Obligation & Death, Strange Fruit

Schoppa, Chapters 2 & 3

- The Mongols invaded. Things were not good. People of Xiang Lake prayed that Li Di would protect them again. He did not.

- "Wei's treatment of human activity is remarkable: the world of nature is for human use and profit- a contrast to earlier (and later) descrptions that render humanity inconsequential amid the awesome power of nature." (Schoppa 41)

- "Finally, during Wei's retirement, the situation had reached the point where area elders petitioned the county seat to clear away households that had reclaimed the lake and to figure an appropriate fine of grain per mu of reclaimed land to be placed into an official fund for relief purposes" (Schoppa, 43)

- Of course, with the construction going on around Xiang Lake at this time, flooding became even more of a problem than it had been before. "The irony of the situation is readily apparent: Xiang Lake could have a distinguished array of upholders of the lake- Yang, Zhao, Gu, Guo, Zhang, Wei- whose energy and diligence preserved the lake as a reservoir. But government decisions to resolve another water control problem, seeming perhaps as arbitrary to the Xiang Lake community as nature's might itself, placed the effective long-term functioning of the lake in jeopardy and cut off all access to the lake water for some." (Shoppa, 44)

- "Increasingly serious for the viability of the lake as a reservoir was the level of encroachment reached around the lake by the 1460s. In most cases, encroachers simply planted rice or lotuses in a small area near the shore that had grown shallow over time. In some cases sheep were pastured or willows planted on dikes. Both practices eroded the dikes, making leakage or outright breaks more likely... taken together, the amount of the lake destroyed by encroachment was 7,318 mu (over 1,100 acres), almost 20 percent of the original size of the lake" (Schoppa, 46). Alright, time for a small rant... How hard of a concept is this? Yes, we have a whole pie sitting in front of us. Yes, everyone wants some. But I'm just gonna take a small nibble, nobody will notice. Then the next person does that, and the next, and so on until you have nothing left and everyone is screwed. I mean, really? It's not that difficult of a concept. Mess with your neighbors and you mess with yourself. Destroying the lake destroys your own livelihood. Geez.

- We then move on to talk about the Sun tyranny and other such issues. While interesting, they're not terribly important. Well, they are, but not for what I'm focusing on. It would be easier to focus on something, of course, if I had pondered it, but I didn't. So I'm going to arbitrarily claim that I'm not focusing on the Sun's tyrannical control of the lake. Nope. Not I.

Moving right along, we're onto Chapter 3. Wohoo! Of course, saying the Sun lineage is not my focus was not my most brilliant plan, considering Chapter 3 could be retitled "The years in which the Sun lineage were masters of the lake"...

- "The historical record indicates that in 1551 plum trees in Xiaoshan county bore oranges. It was a bad portent: an agricultural handbook explained that when "trees produce strange fruit, there would in reality come a great calamity." More specifically, it warned: "When trees produce what is inappropriate, the farmers and all the people will be robbed."(Schoppa, 64)... and so on. Obviously they'll be robbed of the fruit they expected. If you have plum trees and you're expecting a plum crop, but you get stuck with a load of oranges, you're robbed of profits. Though if oranges are more valuable than plums, and you don't mention the oranges are from plum trees, you might get to rob others, though the "portent" still holds true in this case. Someone gets robbed.

- The Emperor's New School just started on TV. This doesn't relate in the slightest to China, but it means that it's friggin late. I'm not going to be very awake in class at this rate. Oh well.

- "Proper timing for encroachment was of the essence. Petty encroachers dug illegal drainage holes in the dikes at night. For more widespread intrusions into the lake, choosing a time when official attention was diverted to other problems allowed encroachers to present those around the lake with various faits accomplis."(Schoppa, 70) I had no idea what that word meant, so I had to look it up...

- Then the Sun bastards build that stupid bridge because things are starting to fall apart, and it signals the beginning of the end for Xiang Lake.... okay, not quite, but still. That stupid bridge does mess things up.

Earth Hour & China

In what is apparently a worldwide movement, people around the globe are shutting off their lights and various other electronics for an hour tonight.

Well, while that's all fine and dandy, and sounds, honestly, a little bit silly, apparently even China plans to be involved. And really, if China is involved, it officially becomes a little bit cooler. Because China doesn't seem to really give a damn.

So... ... we'll see how it goes and what actually happens.

