The communal courtyard shared by several families

This third one sprung up in my mind as I arrived in Beijing with a study abroad group in May 2007, and I even got to see one of these tight-knit and close-quartered communities myself, with part of what I’m sure was a choreographed tour for tourists. This didn’t matter so much to me, as the hutong was the most charming thing I saw in the capital city, and I even made their rapid disappearance the subject of a paper for one of my classes while I was there. (Here’s a post from my first encounter with the hutong.)

Unfortunately, the story has only gotten worse since Johnson’s reporting, and since my visit three years ago. Government and business developers see the single-level, “dangerous” housing as an obstacle in the way of economic growth in the city, as things can be built upwards and sold as commercial space for much higher prices than any residential buildings could garner. What acres do becomes private homes will land in the price range of millionaires, out of reach to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who grew up on that same ground.

A bright and shiny paint job on one of the areas inside the Forbidden City, the old home of the emperor that is now a tourist site

“Historic” in the eyes of the commercial and governmental developers means razing the dilapidated building that has been neglected for half a century and replacing it with an “authentic” facsimile, with upturned eaves painted classic Chinese colors: reds, golds, greens. Qianmen, a fabled shopping district in the center of the city that has been replaced with a swanky doppelganger, is mourned by urban planning professor Yao Yuan in a July 20 article in the New York Times. “The renovation of Qianmen wasn’t about preserving history, but about creating a fake Hollywood version of it,” he said.

Shopping center in Shanghai

I’m not here to pass judgment or even complain, really, because some of those modern amenities made my visit more comfortable, and surely improves the living conditions and salaries of many of China’s urban dwellers. But as many others have asked before me, at what cost are these things forming? Is a newly-built shopping center doing the people of Beijing much more good than its previous shopping center? Is it really a part of the city’s history that could not have been preserved more carefully from the start? Many of these areas, deemed “dangerous” by the government, were named as such in the late ’80s and early ’90s, which means they were slated for demolition or at least known to be in need of renovation and preservation for nearly two decades by now.

Many of these areas did not survive to see the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I hope there are people in charge who will listen more carefully to the preservationists and historians both domestically and internationally who have been offering their advice on the ever-vanishing character of the city, and I hope what little is left of the city’s pre-modern composition can survive. I hope this for the sake of outsiders who visit, but more so for the sake of its own people.

Newly constructed buildings, complete with Starbucks and westerners

Part of the program focused on what Google has become, beyond a search engine, in people’s lives. The guys interviewed pointed out that people, in the privacy of their homes, ask Google things they many times won’t ask their spouses, friends, pastors, doctors, lawyers: domestic abuse, STDs, sexual interests, pregnancy scares, bomb-building… I mean, think about it. It’s the non-judging friend with all the answers.

Except, as the Google reps also pointed out, that creates a new challenge along with all the other uncertainties posed by the digital age: how much of this is private between Google servers and execs and their users, and how much is fair game for investigators, lawyers, families, and other interested parties? Google made a firm stand earlier this year against the Chinese government, no longer acquiescing to censor internet searches made within the country’s “great Chinese firewall” on its search engine; this is a victory for information dissemination and access. But when the government wants information on your online profile, on what you’re searching, it becomes–if possible–even more complex. I find this a fascinating topic. And personally, I don’t know if it’s an entirely bad thing that there is some accountability placed on people for the things they search for on the web.

I really liked the idea of asking the butler... I used Ask.com during its heyday.

Every time I Google something, which most often most recently has been regarding hairstyles and hair colors, I think back on the idea of the search engine and how it has created an imaginary friend for each of us, one that we feel very comfortable asking really random things, and who we expect to give us advice and answers. And pretty often, it does.

Caution: This road under construction

Walking down the street right outside the north campus entrance felt a little bit third-world, a little bit plain dangerous. But it was just construction– in this case, widening of the road. The way it was so exposed shocked me nearly every time I walked it. And unlike in the United States, plenty of vehicles and pedestrians other than automobiles take the road, making it precarious indeed for the bicyclist or rickshaw driver riding along. The over-sized mounds of dirt piled higher than the road and taller than most people grew out of the valleys at each side of the road. Farther down from this spot, tents had been erected for the migrant workers who would stay to complete this project and then move on to the next.

