Dodson Chapter Four Reflection

I remember getting off the plane with my mom, taking my first few steps onto the Chinese soil.  It was so busy, and already muggy; it was only April, too!  What felt like a warm June day was present in those early spring days.  I distinctively recall that only after two hours walking around Beijing, my nose was completely clogged.  

In America, we consistently talk about global warming and treating the earth with respect.  This is frequently referred to as “going green.”  How ironic, I found it, that much of China, specifically that influenced by the government, does not have acknowledgment for the land in which they over-populate and over-use.  China is known as the country that squeezes all the value they can out of the resources they have on-hand.  

However, I found that I was very shocked at the disregard for not only the earth’s/land’s health, but also for the individuals that populate the massive country.  Even more horrifying was the disregard for the health of young people.  China, in continually pushing to be a great and powerful nation, should be on even higher alert to protect the well-being of these individuals.  

Dodson discusses two occurrences that shocked me more than any other.  The first was in his introduction, talking about the teenaged girls who worked in a factory with adhesives that, when walking through the factory, gave the author an extreme headache and episode of nausea.  These girls bent over the benches, assembling components of the manufacturing products with bare hands and no masks; exposed for who knows how many hours a day to fumes that would hit any other person who didn’t work their with a discomfort and sickness very great.    (Info taken from page 67).

The second incident Dodson reveals is that which occurred in 2009.  “thousands of dead carp suddenly appeared in a river near Shanghai, their death attributed to a lack of oxygen; 4,000 residents of the Inner Mongolian town of Chifeng became sick from an ammonia leak from a nearby pharmaceuticals factory; 1,354 children were diagnosed with excessive lead levels in their blood in Wenping, a township in southern Hunan province; and a smelting plant was finally closed after hundreds of children in northwestern Shaanxi Province became ill from lead poisoning from a local smelter.”  (pg. 70).  One last thing that I would just like to point out as being interesting, is that it is said that the media was all over these stories.  There were no press conferences with the government apologizing for not monitoring various plants that contain hazardous materials, no red cross.  America may not be perfect, but I know that if something such as this happened, Barack Obama, and any other president, would address it with urgency and care, and that is what just stuns me about China; the compassion needed is not present.