Micah-isms

Rather than actually blogging today, I'm just going to post some highlights of class discussions: (and by "highlights of class discussions", I actually mean "silly things Micah has said")

- "I'm insane. That's why I think I get emails from supermodels when I actually don't..."
- "If you don't know the difference between boys and girls you should take another class that they should have given you in 5th grade."
- "They're taping my conversation! They're taping me! The aliens... when I come to class with tinfoil on my head, you know I've lost it."
- "I can just watch the news and see people getting shot. Why would I watch a movie where people pretend to get shot?"
- "You can't password-protect a lake. You can't just say "this is a firewall". You would literally have to make a giant wall of fire."
- "Look at me! I love you all, and that is why I've given you all wireless internet!"

The Beginnings, 1112-1214: Four Servants of the People

Schoppa, Preface & Chapter I

Schoppa's Song Full of Tears represents a Microhistory of China. It focuses on Xiang Lake, "a six-thousand-acre reservoir ten miles from scenic West Lake in the city of Hangzhou" (xi) It isn't an important location, just a place to start. But that doesn't mean nothing happened there. Lots of key events occurred.

Some events, of course, were more interesting than others.

Schoppa, of course, seems to feel the need to lead each chapter with a "view" of the lake, and then throw a bit of poetry into the mix. Poetry was a key aspect of Chinese society; understanding poetry was a sign of culture, and a part of the civil service exams.

In Chapter I we are introduced to patriarchal lineages, key groups in the culture of the lake. Lineages were important economically and culturally; political and local leaders frequently came from lineage lines. The same names recurred throughout history.

Xiang lake became a more important area when, "In 1127, with the establishment at Hangzhou of the refugee Song court, Hangzhou became the imperial captisal. The city's changed status transformed Xiaoshan county into an area of great strategic importance for the court." (17) This importance would wax and wane through time as political groups shifted. But it is not the main point of Schoppa's work.

(Schoppa, by the way, is a much better, if cheesier, writer than Elvin. He manages to follow his topic... which is great progress by way of authors).

The struggles experienced at Xiang Lake for thousands of years are explained in a few sentences: "At the crux of the problem was the relationship between population, land, and water. Water nourished the rice paddies, which in turn supported people. As the population increased, land per capita decreased and more land was sought; but as land was reclaimed and increased, water to nourish the rice paddies decreased." (19) Essentially, the more people the were, the greater the demand for land and water. The more demand for land, the more likely people were to encroach on the lake, and the less water would be available to go around. When there wasn't enough water to go around, there was no point in having the land because crops could not be grown to nourish the people, so fewer people would survive to need the land and water. Thrown into this mix were the officials who sought to regulate usage (such names as Yang, Zhao, Gu and Guo) . They were key in the first years of this history.

Anyway, Chapter I is really just setting the stage for the rest of the book.

The Taihu Lake Crisis

Before even reading the article, I was curious about where Taihu Lake was. I'm still not very clear, but a page from an online tour guide seemed to explain it vaguely well. But then google maps solved the mystery.

It sounds like the government (of this area at least) is cracking down on industry. And some industry is actually trying to improve. Hopefully this will lead to actual improvement rather than a crash of industry in favor of less expensive industries. (Wow, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense...)

Anyway, it's good to see that there's improvement being attempted.

Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China

With an entirely ironic article, the Washington Post has written about the pollution caused by solar energy firms in China.

To sum it up: "Green" industry in China is responsible of blatant pollution. Instead of dealing with the highly toxic byproducts of the silicon used in Solar Panels, they're just dumping it on the ground in the nearby town. It's dangerous to humans, prevents plants from growing, and is just some really nasty stuff.

"Shi, chief executive of Pro-EnerTech, a start-up polysilicon research firm in Shanghai, said that there's such a severe shortage of polysilicon that the government is willing to overlook this issue for now." (page 2). That's just wrong. The government (and the people) should be doing something about it.

"Made from the Earth's most abundant substance -- sand -- polysilicon is tricky to manufacture. It requires huge amounts of energy, and even a small misstep in the production can introduce impurities and ruin an entire batch. The other main challenge is dealing with the waste. For each ton of polysilicon produced, the process generates at least four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste." (page 2) That means that 80% of their production is hazardous waste, and they're not disposing of it safely. EIGHTY PERCENT of what they create is thrown out into the environment to kill plants and sicken people.

Instead of whining about how they can't go outside because of the pollution, they need to do something about it. The people in China collectively outnumber their governmental officials. They can force the government's hand.

Water and the Costs of System Sustainability

Elvin, Chapter 6

Subtitled: "Dihydrogen Monoxide and China", because having a silly name like that made it interesting.

