Tree Planting and Changchun

Lunch yesterday was interrupted by a confusing phone call. Someone started speaking English at me, and I couldn't figure out who it was. Normally when I pick up my phone and hear English, that means family, but I couldn't quite make out the voice with the chatter filling the restaraunt. It was male at least, and when I asked who it was I could swear they said 'Sam' (my brother) so I went for a big 'heyyy, how's it going, great to hear from you'. Turns out it was a Chinese guy named Stan and he was calling from the Harbin TV station.

Long story short, I found myself in a taxi this morning at 7:30, heading out to plant some trees on TV. I was accompanied by David, a CET classmate who like me decided to hang around Harbin for spring break instead of heading off to some remote travel destination. When we got to the Dragon Tower (the TV broadcasting tower), we were a little surprised by the scene confronting us. All we knew was some guy named Stan, who had gotten our numbers from yet another friend, wanted us to go out and plant some trees with the tv station for 'Tree Planting Day', the equivalent of Earth Day over here. We didn't know that half of Harbin would be going with us.

Stan was waiting in the parking lot with some other foreigners who I didn't recognize, and behind them a sea of Chinese faces in red baseball caps. It turns out Stan is the host of an evening radio show teaching English, and hangs out with the foreign crowd quite a bit. There was a tall white guy standing in the parking lot with Stan, and next to him a girl who looked Chinese but wearing fairly western style clothes. I introduced myself and got their names as John the Canadian and Becky. They obviously knew each other, so I assumed the girl was also Canadian. I was even more convinced when she started speaking great English and cracking jokes definitely outside the range of Chinese humor; for instance, several cars straight out of 'Fast and the Furious' whipped past us into the parking lot, slammed on the breaks and performed those screeching, 180 degree stops which I've never seen outside of a movie. Becky laughed along with us, commenting "oh my god, they think they're sooo cool". For those of you who haven't been to China, that's an unusual phrase coming from a Chinese person.

Nonetheless, I soon found that Becky is Chinese, born and bred. Her westernization came through intense study, a gift for languages, and a three-year relationship with John the gregarious Canadian. Becky's English is the best I've ever heard from a Chinese person who's never been out of the country. Fooled twice in two days. She and John are getting married and going to Canada this summer, but that's another story. Our small group was rounded out by the Auzzies Boyd and Adam. Boyd is a big guy, very talkative, plays rugby and the guitar. He wanted to know if the crazy stories he's heard about American frats are true. Adam was a nice guy as well, although smaller and more hung over. Stan had thoughtfully provided us with gleaming white baseball caps, a nice contrast with red-capped hordes. It was nice of him to give us the same color as the leaders, but then again we didn't the help sticking out.

We piled on to the waiting busses - 5 or 10 of them - and headed for Sun Island Park to get planting. It was my second trip there, so I already knew that it's a huge fake nature complex where the tickets are expensive and people get wedding pictures taken. I wrote about it in one of my earliest blogs. Just before we arrived, Stan told us that his friend had a radio program going right then, and could we be good sports and sing a song into the phone so it could be on his friend's show live? We obliged with a patchy but heartfelt rendition of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight', thanks to David's quick work coming up with a good one we all knew.

The tree planting was at best questionable, at worst a tv stunt which wasted a lot of willing labor. The area chosen was on the bank of a river which is low at this time of the year, but will rise much higher at other times. There were already piles of good dirt laid out for us to use filling the holes. I soon found out why. The bank of the river, like the rest of Sun Island Park, was manmade not long ago and was actually landscaped using sand with a very thin layer of dirt on top. I'm no botanist, so perhaps my instincts were off, but....can willow trees grow in sand, and survive being submersed in water for significant parts of the year? That's not even all of it. The process we were to follow planting the trees ended with giving them a good watering. But, that water was not allowed to come from the river due to pollution. I'm not clear on how the trees will be able to survive in a few months submersed in this water, but can't stand a bucketfull right now.

Call me a coward - I prefer diplomat - but I neglected to raise any of these issues as I was interviewed several times throughout the morning. I stuck with the vanilla propagandistic stuff that I thought they were hoping for: Yes, I think planting trees is a wonderful activity and should be practiced no matter what country you're from or in. Yes, I've planted trees before in the US. I think that the American attitude towards helping the environment is very much like the Chinese attitude I see today; everyone wants to do what they can. It's something we all have in common. Yes, I'm very impressed by the number of people who showed up today, and I've never been to a tree planting on such a large scale. All this was followed by a reprise of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' for the TV cameras, after I coaxed David and Adam up onto the stage for backup.

Us foreigners were given the royal treatment. We didn't really work that hard, just talked to people and dug a few holes while we were at it. I had the feeling this was a really relaxed thing for everyone until Stan came up when I was talking with couple of student reporters. He really cracked the whip, telling them to get back to work and not be so lazy talking to me. Apparently interviewing me was fine, but they should get on with it and get back to the shovels. I was shocked by the hard line Stan took with them. He apologized for interrupting my conversation, but he obviously wasn't sorry for interrupting their conversation. The Chinese seem to treat people very differently depending on the relationship. Bosses, friends, and those you can boss around of all get shown vastly different personalities. As a foreigner, I got the red carpet treatment. The student reporters were lower than Stan on the totem pole, so he was free to lay down the law with them.

I'm getting tired and I need to go to bed, so I have to summarize the rest of the day quickly. I'm only at noon so far. The tree planting ended, and this afternoon I hopped on the train with Jin Chao and we made the three hour ride down to Changchun for a little change of scenery. The train ride was made awkward by a shouting match between Jin Chao and a stubborn guy on the train who didn't want to give us our seats. We won, but the guy's ticket was right next to us so we had to sit together the whole time. After a couple hours, he actually fell asleep and snuggled onto my shoulder for a few minutes before coming around.

That brings me to now. It's 12:30am and I'm in an internet bar next to the shower house we're staying at due to a lack of better sleeping options in the neighborhood. We had some excellent Korean food tonight with Jin Chao's cousin who goes to school here, and her Mom who's visiting for a while. If today is any indicator, the next couple of days in Changchun should be pretty interesting.