China and Overpopulation

This is a pretty average day on a main street (Nanjing Road) in Shanghai

I am through the first month and a half of classes and slowly becoming wary of responding to the same questions over and over again. Too often the questions are ridiculous, such as asking me whether or not I like China(what do you expect me to say?), whether I like Chinese food or not(What other choice do I have, I live two hours away from the closest Pizza Hut), who my favorite pop star is(this question is only ridiculous because it should be obvious that it is JC Chasez), or how I communicate with people when I enter supermarkets to buy things. ("Yes, they speak in Chinese, and yes, I do speak to them in Chinese..." to which I get a response of giggles or cries of astonishment that make me momentarily dream of a flashback to the good ole' days of beating students with blunt instruments.)

Not all of the questions are bad ones (I guess as a teacher I should be saying there is no such thing as a bad question, but seriously, do you really think I haven't adjusted to Chinese food after THREE years??). Some of the questions, though repetitious, are worth answering and deal with important subjects. I am often asked a question that is very simple, but very important. This question gets at the heart of some of the difficulties foreigners face while living in China, and some of the differences between Chinese and American society that make it some times difficult to have successful exchanges. The question is, what were your first impressions upon arriving in China?

I love this question because the first things that one notices upon entering a country are often the most meaningful. Some people notice the character of the people, others the quality of facilities, things they can buy, etc. ... But no matter what it is, the first things that people notice in a new place are often the things that are most different from what they are accustomed to seeing in their native place. These differences are important to understand if one wishes to bridge the gap and create an atmosphere of understanding between the two different areas/cultures.

When I am asked this question I can immediately think of two things that struck me upon arriving in China. The first thing is the language, which is so obvious but absolutely killer because unlike in European countries or South American countries you really have no idea what anything says at all. I had a friend in Qufu that once bought a bottle of dish soap thinking that it was a bottle of water. Language and the difficulty of communicating is a very "in your face" problem that I have to continue to deal with into my fourth year in China, but the language difference, at the very least, was something I had anticipated upon arrival. What I never really could have imagined that totally blew me away right as I got off the plane in Beijing was the sheer volume of people that were everywhere in China.

Average day on the Great Wall

China and overpopulation have become synonymous to the point of cliche, and there is no shortage of photos in National Geographic and other publications of really crowded areas in India and China. I knew all of this before coming over, but the experience of living in an overpopulated country is something that exceeded all of my expectations, and has had a powerful influence over so many different aspects of life, for me and everyone living here.

Better understanding the problem of overpopulation in China is important for many different reasons. One, it can help a person to better understand the reason for some of the difficulties one can experience living in China. The fact is that living in China can often be stressful, but many of the problems that China has are rooted in their struggle to cope with such an enormous mass of people in such a small area. Problems ranging from the trivial, lack of fixed lines while trying to get onto a train, to the severe, extreme environmental pollution that has an adverse affect on the health of millions, can all be traced back to the problem of overpopulation. Two, the current situation in China should serve as a warning to all areas around the world of the dangers and difficulties that we will all face if nations continue to expand their economies, technologies, and populations, without considering the consequences that those actions have on our surrounding environment.

Here are some stats to allow everyone to better digest the overpopulation of China, taken from a great text on Chinese history that explains the situation in China much more succinctly and clearly that I am capable;

"The inhabited part of China is roughly half as large as the inhabited part of the United States, yet it supports five times as many people. This is made possible only by crowding some 2,000 human beings onto each square mile of cultivated earth in the valleys and floodplains. The United States has some 570, 000 square miles under cultivation and could greatly increase this area; China has perhaps 450,000 square miles of cultivated land (less than one half acre of food-producing soil per person), with little prospect of increasing this area by more than a small fraction, even if it is used more intensively. In short, China must feed about 23 % of the world's population from about 7 % of the world's arable land." (China, A New History. Fairbank, John. Harvard University Press. 1998)

In other words, in China, since much of China is covered by either desert or mountainous regions that are unlivable, it is like they are cramming 5 times the population of the United States into a little over 1/3 of the land.
This is a picture that my friend took at Mount Tai( Damn you Mt. Tai!!) when I had asked if there were many people there that day she had responded enthusiastically, "not at all!!" So this crowd counts as a small group of people here.

There is no reason for me to blabber about all of the problems of overpopulation, but it is interesting to see the way it rears its ugly head in literally all facets of life. Aside from the obvious impact that it can have on the environment(which is scary and deserves comment in a later blog), it can have unthought of consequences on your daily life. Avoiding a lunchtime rush here means that you will just have to wait in line for your lunch, rather than literally fighting with your elbows, or shouting in order to get what you want. Bike rides are meant purely for getting from point A to point B, for riding your bike among Chinese traffic(let me make this clear, I HATE Chinese traffic) is a high stress, sometimes dangerous affair thanks to the enormous quantity of cars on the road, a quantity that grows daily with the budding middle class in the country. Find the sound of babies crying annoying or irritating? Tough shit. Being a foreigner you become especially acute to the population problem, since with a larger population comes a larger pool of assholes to yell comments at you as you walk by them.


Even my teaching is influenced by the overpopulation. I teach Oral English, and before you begin salivating at the prospect of all the jokes that could arise from me teaching hundreds of teenagers how to improve their "Oral," let me assure you that I am teaching them how to improve their spoken English. The problem is that in order to improve your spoken English you need to actually talk, and I have over 350 students a semester. There is just no opportunity for me to talk with all of them on a consistent basis, let alone get them all to talk during our limited two hours together a week.


This is a picture of a side road in Zaozhuang ,it could be any hour of day, a place considered to be a small town.

These are just a few examples of the ever-present influence of overpopulation here. As I have mentioned before, the Chinese have become largely immune to the annoyances of overpopulation that I notice since they have always lived with it. But I come from Hamilton NY, Pop.- 3000, and not a day goes by that I don't marvel at the amount of people there are around me here. I hope this can make the problem of overpopulation in China a bit more comprehensible, for I will unavoidably continue to talk(rant?) about it in many blogs to come.