Village Life

It is time for the Chinese New Year and I had a 2 month break from work. I decided to visit the home village of one of my Chinese friends. My friend had been talking up how beautiful the countryside was and how quaint and wonderful the village was and my expectations were high.

I think the village was beautiful in the same way that the west lake was beautiful. It was a shell which could have been beautiful, but overpopulation (along with the belief that nature is not beautiful and is improved by clear cutting and planting unhealthy saplings which never get well tended and have a 30% die off rate) has made the area horrible. One of the things my friend had claimed was great was that he had a forest he could relax in right outside his front door. The "forest" was a small stand of perhaps a score of unhealthy trees that had been stripped of all branches other than the very tip top ones which I don't believe they had a ladder tall enough to get to in the village.

The village had a population which easily could have qualified as a city in America and unlike Hangzhou, there was not a fleet of workers cleaning up trash. there were small garbage piles next to every object which could stop wind blown garbage. They had a river floating through the village which yo could almost walk across the debris floating down it.

Despite all of this, my friend continued to praise how beautiful the village was and how peaceful. Whatever, here are what pretty pictures I was able to muster.