Actually, I think by Chapter 6, Elvin had perhaps warmed up a bit to this whole "writing a book" thing and was getting better at making interesting points.

To sum up a few major points:
- The upper class was the only group within cities to get the good water; the lower class people were further downstream where there was a higher concentration of pollutants. (116)
- The "controlled flooding" that seemed to happen fairly frequently in the nineteenth century led to actual battles; nobody wanted to be on the side that flooded. (116)
- Efforts to maintain the elaborate irrigation systems were solid; everyone got in on it because everyone would suffer if things went wrong. (118)
- Maintaining China's irrigation and water-control systems was expensive in terms of labor, money, and resources. (119)
- "And while hydraulic systems are hydrologically unstable, they are also economically inherently static." (Elvin, 120) ~ Just... it's a funny sentence. He's so serious, and it comes out as absurd. It's the best thing he says in the entire chapter.
- Dredging was necessary to keep water flowing. (122)
- There was fierce competition for water; China's environment could only offer so much, and there was either too much or too little in most places.
- Elvin then uses "faustian", a term that the Oxford English Dictionary defines rather uselessly.
- Page 124 can be summed up rather simply: Despite the fact that better water-management systems existed, it was too expensive in terms of manpower and money to change technologies, even if the new system would be more effective.
- Also, there would not have been such sediment problems if they hadn't deforested China. Just had to say it.
- Maintenance of these systems though, as defunct as they might be, was a community effort and a matter of survival. (124).
- "Essentially, what had been happening was that the increased loads of sediments carried by the Miju River, because of land clearance and deforestation upstream, had raised its bed, and made it necessary both to keep dredging it and building the dikes higher and higher... by some time not too far into the Qing dynasty, a substantial proportion of the course of the Miju immediately south of the gorge was running above the level of the rooftops of houses on the surrounding land, as it still does today." (126) This is the most interesting thing that Elvin says; due to mankind's meddling with nature, a riverbed was raised above the surrounding land rather than cutting a new gorge or canyon into the earth as would normally happen.

Honestly, that's about as far as I got. I think Elvin did a much better job at getting interesting information across this chapter, or else I just got used to his repetitive system of speech. Whichever.

China's Hottest New Export: Storms of Deadly Pollution

In this article from the UK Guardian as well as one from Environmental Graffiti, we discover that dust storms in China pollute Korea.

Interesting. How does this work?

Dust storms start in the Gobi Desert, pick up pollutants on their way East, and cross the Yellow Sea to Korea. Poor Korea, they don't even get to kill themselves, the Chinese are already making sure they die of poison.

"Though the storms have been occurring for many years, they have increased in both toxicity and frequency in recent years. Some have blamed this on global warming effects, but a more likely explanation is China’s rise as an economic and industrial powerhouse." (environmentalgraffiti.com)

It's apparently responsible for the deaths of about 165 Koreans per year. Ironically, the same winds which sent these storms East to Korea have apparently cleared up the air around Beijing.

War and the Logic of Short-term Advantage

Elvin, Chapter 5

On page 89, Elvin mentions: "The horse appeared some time probably in the early second millenium BCE... Divination based on the shoulder blades of large animals, or the undershells of turtles, and interpreting the cracks that appeared when they were pierced with a heated instrument.... The technique was most refined along the east coast. There was thus no single key factor that emerged in one priviledged place." (Elvin, 89)

Now, perhaps I'm wrong, but I think this makes absolutely no sense. What does the domestication of the horse in China have to do with divination by piercing hard parts of animals with hot rods, and then what do both of those have to do with military advantage? Seriously, Elvin just wrote whatever came to mind, didn't he? His next paragraph begins with "Let us anchor these comments in some evidence" (Elvin, 90) and he still fails to anchor anything in evidence.

P. 90: "It also instructed subordinate states/ That their enfeoffment was good fortune's basis", firstly, why on earth would he spend a whole page mentioning the rhyme scheme of the poetry and his system for marking it if he isn't going to use it. Secondly, the definition of enfeoffment as in the Oxford English Dictionary. (Wow, they're as bad as Elvin...)

On a slightly more serious and less rant-y note, I'm mostly confused about where Elvin is taking this. It feels as though he's cramming a lot of non-sequiturs into one chapter.

There seems to be a vague thread of logic that he's following, most notably that the rise of the agrarian city led to the rise of militarization, which led to the concept of war. At least, I think that's what he's trying to say. The key phrase seems to be "the militarized urban-agrarian state". But where the domestication of horses in China and the divination via animal bones fit in, I still don't know.