On Sustainability (and the Goodness of Mangoes)

Last week I was skyping with a friend and we had an exchange that went something like this:

Friend: My house is getting chickens! And I’m trying to figure out what to do with this week’s veggies from the CSA (that’s Community Supported Agriculture , not Confederate States of America).

Me: That’s so awesome. Man, I miss being sustainable.

Me:…. Except that I’m probably more sustainable here than I ever have been in my life. So I guess I miss being American-Hippie-Sustainable. Hmm.

The thing is, whether it’s a fad or a legitimate shift in people’s lifestyles and politics, American-style ‘sustainability’ can be quite fun. It’s fun to go to food co-ops farmers’ markets and to justify spending more than at a typical grocery store because you’re supporting local/ethical/organic/(inset other green adjective) produce/dairy/meat. It’s fun to make more and more food from scratch so as to avoid supporting big, scary corporations. It’s fun to walk and bike around during the non-snowy months in Minneapolis, availing oneself of the pedestrian highway to get to work/the store/the lakes/wherever. It’s fun to have power challenges where one finds non-electricity draining activities to consume one’s time for a day a week or the like.

Generally speaking, the practices that I think of as “sustainable” in the American context are also very pleasant ones, particularly during the warmer months, and indeed, during the winter months I would have killed for a car (my housemates from last year can both attest to this), and I kept the heat down only to save money. Basically, I liked sustainability when it was convenient.

This year, I am very, very sustainable, and not really by choice. I don’t use a flushing toilet more than a few times a month, on the occasions when we’re in Dali or Lijiang or one of Heqing’s “fancy” restaurants with other CEI folks (we’re TFC now, by the way—Teach for China). I shower three times a week at most, and with solar-heated water at that, and beyond that wash my hair once or twice a week in a basin with a kettleful of water I’ve boiled on my hotplate. I hand wash all my laundry, and it air-dries. And I obviously don’t have a dishwasher. Having running water in our rooms now means that I use more than I used to, but I’m still pretty conservative I’d say. I certainly drink less water than I did in the States, since I have to boil it first and more liquid means needing to use the bathroom more, which is something I’m less than excited to do. Frankly, life here is dirtier. I’m dirtier, my clothes are dirtier, my room is dirtier (dirt manages to make its way in regularly, no matter how much I sweep, since there’s no way to completely seal the door from the outside). You get used to it.

I don’t think I’m using all that much electricity—lights at night, and the hotplate several times a day for boiling water and for cooking. I also use the rice cooker at least once a day. My computer’s plugged in most of the time, and I charge my phone once or twice a week, but that’s about it in terms of appliances.

Generally, when I’m in a motorized vehicle it’s a public one, and even those I’m using less and less. Now that I have a working bike I mostly ride that into and around town, so I only end up bussing to Lijiang and Dali every several weeks. And once I’m in town I buy all my produce, eggs, noodles, and tofu from the market, so that’s all very local. I joke about the people at the supermarkets thinking that the only things I eat are oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sesame seeds, nuts, oatmeal, sugar, chocolate, flour, powdered milk, and instant coffee and bubble tea, because I never buy my “fresh” food there. And since I’m trying to cut back on sugar, flour, and chocolate my purchases at the supermarkets are getting smaller and smaller in nature. Even at the supermarket, many products are from Yunnan or neighboring provinces; it’s just the nature of China.

As I don’t have a refrigerator, I’m less likely to have food go to waste, because I buy it in small enough increments that it’s difficult to forget about it. (There are no crispers or “behind the big Tupperware of leftovers” spots for rogue veggies to hide.) I’ve also, shall we say, entirely dismissed any notions of food safety being based on temperature. Is this a mistake? Perhaps. But I remember being nervous, last summer, about having eggs and veggies out on the counter for a couple of hours. Now I leave eggs out for as long as it takes me to eat them (I buy six at a time, usually, about once a week), and the order in which I use my veggies/other fresh food is based mostly on speed of decay (tofu, greens, and fresh noodles, I’ve learned, should be used within two days tops). Generally, unless something smells or feels off, I consider it good to go.

And, aside from food, I really don’t buy much. I get toilet paper/napkins/paper towels/tissues (it’s a one-size fits all kinda thing—what we would consider four distinct products, with perhaps some overlap, under duress, between tissues and toilet paper, is simply sold as “sanitary paper” here and used for all four purposes). I buy yarn occasionally, and toothpaste and shampoo and the like even more occasionally, and I’ll get steamed buns and rice noodle spring rolls and bubble tea when I’m wandering about town, but on the whole it’s rare for me to spend more than 100 kuai in a week unless I’m mailing a package, adding money to my phone, or heading to the Western Food land of Lijiang or Dali.

Of course, this year I’m also taking two trans-Pacific flights, so how those jaunts alone impact my carbon footprint…well, it can’t really be helped. And, aside from the monster flights, I’ve flown (for me) seldom. Beijing to Kunming way back in July, and then Kunming to Bangkok, Bangkok to Hong Kong, and Kunming to Lijiang over the long break. None of those flights was more than three hours, and Kunming to Lijiang was just a baby hop of 45 minutes. I spent my last five years in the States living in Minnesota with my family in Georgia, extended family in California, and friends all over, so it was rare for me to go more than three or four months without flying somewhere.

As for how I’ll maintain my sustainable lifestyle, or not, once I get home, well, we’ll see. I fantasize about my bathroom in Georgia—the one next to my bedroom with a flushing toilet and a shower that always provides hot water. I’m sure I’ll buy more clothes and the like, because I’ll enjoy the fact that not everything in America is covered in glitter, and I’ll probably wash those clothes in a washing machine, and more often. But I’ll continue to buy as locally as I can, and as ethically as I can. I’ll be aware of the gift of a hot shower and a flushing toilet more than I ever have been. I’ll treasure ice and water that needn’t be boiled before drinking. And perhaps I’ll try to come up with ways to be American-style sustainable that are not only pleasant but also a daily reminder of the manner in which most people live in this world of ours.

On a different note, living in a farming community has given me a deeper appreciation for seasons of different crops. There are some veggies, like broccoli, that I continue to purchase regardless of the season, but a lot of the fruit especially that makes its way to my kitchen is based on what’s looking best these days. I’m learning more about the lengths of different crops’ seasons. Cherries, for example, were absolutely everywhere for about three weeks, and then they disappeared entirely. Plums have been around for a month or so and don’t look like they’re going anywhere (in fact, they’re getting bigger), and mangoes are now 4 kuai a jing, meaning that I got 3 large, ripe ones for about $1 USD. I pray that mango season is a long one.

I’m not sure there is anything quite so wonderful, in terms of fruit consumption, as gorging oneself on a perfectly ripe mango. I love fruit, and I’m not sure mangoes are my favorite flavor-wise, but they’re just so much fun to eat! Cutting around the seed, “popping” the cubes open, cutting around the seed some more, taking the seed with both hands and slurping mango pulp such that it gets absolutely everywhere and when all the orangey goodness is gone you’re left covered in juice, feeling six years old, fumbling for the faucet…good times.