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.

On Meat

I am a vegetarian, and, in the states, a fairly strict one. I engage some amount of “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it comes to broths in restaurants and at friends’ houses, and will sometimes pick around meat if it’s in big, avoidable chunks, but when I cook for myself it’s all veggie, all the time. In China I’m quite a bit looser. Although I still won’t eat straight up meat unless I think I’m in a position where refusing to do so would be quite rude, I’ll eat out of very meat-heavy dishes and order things with meat in them. My reasons for being a vegetarian range from health to environmental to ethical to just plain having lost the desire to swallow a steak, but I’ll say this: If I were only a vegetarian because of the way animals are treated, and, eventually, slaughtered back home, I’d be eating chicken in China .

A couple weeks ago, Malijun and I arrived early at a restaurant where we were going to have lunch with the rest of our team and some local teachers. After ordering enough to feed a small army (as is often the custom when we eat with anyone outside of our 4-person group), we headed to our table. A few minutes later, the owner’s small son (I’d guess he’s 7 or 8) wandered by, looking rather bored and holding a very alive and rustling chicken by its foot. The chicken, it would seem, outwitted the child, because a moment later we saw him chasing a running fowl. Eventually, feet beat out talons. I didn’t see the chicken’s throat slit, but by the time the owner was partway through draining its very fresh blood onto the cement floor of the courtyard, I had tuned back in. The chicken twitched a good bit, even after the owner dropped it to the floor and went to fetch a bucket of boiling water.

I found myself simultaneously repulsed and entranced as the owner dunked the still-twitching carcass into the bucket, sloshing it around like a rag, feathers growing heavy and grey. He plunked it down and plucked it—gloveless, as he had been since the beginning—a damp pile of fluff growing beside him. With a sharp knife, to took off the head and feet. Malijun, watching beside me, had long ago decided just how disgusting this whole thing was, but I found myself amazed. I wasn’t happy the chicken had just died, but the notion that this animal, alive five minutes earlier, would be gracing a plate five minutes later, made me just so very happy. This was exactly the way, I exclaimed to a rather grossed out co-worker, that meat should be consumed! But then, in China, or at least in rural China, that simply is the way meat is consumed. And it makes so much sense.

I’m a vegetarian. The idea of eating chicken grosses me out. But, if it didn’t, I’d be all over this stuff. Fish…perhaps not as much, as the preferred method of fish killing in these parts would seem to be throwing it from the tank to the ground and stomping on it. This sometimes results in fish flopping about for some time while cooks try to stomp properly. It can take 5 or 6 or 10 attempts. Oh…rural China.

Adjustments, Adaptations, and Absolutes: Ten Days in Pengtun- Part 1

A lot’s been happening around here, and I have a lot to say about it. I was planning on posting one long entry, but as it happens I’ve just written a good two pages on one aspect of my time, so I think I’ll split this up.

As an introduction to these posts, I’d like to share a Chinese word—习惯 (pronounced SHE-gwan). Like many Chinese words, this one can be a noun or a verb, and can be used to express “accustomed to,” “adapted to,” and “habit.” One of the most common questions I’m asked here is “你习惯了马？” (“Are you used to this yet?”) and my response is typically “有的习惯，有的还没有”(“Some things I’ve gotten used to; others I haven’t yet.”) My existence these days is all about 习惯 –ing, about taking who I am and what I’m like and adapting it to my new life, about finding the balance between what I can and cannot change about myself. It’s about maintaining some routines, despite the difficulties involved in putting them in the rural Chinese context, dropping others, and taking on new ones.

Every morning here in Pengtun, I have a morning routine much like the one I’ve had for most of my life, wherever I happen to be. I need to go to the bathroom, I need to get dressed, I need to wash my face and brush my teeth, and I need to eat breakfast—which often includes a cup of tea. In the States, the completion of this routine typically necessitates walking from my bedroom to the bathroom around the corner, using a toilet and a faucet, pulling clothes from my dresser, and wandering to the kitchen (or, for my first two years at Mac, the dining hall) to put together something to eat. Here…not so much.

When I wake up in Pengtun, it’s to the sound of my phone alarm. I do intend to buy a little clock but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Once awake, I pull on a jacket, since the mornings are chilly, and walk from my room down the stairs, outside ( well, out from under the roof, as everything beyond my room is outside), and to the outhouse. Oh…the outhouse. We are becoming such fast friends. I’m going to go into some details on the Pengtun bathroom situation, so if you don’t want to read them, you might want to skip this next paragraph. You have been warned.

Chinese bathrooms are not like Western bathrooms; that is a simple fact. Almost everywhere you go, the bathrooms will have squat rather than seated toilets, and you are expected to provide your own toilet paper (and soap, if there’s a sink available). Also, rather than flushing your toilet paper, you place it in a wastebasket, because Chinese plumbing systems are too delicate to handle it. I’m basically used to that. Pengtun’s bathroom situation, however, is a bit more extreme. First of all, these “toilets,” if they can be called such, do not flush at all. Rather, they consist of rectangular holes, perhaps a foot and a half by half a foot, dotting a concrete floor. Under each of these holes is a ramp, doubtless intended to carry whatever waste one produces to the pit beneath the bathroom. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work, and as many people do not avail themselves of the outhouses’ wastebaskets (one in front of each hole), the top of each ramp is typically covered in used toilet paper, pads, and all manner of things. Also, there are no doors on the stalls, “stalls” being used in the loosest sense of the word here, since they consist of concrete walls, to the left and right of each hole, perhaps three feet high. When squatting, of course, this guards one from view of those in neighboring stalls, but it does nothing to prevent people walking by to their stalls from seeing all. There are no sinks near the bathrooms, at least with hot water and soap available, so I usually just go back up to my room and wash my hands there.

