plus years into a high-rise apartment cityscape of grey skies, billboards, and brightly-lit marquees: a pitch-perfect imitation of our own western cities. New York, Paris, London, Shanghai – they’re all the same. In a sense, then, there is no Chinese metropolis; only a newer version of an old story. The whole world’s for sale.

Before we even step off the escalator the saleswomen start to coo at us, loudly, and we know we’ve come to the right place. We’re on the fourth floor of the gigantic “Three Leaves” shopping center, where the eyewear is sold. Dozens of lethargic twenty-somethings lean on one leg behind endless rows of glistening display booths, their hands clasped behind their backs, each calling to us, pleading in Chinese for our attention. “Are you wanting some glasses?” they ask, bored, repeating a line they’ve offered a hundred times already today. “Please take a look. Come in, come in.” Feigned enthusiasm is a kind of national anthem for Chinese working-class youth.

With a knowing glance in Yan’s direction and a nervous chuckle, I quickly break from the cacophony of sound and make my way towards an excessively illuminated shop near the far corner of the building. After exchanging a few social niceties with the staff, Yan and I begin a two-hour relationship with six to eight of the most cunning salespeople in all of China. Or at least it felt that way at the time; I’m pretty sure they had our number the second we walked into the place. Yan’s near three year absence from the haggler’s warzone that is the Chinese marketplace has softened her a bit, slowing her reaction time, and I was never a very good bargainer in the first place. Our saving grace is the (tenuous) strength of the US dollar, so the deck is already stacked in our favor. Ultimately, when they’re done with us, Yan and I leave with a bulk order: six pairs of new frames, three each (with prescription lenses), including two sets of custom sunglasses. They’re happy, we’re happy; our money greases the system for another day.

On the street, we take turns examining each other, making comments about the nose pads, or the ear pieces, or the yellow tint to our lenses, etc. Yan thinks I look cool in sunglasses, like a movie star. I don’t know if a chunky bald guy will ever truly look like a movie star, but I can definitely see the world a lot better now: no scratches, no blurry spots, no distortions. China is much, much clearer, billboards and all.

Ryn Shane-Armstrong
October 25, 2010

Technically speaking, “Ben Ben” is just a nickname. The little man’s full title is Zhu Jun Yi, and he is the center of the known universe for at least six people in Shanghai: Mom, Dad, and two sets of doting grandparents. This latter group – a small army of grinning retirees – is earnestly protective of Ben Ben. They appear at times to have physically fused themselves together to form a kind of impenetrable force field around their beloved grandchild; a tiny, booby-trapped zone of safety that surrounds Ben Ben like a steel bubble. I’m pretty sure I’ll lose a hand, maybe a finger or two, should I try to stroke Ben Ben’s downy scalp during a feeding with one of the grandmothers. But I don’t have the courage to confirm my speculations.

Ben Ben’s lofty position in the eyes of his grandparents isn’t a particularly unusual phenomenon in China. Like many other children of these so-called “new Chinese” families, Ben Ben is simply the latest representative of the next generation of “Xiao Huangdi,” or “little Emperors.” This ever-growing contingency of spoiled-rotten, entitled, middle-class cuties pretty much gets whatever the heck it wants, when it wants it, no questions asked, and grandparents are among the most guilty in perpetuating the undue privilege.

To be fair, the “Xiao Huangdi” effect, as it were, is a complicated matter. Older Chinese, including Ben Ben’s loving grandparents – people who suffered mightily through the horror of Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution – are quick to defend a little pampering here and there. And Deng Xiaoping’s “one child policy” in the 1970s, combined with a generally unreliable social security system, has pretty much ensured the preciousness of any new life that comes into the family. After all, that little girl or boy will eventually grow up, get an education, make some money, and one day be put in charge of managing the well-being of his or her elders. It’s the highly-localized, Chinese version of health insurance.

