My Trip to China
If you hadn’t noticed, I was gone the entire month of July on a trip to China. I traveled with my wife to visit her relatives as well as do some sight-seeing while there. Before leaving, I made it a priority to see the ways China is doing their part to protect our environment as well as the current state of their environment.
After arriving on the long flight, her family drove us into Nanjing, the city we would be staying at the entire time. The one thing I noticed along the way were a few signs advertising solar panels. Not a bad start. I saw homes and I noticed what appeared to be solar water heaters on top of their homes. Wow, many of the homes and apartment buildings had them on their roofs. But then I noticed a problem…
What I initially thought as fogginess, I soon realized that haze was completely covering the entire city. In my head I was thinking that it would probably go away or would only be spotty. I soon came to realize that haze was a frequent problem and didn’t go away. Not only in Nanjing, but in China’s other major cities, Beijing and Shanghai.
Once entering the city, there were farmers all over the place selling their produce to local residents. I also noticed a large number of people driving bicycles and scooters (I later found out that many were electric). With the large number of people in the city, there were still tons of people driving cars there, though almost all were cars and not SUVs or trucks.
Once we arrive at my wife’s relatives homes, I noticed some good things again. Everybody in the city owned small apartments, nowhere near the size of the homes we own here in America. In their home, they owned only one air conditioning and it was a room unit. When it got to hot, we would just go into that particular room to cool down from the AC. Much more efficient than our central heating/air conditioning here in America.
We were also fed extremely well by my wife’s family. Each meal would consist of a variety of dishes shared by the entire family. The majority of the dishes were vegetables, but there were a few lean meat dishes.
The days were often extremely hot there. One of the things I hated seeing that is also present in America is the use of plastic bottles. There were some people who carried around tea in reusable bottles, but one-time use plastic bottles were heavily used. I was happy to see that when we went to many grocery stores, plastic bags cost money. Many people brought reusable bags instead of paying the extra cost.
We took two trips to the major cities in China, Beijing and Shanghai. One of those trips we used a tour group, the other we went on our own. I don’t visit DC or New York often enough, but I don’t remember seeing so many tour groups in either of those cities. I’m not sure whether a tour group is more environmentally friendly, but many people used them in China.
Overall, I think the people in China are doing many of the same things Americans are doing to help the environment.
Throughout the remaining of this week and into next week, I will be writing more in-depth articles about some things that China is doing to be more environmentally friendly as well as some of the environmental issues they are facing.
Comments
Sounds like an amazing trip, you must have had a fantasic time. Loved the photograph of the Great Wall.
Really wonderful place to visit. I love the China wall more its really a awesome wonder. I hope you enjoyed a lot there. Thanks for sharing with all.
It sounds like most of the environmental efforts you noticed were just people choosing the cheaper option. Western countries’ residents just have more money to blow on wasteful things. I’m sure the wealthier Chinese still have similar wasteful bad habits.
I agree completely. They do spend money on wasteful things like we do, but they seem to be conscious with their spending on items like those I mentioned.
Sorry but I just don’t see those decisions as being purely environmental ones. If anything, Chinese people are just more resourceful and less concerned with appearances of things like their homes. So they are more willing to do things such as putting a solar panel water heater up.
Hi Patrick, great first report on your trip to China looking forward to reading the next reports, and your findings/observations.
Till then,
Jean
I think there are lots of natural beauty sights to visit. Also the skyscrapers are eye catching. extreme engineering work done there. This is a really excellent read for me. Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw. Thanks for posting this useful article.
The most memorable impression China gives me is its beauty of mountains. I went to China once and I stayed in GuiLin during my trip. I can tell that it has the most beautiful natural scenery in China.
Wow I love reading such articles filled with personal experiences
Its great to see that you went to China, hope you had a good time. I have always wanted to go and it looks like they are choosing environmentally friendly options. Do you think the haze in the cities is from all the pollution?
Glad you had a nice trip and good to know they are taking measures to protect the environment in China. With the boom in car sales there in recent years, I’ve been worried about how much of an impact it would have on their air pollution.
In China the major pollution problem is more to do with various businesses such as factories and mines. There simply aren’t enough environmental regulations for businesses. So lots of them take short cuts or save money at the expense of the environment. Their cars aren’t as big a problem as a smaller percentage of Chinese own a car. Many own a small car or a scooter.