The China File: Catching Up
I know its been quite a while since my last post, but only because I have been filling the days with epic treks, bus rides, flights, and meanderings. I would have to say that the high point of this trip is definately “Tiger Leaping Gorge” which is the gorge carved out by the Yangtze river in southwestern China near the border of Burma. It is simply amazing and the hike along its side took 2 days and even still I only trekked a portion of it. Photos are forth coming as I have yet to find a place to upload relatively quickly. I seriously wish I could have stayed longer in the green mountiains hugged by the clouds and reachable only by foot or hoof.
Alas, I had to catch a bus back to Kunming (8 hours) and then a quick flght (3 hours) to China’s gem city of ‘progress’ –Shanghai. Thanks to my good buddy Saku who conveniently is living in Shanghai for two months on an internship I have a comfortable, if not luxurious place to rest my head, even if it is on the floor. And here, my work in earnest begins as I arrange interviews with experts on agriculture and the organic food movemement here in China. My first stop was at China’s first organic retail market, Ostore. There I had a delicious lunch in their bistro and met with the general manager on the domestic organic consumer scene. As you could imagine, the concept is generally foreign to domestic shoppers and remains way out of your everday Chinese consumer’s price range. About 70% of the store’s patrons are expats and the rest fairly wealthy Shanghainese. Most domestic production is in non-perishables (dried beans, nuts, seeds, tea) and is oriented towards export markets. As such, to meet their demand for produce, they have actually started their own farm to supply fruit and veg. Tomorrow, I’ll go off to survey that farm and the next day head to Nanjing for an interview at the certifier for China’s organic foods, and a German expat who helped bring organic farming to China. Anyways, I have already gotten a hold of a lot of good material and am feeling confident about writing up a good paper.
So Shanghai, I have to say I’m not all that impressed. Sure the city is clean and there are skyscrapers and massive apartment blocks shooting up everywhere. The air is cleaner than Beijing and their are traffic wardens at the intersections to keep some pretense of law and order among the carelessly aggressive drivers. But once you see the endless array of department stores, KFCs, and glass office buildings, it just seems like that is all. No doubt Shanghai planners have succeeded in designing and building a thriving economic metropolis with the foresight and power that will cement Shanghai as China’s shrine to its capitalist modernization. To be fair, I have been here a week and obviously I haven’t seen the “real” Shanghai–only the tourist Shanghai–and I have not really ventured into the backalleys away from the city center. But even still, there must be more to a world-class city than just big buildings, malls and grand boulevards.
