Migrant Worker

Just ran into this article on South Dakota State University president Peggy Miller, who has just retired. I don’t have much of a personal connection to SDSU, although I spend a couple weekends there back in high school competing in their debate tournament. On the other hand, I did run into a group of SDSU reps, including Mrs. Miller’s husband, on the campus of Yunnan Normal University in 2004. I heard some rumors floating around that there were people from South Dakota on the campus, so I headed out and managed to find them finishing up a dorm tour. I exchanged some cards and contact info with the reps, but never heard back from them.

One way she has done that is by expanding SDSU’s international studies programs. Students now are able to attend universities across the globe, paying only what they would for tuition at SDSU. Last school year, almost 175 South Dakota State students studied abroad. In September 2004, she and her husband, Bob, led a contingent of SDSU staff and students to Kunming, China to visit Yunnan Normal University and discuss an ongoing exchange with that school. She not only wanted students to check out the study opportunities there, but the nightlife and the social opportunities to ensure it was a place young Americans would want to go. Matt Anderson, a 21-year-old biology and pre-med major from Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, was on that trip. A product of the prairie who had never strayed much beyond the Midwest, Anderson said the culture shock was enormous - but the experience was priceless. “It was incredibly valuable to meet students over there and get their perspective on America,” Anderson, a senior, says.

I always hoped that there would be progress on the study abroad program they were hoping to establish, but haven’t heard anything about it in the last 16 months in Kunming. Most kids from South Dakota, even the brightest and most successful ones, don’t consider out of state options for college, let alone international study abroad.

A cursory search seems to indicate that SDSU has made a few exploratory trips to Kunming but has yet to establish a formal exchange program of any kind. They’ve also published a serious mis-estimate of Kunming’s population (they say 1 million, accurate figures over 4 million).

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I’m about a month behind in my email and in responding to comments here (sorry), but catching up fast… and in the backlog, I discovered this article on climate change from The Asian Reporter. Some choice bits are copied below.

Last year, last storm season, in several countries lining the far side of our moody Pacific, ferocious wind and rain, suddenly hungry rivers and streams, took away 700,000 Thai and Malay homes, destroyed 1.5 million Chinese dwellings, ruined 3 million Indian, Nepali, and Bangladeshi houses. And these losses represent only three of 2005’s record-breaking 73 storms in and around Asia. Those numbers are numbing. That’s more houses washed away than family homes standing in Oregon and Washington combined.

In fact, in a dozen more weather-sent calamities following the Leyte disaster, in other just as vulnerable areas of our aching earth, families sunk into misery even deeper than the poverty they endured before those storms. Poor people in poor countries got poorer still. The good news is In each instance also, we hasten to add, immigrant Americans responded immediately to their homeland’s suffering. Millions of U.S. dollars were sent or hand-carried back to where our hearts linger and our ancestral bones lie. It’s no secret that remittances from American Asians keep families back home, indeed keep entire developing countries, afloat. Foul weather on not.

The article goes on to ask whether immigrant communities can/ should take a larger role in changing US government climate policy formation, since disproportionately, it will be people in tropical coastal areas (and not Americans) who are affected by warming and related weather issues.

It seems like immigrants from coastal areas might have more at stake than the average American… but I don’t see coastal Texans leading the charge for progressive environment and energy policy while Minnesotans drag their heels. The larger problem is that no one wants to think about the implications of warming — not even those most likely to feel direct affects.

Similarly, I don’t see many Chinese Americans lobbying for increased public health projects that fight childhood diarrhea, one of the top killers of children across Asia — but I do see them sending money back for medical emergencies, and I also see them warning their immediate families not to eat the food or touch the water when they travel to China. Awareness of a problem does not necessarily beget a movement to solve it.

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Plastic Trash
Originally uploaded by Keith Tam.

This article on the German grocery superstore Metro charging for bags in Kunming from China Central Television (CCTV) floated across my radar today — it piqued my interest since I spent Tuesday trying to track down more information on trash bags in Northwest Yunnan.