What was truly breathtaking though was the utter speed with which this road was widened. The construction workers must have taken turns with their shifts, working around the clock, because in the four weeks I was there, they completed nearly half a mile–to my eyes. And they were working on both sides. In America, I am always puzzled driving by highway and roadwork projects, for they seem to lack both a plan and a deadline of any sort. Widening can take months, and bigger things, many years to complete. Now, I know we can chalk some of this up to the concessions road workers have to make to keep traffic flowing, so they must keep lanes open and work in the night when fewer people are on the road. But countless forms and numbers of vehicles and people passed through this each day, behaving as though this was absolutely normal and just another part of life–which, really, it is just that. And amongst this continuation of daily life, Yangzhou was expanding at lightning speed.

Echoing their real life, the film touched on issues that these people are dealing with in their real lives: a battle against mining companies for the protection of their land. Their Amazonian homes contain vast amounts of oil, and they have seen an uprising that one of the audience members directly related to the Na’vi resistance in Avatar. “It’s reality, what’s happening now, just in another dimension,” says Marlin Santi, one leader, whose words are translated; he feels the film could help bring highlight the abuse in the real, through the film’s mirror on humanity.

When we compare the film to real life, however, there is an important aspect that is not new to this story; Achuar leader Lius Vargas brought up possibly the most idealistic, unfortunate aspect of the film, that of a white man sweeping in to rescue the indigenous people, becoming the liaison and the savior. “This is a Hollywood movie, so it’s practically a given that a non-native comes to the defense of the people, and leads them to triumph in the end,” says Vargas.  The importance of a movie like this, or a book like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, published in pieces in 1899 and as a book in 1902, is that they spotlight some of the horrors that come along with imperialism–which was an important and shocking story for regular people in the western world in Conrad’s time (arguably not so much of a shocker now). But both Conrad’s and James Cameron’s stories have that white man savior, continuing, albeit in a slightly more socially and politically aware manner, the underlying superiority of the “civilized” man. This largely does nothing to dispel the whole idea of the “white man’s burden,” that notion that he must spread his enlightened ways and rescue the world from its perceived “darkness.” This underlying theme was obvious to Vargas as he watched the movie.

OK, I hopped on the bandwagon for a second there, but I swear I’m back on the ground now. Love it or hate it, that movie encourages chatter.

I may be looking at it from too different a perspective, concerned for no reason at all. After all, I am a firm believer in the value of Harry Potter, and vehemently defend the series when faced with an anti-Harry opponent. Maybe there are many redeeming values in Guo Jingming’s seven novels, and the writer’s Cadillac will spur no sense of jealously in a Chinese youth’s eyes.

Read the report and tell me your thoughts.

So why have I had this change of heart, this embracing of dental floss? It took being ripped off to show me.

When I studied in China, I could not wait to get home and have my teeth cleaned. For some reason, I just felt so transient, and having so few things with me, my teeth were on the back burner. I made sure my mom had scheduled an appointment back home, for the first available date. That was July 2007, and that was the last time I had been.

In the developed world, teeth cleaning is normally an every-six-months check-up. This ensures that hard plaque doesn’t build up to much and allows the dentist to monitor the health of gums and teeth, since many dentistry procedures can be avoided altogether later in life by simple good maintenance. I understand all that, and finally decided it was time to get established with a dentist in the Kennesaw area (instead of trekking to Dublin to see my parents’ dentist); I made an appointment for March 27, just about one month ago, at a place nearby that took our insurance (apparently).

Almost two hours after I sat down in the exam chair, I got out of the chair without a cleaning. The doctor and his assistant poked my teeth in this newer process they do nowadays where they measure the millimeters deep a metal poker can be poked, thus determining whether you have periodontal disease. I had never heard of this apparently horrible disease. And I, also apparently, had “early” stages of periodontal disease.

