Just Rolling in It

OR ONE PERSON'S RESPONSE TO LIVING IN THE 9TH MOST POLLUTED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD

Almost a year ago, I was sitting in the Feve, tired from a long day of TESOL training, and having a drink or two with my Shansi co-fellows. Julia, one of the Indonesian fellows, hands me a book, entitled Coal.

You should read this.

Why? I ask.

Well, you province is mentioned at least 10 times in the index. See?

You know when an Environmental Studies minor hands you a book on pollution, and your new home is prominently featured, that you just may have a problem on your hands. Perhaps a respiratory problem. Or a trash problem. Or a sad, dying planet problem.

I never guessed that my biggest problem would be one of dust.

In Shanxi province, the province I now call home, coal is money. Our reputation is based on it, our wealthiest are involved in it. We heat our houses with it and we get electricity from it. We mine it and use it in abundance. And it certainly shows. The most polluted city in the world is in our province. Wearing white here has become dangerous. Owning things in it is dangerous. Expecting anything to stay that color is dangerous. White and all things clean are very ephemeral states in the 9th most polluted country in the world.

Cleaning is downright depressing. White on gray -- the coal dust coats all of the newly plastered walls. The walls color and crack every year or two, and soon a new coat of white will be forced upon these tired surfaces. So they shine when the new teachers arrive.

But forget about your floor, your clothing, and everything else. When we sweep, we rid ourselves of dust bunnies, but never of the ingrained dust that stains every crack in the fake wooden floorboards. When we do laundry here, the water turns black every time. If you leave something out for too long, the next time you pick it up, it will soil your fingers. Black spots at every connecting point: fingers to phone, fingers to guitar, fingers to everything.

The air has a near constant reek to it. The radiators have turned on, so the coal plants must work overtime. And then there's the fires -- burning leaves (little to no public leaf disposal systems), burning plastic (little to no public trash disposal systems), and burning trash. Once I thought my neighbor's house was on fire. Nope. It was just time to get rid of some trash. The noxious fumes and the white, billowy smoke scare me. Outside my classroom window, students come to light fires. They burn piles of leaves. As my students work, I watch the small flames and the huge clouds fill up all 100 meters of space between me and the fire: space between trees and the curves of the building. I always make the students close the windows on these days. But sometimes they strongly protest and there's a constant pattern of open and close, open and close.Did I mention that everyone smokes here? Could someone remind me what smoke-free restaurants are taste and smell like?

So how do I cope? Well, by becoming an ardent environmentalist, of course. As a suburban-MD-resident-by-birth and an Obie-by-degree, my surroundings have been relatively pollutant-free. It wasn't until Ghana that I witnessed blatant anti-environmentalism. In the rural parts, the dirt roads are paved with squashed water bottles. The trash disposal system is as simple as Use-and-Drop. The ground is a trash dump.

In China I because I can respond, I must. So, step 1, I changed all my light bulbs to florescent bulbs, warm ones. This was a more impressive task than you might imagine. Normal, blue-tinted florescent lighting is extremely common is China. Finding something that doesn't make your home look clinical is very hard. The installed lighting in my house is overhead florescent tubular bulbs, the kind you see at the doctor's office or average office place. Homey, right? So I bought some lamps, took trip after trip (3 trips into town with many language barriers and much help from Chinese friends), and somehow found a bunch of warm bulbs. Though I had to pay 10 times more for these bulbs than their incandescent counterparts cost, I made my side of the house incandescent-free. Since I cannot drive (and will not for safety and sanity reasons) in this country, I don't pollute with car exhaust. I compost my extra food in a compost pile started by another fellow. I buy my food from local vendors. I try to keep my electric heater off when I can. I bundle. I bike.

I never paid much mind until I lived somewhere that looks positively post-apocalyptic because of coal pollution. I don't know how much I can change but at least my hands are becoming more and more coal-free.



Next step...solar electricity?