At age 12,
I declared myself a vegetarian because "I like cows." I donated my allowance to
PETA. I cried when developers began paving over the Tucson desert, destroying
coyotes' and horned-toads' natural habitat. I declared war on golf courses.
(Have you heard me snort when you've asked whether I play/like golf? You're
lucky I just snort--you should hear my internal excoriations.)
In short,
I became a tree-hugger and for years have stubbornly clung to my self-imposed
moniker, trying my best to make Greenpeace proud. In sum:
I love nature and hate what
human's voracious appetite for convenience/wealth is doing to it.
Until moving to China, I was been pretty pleased with my enviro
cred and pretty underwhelmed by everyone else who is not on the same bus. Until
our trip to Burma, I would have readily ticked off my "impressive" list of green
accomplishments to anyone willing to listen.
My Erstwhile Impressive
List
(Please feel free to roll your eyes and skip this)
1. We
don't have a car here in Beijing.
2. I've never had air conditioning
3. I
only use vinegar, baking soda and natural, biodegradable soap for ALL my
cleaning needs.
4. I participate in CSA (community-supported agriculture) for
my fruits and veggies. (Not true in China.) I'm not vegetarian, but I can get
pretty close to it.
5. I buy organic, I buy local.
6. I never use paper
towels or paper napkins, I use washable, reusable rags.
7. I never use
plastic sandwich bags for kids' lunches
8. 80% of the boys'
clothes/toys/books are second-hand
9. I have a clothes line and use it
whenever possible.
10. I recycle and compost (even in China.)
11. My
family uses public transportation whenever possible.
12. Austin rides his
bike to work (I get association points for this.)
13. I use non-toxic
products, like paint, and drive anything toxic to the household hazardous waste
sites.
14. I gather used batteries from people so Amazon.com can recycle
them.
15. I diapered my babies with cloth and washed them myself and dried
them out on the line.
16. We don't even use a heater in Beijing! (We use our
passive solar heating very well!)
Now, if you read this list. Ignore
it. It's pathetic. Here's why:
When me moved to China, we could only take
what could fit into box roughly the size of a washing machine and our checked
baggage, mainly duffle bags sausaged with clothes and shoes. We had a much
larger shipment coming by boat which was scheduled to arrive between 1 and six
months after us.
We lived well off this one box. We did great. We were
fine. We were happy. Our earthly Beijing possessions consisted mostly of Legos,
kitchen utensils and children's books. We had to supplement the box with a trip
to Ikea to buy bed sheets for the larger beds in our apartment, but mostly we
lacked nothing and did not miss our American "stuff," aside from our bikes and
my pole.
So when our sea shipment arrived I was horrified. WHAT WAS ALL
THIS SHIT? And why did I feel the need to bring it? With each box that was
dumped into my living room--there were 56 in all--I felt my cheeks burning
hotter. It was like unwrapping a department store. It was judgment day in my own
heart. I immediately began foisting items onto the movers: "Here take this!"
"You want this?" "A gift from America, the world's most egregious
consumers!""With love, from Macy's!"
My moment of shame was intensified
by our Ayi's presence. She was there to witness my abject hedonism, my
consumption addiction, my one-woman assault on our gorgeous earth. Unloading our
clothes was the worst part. I cringed until I had lockjaw when she pulled out
one, two, three, four, five pairs of Austin's jeans. Five pairs? This does not
include all his pants. I thought all along that we were modest apparel
consumers, after all our clothes fit into two tiny, circa 1930 closets. We've
never had these walk-in closets that are bigger than most world denizens' living
quarters or anything. Really, how irresponsible are we?
I wanted to
dismiss our Ayi early, I couldn't bear the shame. I could not look her in the
eye. I was thinking of how to say "you can go home now" with my two classes
worth of Chinese (Ayi does not speak a word of English) when she held up a pair
of jeans riddled with holes and shellacked in coal miner's patina. She asked me
a question. I did not understand. She always knows when I'm confused because I
bobblehead and my jaw drops open. She is sweet enough to pantomime until I
understand, and acted out throwing-away-the-pants. Surely I had meant to discard
them? Trashed-out jeans such as these were not suitable to wear in public.
"Oh! NO! NO! NO! Those are nice jeans! The are expensive! They are
designer! We bought them with holes and grease and stains! You can't throw
those........" Yep, I was speaking in English again as my most patient and
intelligent Ayi carefully placed the designer jeans on the heap of other
designer jeans.
I began to giggle. Then laugh. Then laugh so hard tears
welled in my eyes. I felt so stupid, so hypocritical, yet I know that Ayi was
not judging me for my consumption. I think most humans secretly or openly aspire
to reach the American standard of living. How can I tell her it's too much? I
want to warn her of the pitfalls, the fact that money in many cases comes before
family, before God. How can I let her know that the world cannot support an
American lifestyle for everyone?

Our trip to Burma was the second proverbial slap in
my ignorant face. Tree Hugger? Please. In an ivory tower, there ain't no
trees.
Burma was like time traveling. Progress has passed the country
entirely. The fields of Burma are still plowed by oxen, water hand-carried from
wells and cars are scarce. Gasoline is purchased out of used water bottles and
liquor bottles at road-side stands. I did not see a single gas station in all of
Burma, not even in Yangon, the capital city.
I saw two cars outside of
Yangon and the occasional tractor. There aren't yet decent paved roads. Taxis
were horse-drawn in Bagan. Some enterprising B

urmese take simple tractor engines and attached them
to pickup truck cab to make some incredibly loud and jittery vehicles that
looked comical with their exposed belts whirring and the exhaust huffing and
puffing. You certainly don't need gas or oil for heating. The country is bloody
hot--the cool, dry season posting temperatures in the 90s.
This will
change, I give it ten years. Don't get me wrong, I want progress for the
beautiful Burmese. I want everybody in this world to have access to education,
healthcare, clean water and healthy food. I am just not optimistic enough to
believe our earth has the resources to sustain 7 billion 3-car
families.
So my youngest son Finn was studying the petrol stand under the
tamarind tree when he asked: "Mommy, how many bottles would it take to fill up
our mini-van in Seattle?"
"About Ninety Nine." Ninety nine. Ninety-nine
fucking bottles of petrol in my van. Ninety-nine bottles to haul my
over-privileged family to The Children's Museum of Everett, to private swim
lessons, to Remlinger Farms, to the beach, to Whole Foods, to the Science
Center, to the library, to sundry parks, camping, hiking, biking.
At
least I don't drive an RV.