I don’t consider myself unwise to health concerns, and I believe I take relatively good care of myself. Like my mom said, too, it had only been two years, not a decade; her first visit to the dentist was when she married my dad at age 19– and she does not have major teeth-health issues. So I was slightly offended and very skeptical when the assistant proceeded to show me this scrapbook they had assembled with photos of the horrible things that can go wrong with your teeth. You know the kind– those fright-inducing photos doctors place strategically around their offices to let customers– I mean patients– memorize the blood and ooze until they’re scared enough to hand over money to get whatever procedures are needed to keep the disease at bay. She wouldn’t even show me the whole book, just the parts closest to my current “condition,” because, to use her words, “They’re just too bad.”

The office would not give me a cleaning because I needed to have this “deep cleaning” instead– a more intense process that my insurance would not cover. Also, I had two cavities, and the doctor recommended that I have the tooth-colored filling instead of the silver fillings that my insurance covers. I asked if I could please opt for the silver-colored ones, because I knew from previous experience that these were fine, and covered fully. Nope, that is not what the doctor recommended. (Ok, but it is a filling, and it is my tooth. Whatever.) Oh, and after the “deep cleaning,” I will need to come back every three months to make sure my disease has not worsened, and each time there will be an additional fee. I leave with an estimate for procedures that I “need,” an estimate of over $500 in charges that my insurance won’t cover.

Now, I am a reasonable person. I listen to what intelligent doctors have to say, and usually, I think the advice is sound. But let’s be honest– I am a young adult, therefore age is not against me yet. Low risk. I brush my teeth regularly, and I live in developed country– meaning I’ve had my teeth cleaned dozens of times more than most of the people on this planet. I think–I think–I will make it through this devastating condition that is going to cost me (and my family) hundreds of dollars. In my head, I’m thinking, yeah, right, count me out of this. I’m going to go home, start brushing my teeth longer, using mouthwash at least once a day, and floss each night. I’d start my own little daily regiment, and take this into my own hands. Practical advice is the better path, I think, but the answer is do-it-yourself health care, with minimal cost and a simple trip to the drug store on my part. Practical advice would not make the doctor’s office an extra $500– that is the truth of this picture, and that is a horrible shame.

Fast forward one month, and I have successfully been performing my regiment morning and night. April 24 I head to a different doctor’s office, one my mom found online after we both expressed concern with the business practices of the previous scare-tactic dentist. I feel good about my teeth, and have not even had any pain in one particular back tooth that had been hurting whenever I would eat sugar (I attribute this pain going away to my own enhanced teeth-cleaning). When I sit down in the chair, the assistant tells me that I have very little hard plaque to scrape off, and all my millimeter readings (for that periodontal nightmare) are 1′s, 2′s, and 3′s all the way around my mouth (at the other dentist I had had some “bad zone” 4′s and 5′s). She does a normal, insurance-covered cleaning. Then, she and the dentist both commend me on my exceptionally clean teeth. They did not say anything about having one single cavity.

I left the office thinking about the stark contrast between these two experiences; could I really have reversed that much tooth damage in one month? Either this is a miracle in tooth recovery, and flossing is really all it is cracked up to be, or I was about to be scammed big-time by that first dentist. I was basically awestruck. I think perhaps that first practice is really out to get anyone who may be marginally “in danger” of early periodontal, or has sort-of-unclean teeth, to milk every dollar out of an unknowing patient that they possibly can. I knew when I left that day that a few months could have fixed up some of the issues I had. I mean, it had been a long time since I’d had my teeth cleaned at a dentist’s office. Cut me some slack. Give some practical advice, clean my teeth, hand me some floss, charge my insurance company, and I’m happy. Try to trip me off, and I’ll tell the internet all about it.

(By the way, when I went to their office to pick up my x-rays to bring to my New Dentist, the desk attendent tried to charge me a $25 fee per x-ray, with a 48-hour minimum “process” period. I told her that one x-ray series hadn’t even been taken at their office, and so I would like to have that one. She handed it over. The other one shall forever remain in the files of Great Expressions, Inc offices.)

While I don’t agree per say with all of the author’s diagnoses, he does bring up some little-known points about the money markets of the U.S. in relation to those in Europe. We’ve been learning about the financial and investment relationships between those markets in my International Political Economy class; definitely pay close attention to the section “What’s Icelandic for ‘Domino’?” – European markets could very well be even more vulnerable than the American market, based on commercial banks’ investments.

I just thought it was an interesting argument, and worth a read. Here’s the link: World on the Edge. Enjoy!