I’ve always been vaguely aware of the ban on plastic bags in effect in Lijiang and Zhongdian (technically, all of Lijiang and Deqin prefectures) but never thought much about it until last August, when I travelled to Zhongdian with a friend who asked me what the deal was with the strange pseudo-cloth, pseudo-paper yellow bags we kept getting whenever we bought stuff. I mentioned that plastic was banned and guessed that this was some sort of biodegradable alternative material. We’ve been trying to figure out where these bags are coming from ever since, and it came to a head on Tuesday, when responsible travel company WildChina expressed interest in buying a few.

We’re not having a lot of luck tracking down the supplier of these bags in Northwest Yunnan — online research and some cursory asking around hasn’t even determined for sure if the bags are being distributed by a non-profit, for-profit, or local government. On the other hand, we have learned the following:

The ban on plastic bags seems to have been implemented in 2002. There is some interesting related information in this report from the Yunnan Environmental Protection Bureau, including the fact that .7 million plastic bags were confiscated. The whole report is worth a read if you are into that kind of thing. The backstory of the ban is explained in this article (Chinese) , and basically adds up to the local governments realizing that if millions of domestic and international tourists were going to show up each year and shop, they needed to do something about the pollution. No one wants to go to a world heritage site that has been buried by a waste dump.

In my hunt for more information on the ban on plastic bags (and possible biodegradable replacements) in Lijiang and Zhongdian, I turned up this article on the larger waste issue in Lijiang by Jo Kent, a new friend here in Beijing. She writes simply and honestly about the incredible trash problem here in China, particularly the “just throw it on the ground” culture that prevails everywhere from rural Yunnan to the big city (at a somewhat lesser degree).

Free Chinese Lesson! Biodegradability: 生物降解性 sheng wu jiang jie xing Biodegradable bag: 生物可降解袋 sheng wu ke jiang jie dai Sub in any Chinese noun in the blank to say that thing is biodegradable.

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I didn’t have many good things to say about Elong.com when I blogged about them back in late October. Since then, I’ve made a few bookings through Ctrip and I have nothing but good news:

Although the English is a bit fun and creative at times, it is perfectly possible to book through the English language website but input your delivery address in Chinese. This means I am less concerned about first time booking mistakes, but still can receive my tickets without trying to explain my address in Kunminghua over the phone.

It is possible to select (right on their website) an option that allows you to hold your tix with a credit card. This guarantees that you can make the booking even though you can’t or won’t take delivery for a day or two. You may also be able to pay on a credit card… but I can’t remember.

So far, they have had every ticket I booked on their website at the price I booked it… and I haven’t heard from any friends that ticket prices changed. This was one of my biggest frustrations with Elong as it further delayed my purchase of alternative tickets.

Local travel companies are good too, and I have yet to have any problem with them. But I can’t usually save my name and identification numbers at their offices… and Ctrip does that for me. Oh yeah, and also? Ctrip sends me a text message the day before my departure with weather in the city I’m flying to. Beat that.

I continue to have utterly no affiliations in this sector, I just like a cheap and efficiently delivered plane ticket.

Posted by at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Beijing Sunset
Originally uploaded by catic-teder.

Loyal readers (for example, my father): Do not fear, although I have been a bit lazy lately, I will continue to blog. I will admit I have been on a rather long hiatus, however, I’ve been preoccupied with the details of my impending move to Beijing and a number of personal projects and issues. Although I will continue to write here until further notice or Princeton cuts me off, a few changes will be in store in the coming month:

1. I will be blogging from Beijing beginning in late December. I will still focus on development, agriculture, and environment, and I will probably be writing a good deal about Yunnan province, but since I will be living in Beijing, chances are you’ll be reading more about the frozen northern urban wasteland, and specifically, the migrant workers (of the impoverished Chinese variety) who have it really rough up here. More on that coming soon.

2. I won’t be blogging much about work. Why? Because I will be working for the US Department of Agriculture and am pretty well committed to stay away from anything interesting (read: controversial) that comes of it. Sorry. Line between blog and job must be maintained. On the other hand, if you want to read some thrilling market reports or hear about the latest food fair, watch this space!

3. The banner photo may have to change. I mean, honestly, there is nothing green up here. At all. When my Ipod shuffled up the song “California Dreamin’” this morning, I could identify for the first time in a while:

All the leaves are brown And the sky is grey I’ve been for a walk On a winter’s day If I didn’t tell her I could leave today California dreamin’ On such a winter’s day…

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