Oct. 2020; Responsibility, not excuses

I live in quite an unusual area of Shenzhen. I’m not sure what the planners had in mind when they designed it, but it’s definitely one of a kind. (That’s a very polite way to say a bit stupid.) It has the theme idea of pirates. There’s loads of life size plastic cartoon Blackbeards and Davey Jones’ strewn around the grounds, and even a giant plastic pirate ship. There’s a large gym, and also a bunch of kids rides and attractions, a good way to part parents with their hard earned money. There’s also a ton of restaurants, from Hai Di Lao hot pot to Japanese sushi, pizza, seafood, and of course the much adored KFC. It’s a bit like living in a small, crap, carnival funfair. As a side effect of all these restaurants, you do, on occasion, encounter the odd drunk here and there. Late night boozing with colleagues, a few too many Tsingtaos and bust out the BaiJiu, and voila, here’s mr. shouty noisy vomit monster. Several nights ago, whilst walking my dog Chupacabra, one such boozehound was staggering towards the taxi rank, and in his way pinballing from side to side along the pathway he pulled over one of those large wooden plant holder things we have scattered around the city. Wooden plant things comes crashing down, plants and soil are emptied out across the path. I shout at Mr Boozehound but his pickled brain has shut off all basic functions such as sight and hearing. I stand, with dog, and look at the plants and soil and downed wooden thing. I contemplate what to do. Sat nearby me is three gym guys, smoking cigarettes, talking, and watching the show unfold. *Side note; Why do I see so many gym/fitness/health instructors smoking? Surely if you have even the smallest idea about fitness/health then you know, uh, smoking, is, uh, bad for you? I sure as hell wouldn’t take driving lessons from an obvious alcoholic, nor would I take life advice from a total loser. Maybe the gym owners might want to think about this. Anyway, back to the story…

So I look at the toppled plant thing, dog looks at me, I look at dog, and gym guys stare on. What’s the right thing to do here. I pick up the wooden plant thing and set it back where it was. I do my best to put the plants back in, and pick up as much soil as I can with my hands and pat it down. I always carry a bottle of water with me (to spray after my dog has peed on something) so I even give the plants a bit of a drink, you know, to comfort them after such a traumatic evening. And then I hear the three lycra wearing silverbacks laughing at me. Not just laughing, but howling. Now I’m the same as anyone else, feeling embarrassed is not a pleasant sensation. In a second I’m walking briskly away, feeling half stupid and half pissed off. In my mind I’m irritatedly asking myself “why did you pick that damn thing up? That’s not your job! The street cleaner people would pick it up in the morning, probably…” and them BAM I realise, in my head, I’m being a twat. No it’s not my job, but it is my responsibility…

I could have chose to ignore it and not look stupid in front of the gym apes. But I didn’t. And I wonder how many other people, in the same situation, would also choose to pick it up. Now, ask yourself a question; Do you want the place you live in, to be nicer/cleaner/safer/healthier? (If you’re even reading my weekly blurb then the answer is surely affirmative, but just in case you happen to answer “no,” then please stop reading this, go to the bathroom, and flush yourself down the toilet along with all the other turds.) So we all want where we live to be nicer/cleaner/safer/healthier. Next question; Would you do something, that takes very little time and effort and zero cost, to improve where you live? Again we all answer yes. So why oh why do I see, every day, people blatantly not giving a shit about our local environment. Throwing rubbish on the floor (try that in Europe and see what happens,) spitting where people and children are walking (yeh seems the pandemic wasn’t able to teach many people the most basic understandings of hygiene and air born germs,) and generally treating others, and the country they live in, like crap. People have asked me several times if I like China. My answer is yes, actually I love China. I love it enough to not want to spit on it or disrespect it, or it’s people.

Over the years I’ve had umpteen heated conversations with people here about such matters. Just as cost, value and worth are three very separate things (for example; I have a diarrhea pill. You don’t. You just now get diarrhea. Cost of pill, 1rmb. Value to you, all of a sudden really quite a lot. So right now, to you, this pill is worth 50rmb.) also blame, fault and responsibility are three very separate things. Let’s have a couple of examples, shall we? Now these are two things that I see happening all too often here in Shenzhen, and both are due to a total lack of responsibility.

