Slow boat through China
February, 1994.
I'm in China on a rickety ferry out of Guangzhou to Hainan Island. The ferry is loaded as it's a few days before Chinese New Year. People get time off to head home for the festival. We are travelling down the Pearl River (and will head out into the South China Sea). The River is grey in the city and becomes murky brown in the countryside. I never see any signs of life in the river. I'm the only whitey on the boat. I don't speak good Cantonese or Mandarin, or read Chinese, only a few characters. So poor is my understanding, and so scant is the information in my Lonely Planet guidebook, that I assume the journey to be several hours - it turns out to be almost 24 (oh, that would account for the bunk beds!)
I'm in a little berth with 4 bunks - 8 of us. For my journey I've bought some instant noodles (Yes, even in China they eat them! Maybe especially in China) and some apples. Maybe some bottled water. I find the toilets and a hot water urn.
People stare, some nod my way, but most seem wary of this strange white girl on their boat. As I eat through my supplies, I realise there's no garbage bin in our room. Strange, I think. I go to look for the central garbage bin. I can't find it. I walk around the little ferry. It becomes a mission. Yet, my Chinese certainly doesn't extend to asking such a question.
I place my empty Styrofoam noodle pots, apple cores and plastic bottles inside my plastic bag. Others have placed some rubbish on a cupboard in our room, so I place it there, hoping I haven't committed some terrible faux pas.
Then, as we're nearing the end of our trip, I see her. I'm standing outside my room enjoying some sunshine and watching the sea and coast change as we chug along. The cleaning lady. Aha! Thank goodness for that. She has an efficient white uniform on, and is pushing a trolley with several shelves. There are buckets and rags and maybe a mop. She comes into the room and takes the rubbish. I give her a big smile and she smiles back. Mystery solved. She ties the plastic bags up (yes, that's important) and places it on the bottom shelf of her trolley. She moves on, collecting rubbish from each room as she goes. When she reaches the end of the boat, she scoops up all the rubbish and TOSSES it into the South China Sea in one fell swoop!
I gasp in shock! People turn to look at me. "What is that strange gwai mui up to now?" they'e probably wondering. I look imploringly into the faces of a few of them. They quickly look at the water. I want to say, "didn't you just see what she did?" No. They didn't. Well, they did. But they didn't care.
I feel sick to my stomach. What can I do? Crash tackle this woman? This obviously happens on every ferry trip up and down the Pearl River. Probably on every river in China. And in other countries too.
I vow that I'll write to the Lonely Planet, to the Guangzhou government, the Guangdong government, the Chinese government, the Australian government....
But I forget. I travel to several other countries. Have intrepid adventures, see outrageous acts of polluting, and then go to live in Europe for almost two years on a working visa. It's there in the back of my head. But I never do write that freaking letter!
It's over twenty years since I travelled in China, and I'm assuming they've changed some of their policies and become more environmentally aware. They outlawed plastic bags in 2008 which is a lot more than I can say for my country at a federal level, which promised to do this after China, but wasn't able to. Some states have and good on them, but not mine.
I'm not across all of China's environmental laws. It's now the powerhouse production plant of the planet. It certainly wasn't back then! I know their air pollution is now diabolical, but that they are taking measures there, and there's a growing awareness about Styrofoam, which they call white pollution.
And we also know that Europeans are not beyond a bit of rubbish dumping from boats. Photos of this worker chucking rubbish off a cruise ship went viral earlier this year.
I just remember thinking, all those years ago. This is going to be a disaster in the not-too-distant future. Would I have changed anything if I had have written any of those letters? Maybe not. But I probably wouldn't have spent all this time feeling quite so guilty about what I saw.
I'm in China on a rickety ferry out of Guangzhou to Hainan Island. The ferry is loaded as it's a few days before Chinese New Year. People get time off to head home for the festival. We are travelling down the Pearl River (and will head out into the South China Sea). The River is grey in the city and becomes murky brown in the countryside. I never see any signs of life in the river. I'm the only whitey on the boat. I don't speak good Cantonese or Mandarin, or read Chinese, only a few characters. So poor is my understanding, and so scant is the information in my Lonely Planet guidebook, that I assume the journey to be several hours - it turns out to be almost 24 (oh, that would account for the bunk beds!)
 |
| Pearl River Guangzhou, southern China. |
People stare, some nod my way, but most seem wary of this strange white girl on their boat. As I eat through my supplies, I realise there's no garbage bin in our room. Strange, I think. I go to look for the central garbage bin. I can't find it. I walk around the little ferry. It becomes a mission. Yet, my Chinese certainly doesn't extend to asking such a question.
 |
| Chinese countryside heading down the Pearl River for Hainan Island. |
Then, as we're nearing the end of our trip, I see her. I'm standing outside my room enjoying some sunshine and watching the sea and coast change as we chug along. The cleaning lady. Aha! Thank goodness for that. She has an efficient white uniform on, and is pushing a trolley with several shelves. There are buckets and rags and maybe a mop. She comes into the room and takes the rubbish. I give her a big smile and she smiles back. Mystery solved. She ties the plastic bags up (yes, that's important) and places it on the bottom shelf of her trolley. She moves on, collecting rubbish from each room as she goes. When she reaches the end of the boat, she scoops up all the rubbish and TOSSES it into the South China Sea in one fell swoop!
I gasp in shock! People turn to look at me. "What is that strange gwai mui up to now?" they'e probably wondering. I look imploringly into the faces of a few of them. They quickly look at the water. I want to say, "didn't you just see what she did?" No. They didn't. Well, they did. But they didn't care.
I feel sick to my stomach. What can I do? Crash tackle this woman? This obviously happens on every ferry trip up and down the Pearl River. Probably on every river in China. And in other countries too.
I vow that I'll write to the Lonely Planet, to the Guangzhou government, the Guangdong government, the Chinese government, the Australian government....
But I forget. I travel to several other countries. Have intrepid adventures, see outrageous acts of polluting, and then go to live in Europe for almost two years on a working visa. It's there in the back of my head. But I never do write that freaking letter!
 |
| Leaky boat. Chinese New Year's Eve, Hainan Island, China. |
I'm not across all of China's environmental laws. It's now the powerhouse production plant of the planet. It certainly wasn't back then! I know their air pollution is now diabolical, but that they are taking measures there, and there's a growing awareness about Styrofoam, which they call white pollution.
And we also know that Europeans are not beyond a bit of rubbish dumping from boats. Photos of this worker chucking rubbish off a cruise ship went viral earlier this year.
I just remember thinking, all those years ago. This is going to be a disaster in the not-too-distant future. Would I have changed anything if I had have written any of those letters? Maybe not. But I probably wouldn't have spent all this time feeling quite so guilty about what I saw.
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