Pop, pop, pop

I’m a firm believer that some of the world’s cutest kids are Chinese.  Even when they are a bit dirty and have split pants (the solution to no diapers, and probably a good preventative for diaper rash in China’s more humid climates).

It must be difficult for people to limit themselves to just one cutie per family, but 99.9% of my students say they are an only child.  The One Child Policy was implemented in the 1970s, and continues (with a few minor changes) into today.  According to the World Bank, China’s population growth rate is only 0.47%.

 

Yet Shanghai is a city of 23 million people--that's triple the population of New York City--and some of the most populated cities in the world are in China:  Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou are in the top ten.  How is this possible?

 

One Saturday morning, I saw eight children under the age of eight.  It was a sunny day, and parents and grandparents were out early to enjoy it with their children or grandchildren.  Later that same day, I counted four pregnant women without even trying.  In spite of all this cuteness, I found myself thinking One child policy, my ass.

 

China has the world’s largest population.  Period.  I’ve checked three sources.  Even china.org.cn admitted that 1.3 billion people lived in China in 2005--and China's not famous for honestly reporting statistics.  India has the second largest, followed by the U.S.—at a measly 350 million or so.  Pitiful.

 

Luckily, China is the world’s second largest economy (right behind the U.S.), but even three blocks north of me, there were people in Shanghai—“a modern city”—without indoor plumbing.

 

Speaking of water, The Economist calls China’s water use “unsustainable”, in spite of the fact that each person in China uses one-fourth the water that a person in the U.S. uses.  This is mostly because the water in China is excessively polluted (thanks to coal mining and water from industrial uses not being recycled).

 

The U.N. reports that China’s population will max out at a staggering 1.45 billion in 2030—right around the time the water runs out, and right around the time when India’s population is set to surpass China’s. 

 

The more time I spend in big cities (Athens, New York, Shanghai), the more convinced I am of the importance of caring for our environment--for preserving what we've got, especially in the Pacific Northwest.  People complain about rules and laws in the U.S.--environmental regulations, taxes, permits for fishing, camping, hunting--but the unregulated growth (in population and development) in China is destroying the place--to say nothing of how difficult it is for people to compete for jobs here.

 

I don't want my hometown to look like this!  I don't think telling people how many children they can have is right, either, but I'm not sure what the solution to such a huge population is!  As much as I enjoy my students, my job, and some of the nicer areas of this city, Shanghai is flat, crowded, polluted--overrun with people, concrete, cars, and noise.  I honestly don't think it's good for my health or my sanity to stay here for a third year.

 

Shanghai will keep going without me--building into the clouds, honking until it sounds like a symphony, and having some of the cutest babies in the world.