*WARNING*
This post is long and involved. Read further at your own risk.
The Difficult Questions
When I went on this study abroad adventure, people asked me a lot of questions. “Why China?” was a common one, as was “will you miss your family,” but the one I got asked constantly was “Do you think you will go live in China after you graduate?” Well, ladies and gentlemen, I had no answer to that question. The question was the premise of this study-abroad experiment. Sure, I know the language, and I sort of know the culture, but is this the place I want to live post-grad?
Now that I have made it to the halfway point of my stay, the answer is becoming clearer, but it is still not entirely clear to me whether I can live here or not. On the pro side, jobs for Americans in China are everywhere. Everyone wants you to teach them to speak English. Every company wants that English-speaking intern. You have to understand, for a graduating US college student, times in America are beyond tough. Many of my peers are facing futures post-grad that have “Parent’s Basement” and “Unemployed” written all over them. I know several incredibly competent people who are having an impossible time finding jobs, and they have resumes that make mine look like child’s play. To go from that environment of economic downturn to China, were everything is growing and everyone wants me simply because I speak English, well, it’s a type of temptation that is hard to ignore.
On the con side, China is still a developing country. What does that even mean? Economists write dissertations on this term. I could spew some jargon at you about core-periphery relationships and neocolonialism. Instead, I am going to talk about the tangible benefits of a so-called “developed” country, things we take completely for granted. Namely, there are two aspects lacking in most so-called developing countries: sanitation and non-polluted air. This is not unique to China at all. However, I am going to make it clear, in the next few paragraphs, the actual practical issues of living in a country with issues in the areas of sanitation and pollution. I will warn you now that this is not going to be a pretty description. This is just going to be what I have experienced, what I have heard and what I have read.
Now, I researched the living daylights out of the food sanitation issue, because I just ate Trader Joe’s Toffee Bars and I got into a sugar-induced research attack. According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 300 million cases of food poisoning a year in mainland China (http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=144&catid=11&subcatid=73). In a population of 1.6 billion people, that means roughly 18.75% of the population will experience food poisoning at some point during the year. Reputable Chinese milk companies have accidentally created milk products lethal to children because they added nitrates or melamine to the milk (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1844750,00.html). Pigs are fed the illegal additive clenbuterol, a cancer-causing agent, to make the meat leaner (and, you know, more toxic) (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/world/asia/19briefs-ART-China.html?_r=1&ref=foodsafety). A child could drink the wrong glass of milk and be in the hospital tomorrow (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/world/asia/15briefs-Milk.html?ref=foodsafety). And these are just a few of the highlights. If you dig deep, everything from tainted spinach to toxic seafood is present in research on China's food sanitation issues. The problem is, this isn't just research. I confront this issue every time I eat, from breakfast until dinner. Every time I put food in my mouth, there is that chance that it will end in four days and four nights of agony, a hospital trip, and some serious regrets. It might even be worse than that.
Eating in China is a game of Russian roulette. Most of the time, you will be fine eating that chuanr, eating that salad, eating those dumplings. Then there are the times you are not fine. I have heard horror stories, and I have lived them. A professor’s friend contracted hepatitis C here from a salad (or so she claims). I contracted gastroenteritis from Korean food in Yunnan. My friend and I even shared the dish, but I was the one who ate the wrong piece of fish. It could just as easily have been her throwing up for four days. It would have gone on longer than that, too, if I didn’t just happen to have the right antibacterial medication on me during that trip.
Do I want to live this game? It doesn’t get better with time. The Chinese like to boast about the strength of their stomachs. I am sorry, but your "stomach strength" will not stop you from getting food poisoning, or worse, consuming cancerous additives or nitrates, some of which can lead to immediate trips to the hospital, potentially death. Parasites, bacteria, viruses, these are the killers that hide in food. This is why we have the FDA, the USDA, the Center for Disease Control, the list of bureaus we have monitoring these issues goes on and on. I know, America is by no means perfect. Our system for sanitation is decentralized, creating gaps in our food monitoring systems. We have our own scandals, involving peanuts butter or spinach tainted with bacteria, medicines that can kill, I could list them off. However, the dangers from food in China far outweigh the dangers of food in America. Why? It is because our food regulations are better enforced in America. How well enforced? Read this report: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Testimony_Petersen_031109.pdf
This is a nice summary of how much meat we test in a year in the US:
“To accomplish its tasks, FSIS inspection program personnel perform antemortem and postmortem inspection procedures to ensure public health requirements are met. In fiscal year (FY) 2008, this included about 50 billion pounds of livestock carcasses, about 59 billion pounds of poultry carcasses, and about 4.3 billion pounds of processed egg products. At U.S. borders, they also inspected 3.3 billion pounds of imported meat and poultry products. In addition, FSIS personnel conducted millions of inspection procedures to verify that establishments met food safety and wholesomeness requirements. In 2008, FSIS personnel collected and tested about 24,000 ready to eat product and environmental samples using risk based criteria for Listeria and approximately 56,000 raw product samples for E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef and Salmonella in raw meat and poultry. We employ a number of other field personnel, such as laboratory technicians and investigators.”