Naturally, Xu Yan and I also part of the gang. We have recently been given the illustrious title of “gan ma” and “gan ba”, or godmother and godfather. They’re monikers we don’t take lightly, mind you. The implied social obligations hidden within Chinese words are much stricter and decidedly more serious than their counterparts in the English-speaking world. For example, everyone in Jing and Lei’s house, including Jing and Lei, seem to share the expectation that Yan and I, as godparents, will certainly be hosting Ben Ben in the United States once he has finished high school and has been accepted into an American university. This was news to me, of course, as Yan and I haven’t even decided on whether or not we’re getting a dog.

But this is the way it’s done in China: you strengthen the network. One of the most admirable aspects of Chinese culture is a seemingly pervasive ethic for passing along one’s wisdom and resources to the next generation. Yan and I aren’t about to buck the norm. It was in this light that, in fact, that we came to China with a backpack full of English-language children’s books – some of them strategically selected by my own knowing mother (“Where the Wild Things Are,” etc.) – to give Ben Ben’s expanding reading list a little international color should he one day decide to follow in the footsteps of his godparents and enter into the cosmopolitan world of language acquisition, travel, and multicultural romance. We did this because, like Zhou Jing, Zhu Lei, and the four-headed grandparent mafia, we all believe in Ben Ben and the potential of this already vibrant, joyous, attentive, intelligent, and promising young being. In essence, we all believe in the future.

Ryn Shane-Armstrong
October 22, 2010

This go-around we were very, very lucky. Xu Yan’s best friend, Zhou Jing, owns a car, and she and her husband, Zhu Lei, were more than happy to pick us up and take us to their home in the northern suburbs near Zhabei and Baoshan, where we would be staying for a few days before venturing deeper into the mainland. Cost and time-loss aside, this friendship saved us a lot of trouble as the alternative route into Shanghai would have involved at least two long subway rides and a crowded bus trip into unknown territory, all while under a jetlag haze. We were therefore quite grateful for Jing and Lei’s hospitality. In China, the strength of your relationships often mean the difference between having a good time and tremendous hardship.

We also couldn’t have asked for a better living situation. Jing and Lei live on the eleventh floor of building in relatively new housing complex within their middle-class neighborhood, and for the next couple of days or so it’s ours to do with as we please. They have food, a warm shower, pillows and blankets, a stable internet connection, and a southern vista that satiates my desire for a truly Chinese experience. Standing on the balcony, leaning out over the metal frame of the large sliding windows, breathing in the sour night air, I finally feel that we have arrived.

Ryn Shane-Armstrong
October 15, 2010

I took this photo in a small corner market in Nanjing.  The owners did their best to translate Chinese words into English. The English words are actually quite logical yet they don’t make a lot sense to us.  What would you guess a “relaxed” food is?  Obviously, it’s a food to be eaten when relaxing, i.e. “snack foods.”   And what could a swollen food be?  Any food that swells up while it being cooked, of course. That would be popcorn and naturally a swollen food like popcorn is quite appropriately found on the relaxed foods isle. Chocolate – well, chocolate is universal.

CJ Shane
September 28, 2010

Every American I have ever known loves Nanjing, and that includes me. It is a beautiful city full of huge old Chinese parasol trees that were planted at the end of World War II. They form a canopy over Nanjing major boulevards. Vehicles are found in the center lanes, islands to the side with trees and shrubs make the bicycle lanes safer, and most buildings have even more trees and shrubs near the entrances. All this greenery cuts down on air pollution and makes the city quieter, cooler, and simply lovelier than many Chinese cities.

CJ Shane
September 28, 2010

Many YingwenTeachers have already discovered that the Chinese classroom is the best place on earth to develop meaningful friendships. You’ll never forget your students or your Chinese colleagues… and they’ll never forget you!

If education is a life-long journey, then teaching English in China is a great adventure! YingwenTeach seeks those truly intrepid educators who wish to share their talents in one of the most enigmatic countries in the world.

Teaching English in China is more than a job; it’s a mission of peace.  YingwenTeach is founded on the belief that through education we can bridge cultures and improve understanding between the world’s many people.