The other fascinating facet of bathroom use is outhouse culture and etiquette. Mark and I laugh about this, because we feel like we need to have a better understanding of what’s going on there if we want to network with the local teachers. See, my instinct, as an American, is to use tunnel vision upon entering the bathroom, glancing to the side only as much as is necessary to see if particular “stalls” are occupied. For Pengtun girls (and boys, according to Mark), it’s a different set of rules entirely. During breaks between classes, it is not unusual to see two or three girls standing in front of a stall, chatting casually with a friend using the bathroom. It is also not unusual to see people on cell phones while taking care of business. Now, I know plenty of American girls (myself included) will chat stall to stall (or stall to sink) when in a community bathroom with friends, but this situation just seems a little different.

After the bathroom, it’s time to wash my face. In the kitchenette section of my room, I have a faucet and a sink (which consists of a basin with a drain that drops to the floor where there’s another drain). The sink is very convenient, because it gives me a place to dump waste water. The faucet is very inconvenient because it does not provide me with water. Nope. Instead, I have a large bucket and two large containers meant to hold hot water. So, every day (or twice a day, or every other day, depending on how much water I’m using), I take my empty hot water bottles down to the taps outside by the cafeteria, fill them up with nowhere-near-potable water, and bring them back up to my room. If I want to use the water for washing, I pour it into my bucket. If I want to drink it, I boil it and then pour it back into one of the hot water bottles, which will keep water warm (although not boiling) for a day or so. To wash my face and hands, I pour a mix of hot and cold water into a basin. I inherited a half dozen or so of these basins from last year’s fellow, and I’ve assigned each of them a different use. I have a face/hands washing basin, a foot washing basin, a sponge bathing basin, a laundry basin, a dishwashing basin, and a “drying rack” basin. I also have different towels for everything—floor towels and dishtowels and a hand/face towel and a foot towel. Having basins and towels “assigned” like that makes me feel like everything stays cleaner, but perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.

Not having super convenient, unlimited access to hot and cold water both has definitely made me a lot more conservation-focused. I try to reuse when I can—pouring used hands and face-washing water into the foot washing basin, and draining cooking water into the dish washing basin. The lack of immediately potable water has also caused me to start drinking less water than I do in the states—although perhaps that’s got just as much to do with not wanting to go to the outhouse very often. I know, I know…I need to stay hydrated.

I suppose I should also take this time to explain our shower situation. We, the CEI fellows, have access to a shower. It is located in a building perhaps three-five minutes walk from our dorm, and it is open from Monday-Friday, 8-5. No word yet on how that works when holidays roll around. It makes perfect sense, of course. Why would anybody want to shower outside of business hours? This shower is solar-heated, which means that the availability of hot water varies. I’ve had showers that were cold for the first half and then warmed up, I’ve had showers that remained lukewarm the entire time, and I’ve had hot showers. Water pressure is subject to the same fluctuations. I’m a bit concerned about the situation, because it’s chilly here now—as in, August—and I’m not at all looking forward to the wet hair walk from the shower to the dorm in the winter, especially if the shower is not a hot one. The nice thing about the shower is that it is a single room, which locks, so there’s no issue with privacy, and there’s a barrier behind which you can leave your clothes/towel without fear of soaking them. When it comes to the weekends, that’s what sponge bathing is for. I haven’t tried washing my hair in a basin yet, I’ll admit, but I’ll let you all know how that goes once I do.

Anyway, dressing, and breakfast, remain much the same as in the states—the only notable differences being the tea leaves (rather than tea bags) in the bottom of my cup, and the use of honey rather than brown sugar as a sweetener for my oatmeal. Actually, though, I found brown sugar in Lijiang yesterday! (more on Lijiang later—don’t worry).

Another morning habit I’ve recently adopted (or re-adopted, as it were) is MPR—Minnesota Public Radio. I love MPR, and I listened to it constantly in the Twin Cities. I woke up to it on many a morning, cooked dinner to it on many an evening, and basically let it be my soundtrack when hanging around the house. I’ve been a member for two years, although I let my membership lapse when I moved here. Maybe I should rejoin though, and keep giving my five dollars a month, because I just learned that I can stream it internationally! On one hand, it is, of course, a bit odd to be hearing the 6:30 PM news at 7:30 AM, but just because we’re dealing with different times of day doesn’t mean we’re dealing with different worlds, and it’s really comforting to hear the people whose voices I’m used to. Plus it’s an excellent way to keep up with the news when I’m not trolling The New York Times and to keep tabs in Minnesota in general.

What’s interesting about my morning routine is that I’m already basically used to it. Sure, I’d prefer a real bathroom, and I do kinda grumble in my head when I have to go lug water from downstairs, but ultimately I’m having fewer issues adapting to this particular facet of my life than I thought I might. We’ll see about the winter though—I’m not going to want to put on my knock-off North Face every time I have to go to the bathroom.

As for my other routines and adaptations, you’ll have to stay tuned to part two. Which I may post before long, if the power comes back on. God, am I glad I have a new laptop with an excellent battery life….