6/8/13

6/8/13, 8:00pm, The Beijing Center

This morning ChinaGreen and ChinaVoice students went on a bicycle trip around Beijing. We ended the ride in Hou Hai and walked around the neighborhood for a while. It was really great because that area of Beijing is different than the area I’m staying in for school. The bike ride was mostly on larger city streets, but we biked through more residential areas as well. It was incredible to see so many people out and about doing things. The living conditions are so different from the people that surround me in America. Most people just have a little place to stay in, so maybe that gets people to spend a lot of their time outside.

While in Hou Hai we left our bikes at a park that has exercise equipment meant for older folks in the area. These parks seem to be quite common around Beijing; I’ve already seen at least a few. And there were a lot of people at the park! It was nice to see the old people out and having fun. It just made me think of America and how a lot of older folks probably spend a lot of time inside watching TV. The thing that really gets to me about Beijing is that there are so many people riding bicycles and other motorized bikes instead of vehicles and so many people in small spaces that it’s obvious that they aren’t emitting that much pollution just on their own. So they spend a lot of time outside and have to breathe in this air that has all these chemicals because the society is built on coal. But in America, we pollute as individuals a lot every day with our single occupancy vehicles and huge houses. But we don’t have to experience the pollution that we’re creating because it gets blown somewhere else. Beijing is a valley so a lot of the air pollution is trapped here with nowhere to go.