This is the gift of development, this is what the trial and error of developing sanitation protocols yields. It is something we take for granted, and I know I took it for granted before I came here. Some say the US has among the best food safety measures in the world. We continuously update them and pursue better safety measures (Some new ones for the Obama administration:http://www.foodsafetyworkinggroup.gov/FSWG_Fact_Sheet.pdf). China, on the other hand, is just getting started on all of these mechanisms. The US Federal Meat and Protection act was passed in 1906. China began implementing similar measures 70 years later. If your want a higher-level analysis of this food safety development issue, this blog and the WSJ journal it cites do an excellent job of breaking it down: http://www.chinalawblog.com/2007/08/china_food_safety_the_science.html
But at the end of the day, here’s my issue. Every time I look at lettuce in the Chinese market, all I can think of is hepatitis C, and how something you ate for lunch can give you a disease you will carry for the rest of your life.
The next biggest issue that has me reluctant to live here is pollution. No, I am not going to overload you on articles this time, I’m just gonna tell you what it is like to live in a place that has “crazy bad” pollution (I lied, here is an article that corroborates my claim: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/a-crazy-bad-day-in-beijing) There is nothing like waking up in the morning to sinuses completely clogged and your throat burning, and knowing that this is not a cold. This is your body’s immune response to toxins entering your body. You could take medication to relieve the symptoms, but all you are doing is allowing those toxins to enter your body faster, sink deeper into your lungs, dig deeper into your tissue. As I type to you, I have all the energy in the world, but my throat aches and my sinuses throb. Sometimes it comes with a headache, the sort that forces you to close your eyes and put your head in your hands. If I spend too long outside, that hacking Beijing cough begins in my throat. If I try to run when I have those symptoms, it turns into a lung-rattling hack, the kind that smokers have. This is not just me being a sensitive American. Why do the Chinese spit on the street? It’s because that is sometimes to only way to unclog the mucus from your throat, the mucus your body is expelling to combat the pollution. The Beijinger hack, the deep cough the older Chinese have, is a symptom from years of pollution affecting the lungs. I know the statistics on pollution in Beijing. I knew it before I came here. This is one situation where reading the numbers is not enough information. Knowing that there are days you will wake up feeling like hell, just because of the air you breath, is something you can only know from experience. Seeing some of my classmates develop chronic sinus infections and bronchitis really only reinforces this madness. No one told me it would feel this way. I suspect, my readers, that unless you lived it, you also don’t know what it feels like to hate breathing. Seven months of this will likely only take a few months off my life. But there is no doubt, these toxins can kill, if given enough time. Is living here worth the shortening of my life?
To be clear, I am stating reality. Also, to be clear, these are problems every country has faced in the process of development. Britain and America have well-documented battles with sanitation and pollution dating back to the 1800s. Read some Upton Sinclair if you never want to touch meat again. We have had our share of horror stories like these. Given trial and error and a lot of time, the US has slowly managed to improve sanitation conditions in this country. This is not about the West being better than China. This is about the dangers of living in a country that is still developing. And these are factors we all must weigh when choosing to live in China.
If you stumble on this blog, and you are considering going to China, you have just garnered some information that is worth weighing before you buy your ticket over here. Do I regret coming here? No, not for a second. Was this the safest choice for my body? Heh, no way. Just know that, if you want to get out of your comfort zone, it is going to be uncomfortable. Sitting in a Yunnan hospital trying not to throw up on the old woman sitting next to me was definitely way out of my comfort zone. However, living here has taught me something valuable: health safety, that thing we all just take for granted, is a very important part of our lives. That environmental debate, you know, the one Americans like to ignore; it has real impacts on real people. This isn’t rhetoric, this isn’t politics. This is my life, and your life.
So, do I want to live here? The facts on health safety certainly stack on the con side, and it is pushing me in that direction. However, I need to have work, and if America doesn’t have anything for me post-grad, I will likely be coming back here, regardless of health issues.