Example A; Person walking dog. Dog poops on the floor. Now, is it the dogs fault? Of course not, if food goes in then poop needs to come out. Is the owner or the dog to blame? No, once again of course not. But, it is the responsibility of the owner (not the dog) to get a plastic bag, pick up that poop, and put it in a bin. Probably a dozen times I’ve been walking my dog and seen a dog owner ignore its pets fresh little steaming parcel, and I’ve walked up to them and handed them a plastic bag to pick it up. Half the time the owners have been extremely embarrassed and done the right thing. And the other half have just looked at me like an idiot and walked away, leaving me to pick it up for them. Remember, every time you see dog poop on the path or in the park, an owner has consciously decided to let that happen. (Or it might possibly be from a stray dog, with it’s past surely being traceable to an irresponsible owner who abandoned it. But don’t get me started on people who abandon animals…)

Example B, the one that really gets me going; Adult outside with child. Child needs to pee (or do the other) and adult let’s child do it’s business anywhere it pleases. Is it the child’s fault? No of course not. The child has no blame or responsibility for this. But, the adult has all three. It’s the adults fault the child was never taught that when it needs the stuff inside to be released outside, that it needs to give fair warning to adult. Find a damn toilet, there’s always plenty around! Malls, McDonalds or KFC, coffee shops, metro stations, bus stations. In a city of millions a toilet is rarely more than 5 minutes walk away. It’s the adults responsibility to teach the child that we don’t do toilet stuff outside like animals. The adult is to blame. And don’t give me that “but he was desperate to go” rubbish, nobody out of diapers goes from “nope, no toilet functions needed” to “I GOTTA GO RIGHT NOW!!!!”

*Side note; Let’s talk briefly about something called “learned behaviour.” If you’re a parent you really should spend some time reading up on this. Kids learn from example. Little girl sees a dog and inquisitively looks at it. Adult yells “no, dogs will bite you, keep away from it!” Repeat this a few times, and a child who previously wasn’t scared of dogs, now is. Being scared of dogs, for life, is not something that’s gonna make life any easier, now is it? Next; Dad states in front of child how Japanese/foreign/XinJang (etc.) people are bad. Child hears this a bunch of times and guess what? Yep, child is now a racist, probably for life, influenced by the blindly ignorant prejudice displayed by parent. Now do you think this will prove advantageous in that child’s future? Or has parent just created another little ignorant, carbon copy of themself. As parents, it’s our responsibility to put our less than desirable opinions aside, and teach our children in a balanced and fair way about the world and it’s people and cultures. Teach them the value of hard work and to follow their dreams, not to idolize money and fame. Teach them that we are all equal, men and women, black and white and everything in between. As they grow and learn from you, their personalities are formed. How you treat people, how you respect people, how kind, caring and affectionate you are, how disciplined you personally are, and your depth of character and integrity. If you want your kids to grow to be good adults, then start by being one.

One thing that makes me go a little mental is the “it’s not my responsibility” attitude. Guess what, if you live in a society with people around you, that you don’t want to slowly turn into a total cesspit, then doing these little things absolutely are your responsibility. People who throw cigarette butts on the ground. Does this, in any way, improve our city? No. Is there a dustbin within a 1 minute walk pretty much everywhere? Yes. So what’s your excuse? Oh no, there isn’t an excuse. But it’s not just the small things we have a responsibility to, let’s think a little bigger. As (mostly) intelligent adults, we are fully aware what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s responsible behaviour and what’s irresponsible. But how much of that do we actually take into account in our day to day routine? Do you really need to drive your car to pick up the kids from school, or could you walk or take the bus? “Well yes I drive my car everywhere, but I separate my rubbish for recycling so I’m doing my bit.” Check the internet and do a little research, do you know how much of our recyclable garbage here in China actually gets recycled? Less than 20%. You throw away 10 wai-mai plastic cartons and 8 of them end up in landfills or poisoning our oceans, inevitably for our children’s generation to deal with. Nice!

When I’ve had conversations with adults here, and the subject of carbon emissions, racism and xenophobia, the oceans being full of plastic etc. comes up, I wish I had a dollar for every time their answer begins with “the government should….” NO. STOP. WRONG. Our countries governments are not here to enforce us to live like thoughtful, compassionate people. We, as parents and as a society, and as (mostly) intelligent human beings already know what we should and should not be doing. We know our planet is on the verge of becoming irreparably screwed. We also know the causes of such, and if we don’t know the causes we do know that we can use books or the internet to educate ourselves and find out, and change our behaviour accordingly. We can not only educate ourselves freely, at any time, but we can also pass on our knowledge to others, to our children, and teach how we can all live happier, healthier lives, showing empathy and understanding, not resentment or condemnation. Caring for our planet and it’s wildlife, not burning every patch of it down to make more money that we truly don’t need. Now that is our responsibility. And if we don’t, that’s our fault.

I’ll leave you with the words of one of this planets most beautiful souls, Mahatma Gandhi;

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”