power plays pollution
by Rachael
Shanghai, China….heading westwards on another overnight train
We thought it was polluted yesterday, but when we went out this morning we could not – initially – even see across the river. An intense searching second look revealed an incredibly faint ghostlike silhouette of just a couple of buildings less than a kilometre away through the haze.
That haze you could taste. You could feel it gritty in your eyes. If you had a bucket I believe you could have scooped it up. We just pushed our way through it to an important Shanghai memory in our brief flirtation with this city, the dumpling shop.
Expecting to leave the smog behind when we board our train for Xi’an, we are in for a surprise. The further from the city we travel, the thicker and darker the air becomes. Not believing the pollution could stretch so far, we start throwing round theories of atmospheric conditions or the effect reduced numbers of rice paddies might have on the air to account for the murky substance we are hurtling through. But the immense industrial estates and belching chimneys add too much weight to the pollution suggestion to be ignored.
The scale of this problem defies understanding. My isolated individual avoidance of plastic bags and attempts to be a conscientious consumer seem not just insignificant, but entirely inconsequential efforts in light of the magnitude of Pollution Solution that is needed.
Of hardly equal significance, but for posterity’s sake all the same…..there are some great bi-lingual signs on this train.
But before I give you a giggle, it is important for you to have some background information. Frau Mao reigns supreme on this newly-named-by-us Stalag III Express. She tells us when to sit, when to raise our feet so she can swish her wet germ-transferring mop beneath us, when to deposit our rubbish (by crikey, she even took a half-eaten lollipop off our plate despite Rob’s wild gesticulations that we wanted to eat it later) and then to add insult to injury she confiscated our rubbish bin altogether. She tells us where to put our luggage (in *our* compartment was unacceptable!), exactly how to line our shoes up before going to bed and she thwarted our efforts to dilute the indoor cigarette smoke with the outdoor pollution by locking the window we had the audacity to try to open.
Anyway, this is all causing us much humour, and when I just leaned across to tell Dad I’d worked out why the sleeping compartments have no end wall – clearly to allow Frau Mao an unrestricted view of her charges – he accused me of reading the blogpost he was just composing! So far our posts have all ended up quite different in spite of covering identical experiences. Curiously, these ones are almost word-for-word identical. He takes the prize for eloquence, though, so do take a squizz at his post by clicking right here.
Now I’ve really got side-tracked, haven’t I? Verboten activity, no doubt 😉
Back to those signs. Just in case you weren’t aware that doors can do this, there’s a warning on the toilet doors:
CAUTION. RISK OF PINCHING HAND.
And just in case you were entertaining the thought of using the hole in the floor whilst at a station, there’s another threat cleverly disguised as a warning:
NO OCCUPYING WHILE STABLING
But if you manage to get in with your hand intact , and occupy while unstabling, you are requested to:
PLEASE FLUSH CLOSET POT
In the meantime (while I’ve been down at the toilets copying signs) Frau Mao has turned the lights out and so I’ll find my way back to the other end of the carriage by the light of Dad’s computer screen, which he has undoubtedly been told to turn off as quickly as possible.
Tags: health, justice, postcard: China, transport
rayres
well this journey is all about experiencind new cultures and countries. While we have a chuckle at the signs and the way of doing things, we are also concious of our own abysmal ignorance of language and understanding, so we are not trying to arrogantlly put down this culture. But it sure makes NZ seem pretty cruisy!