china rivers First post. (rescued post from March05)

In Guangzhou, south China, the big province surrounding the little islands area called Hong Kong (population over 100million).
Last night went for a walk to the suburbs behind my hotel. Lots of families, people with (a) little child, people from the countryside, at least lots of the many millions of living on a $ a day Chinese. Walked along a river through an area of old Chinese apartments with lots of little stalls, and people selling fruit. Got some delicious lychees, my phone fixed, a map, a toy for Max, and a few other little things I needed for about $5 total in my little explore,... just about cried hearing my favourite Chinese sad-romantic pop song in the evening warmth. This was all along the (otherwise lovely) front of probably the most polluted river I have ever seen, if you could call it a river that is. Maybe more like a rubbish dump with an over powering toxic odour.
I know we have polluted places in the west, in the western countries I've lived in, New Zealand, US, UK, but it struck me that you just would Not Ever see anything that polluted in New Zealand,....yet there are many like this in China,...more than I could count.
There was an interesting (sad) quote in the news yesterday that 70% of China's rivers are polluted. These are the sources of life for 1/5 of the worlds people though,...for a large area of the earths land,.....
I'm keen to know what population New Zealand would need to have proportionally as large a 'renkou' (population) for its land space as China has for its land space. Just a bit too tired tonight to do the google search & the calculations,...if anyone knows that I'd love to know! Off the top of my head guess is about 100million people? That is 25x the current population,.....which leads to the question I think I ask myself everyday of whether New Zealands pollution would be just as bad if we had the same proportion of people as China does,....the unanswerable question I guess......
Okay, well have to go. At least I am feeling like my work is maybe making a difference,...if just a drop in the ocean. This is a beautiful country,...it just has the potential (and is becoming rapidly in many ways) to be any even nicer place for people to live (hopefully not too much worse),...that is to say,...in my eyes, even more inspiring as a reason for living. For me preserved beautiful natural environments make life worth living,....I sometimes wish everyone I had ever met could stand on Piha (or any) beach in New Zealand like I did so many times so many years ago,...in what they call the 'formative years',....that place always made life worth living,....I will find a photo sometime to link to from this site to at least give an insight ;-),....if not the experience,...for that one will need to sacrifice contributing to our global air pollution by taking a flight to New Zealand.
Aahh the irony of life.
Signing off...zai jian.
March 24, 2005