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Tree Planting Day & Depressing Bare Ugly Hills Eddakath's photos around Shaowu, China (fujian)

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Entry from: Shaowu, China
Entry Title: Tree Planting Day & Depressing Bare Ugly Hills

Entry:

Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

Being an obsessive bike rider I get to see so much of China that will never be seen by most foreign visitors. Add to this the lucky fact that I get to live in a place for a long period of time and when you put these two together this means I simply get to see some of the changes that happen. One change I am quick to notice in all the areas I have been lucky to live in are the changes in the hills that surround the town or city I am living in.

Ha Ha! Oops, sorry I lie!
There were no trees, branches, sticks, twigs or even grass on the hills that surrounded Baiyin City in Gansu province so that means, no changes!

The changes I am talking about are that one month hills in a certain area will be covered in trees and a few months later the hills will be identical in nature to those that can be found that surrounding Baiyin City in Gansu Province.

There will be no trees, branches, sticks, twigs or even grass!
Everything that was once green has completely gone!
What would have been left, now burnt!
What is left is such a depressing sight!
What was once beautiful is now ugly!

But, before we judge, (and we in the west are very quick to judge!) we must remember that probably half the population of China uses wood for almost everything. Most rural Chinese have no gas and many have no electricity. Wood is used for all meals and heating throughout the freezing cold months of the year. Everything we foreigners import from China that has wood somewhere in its making has come from these now ugly bare depressing hills.

Thankfully another thing I pass on my biking adventures is fields full of tiny treelings. Sorry, that's my word for baby trees. When I first noticed these fields I had no idea what was actually planted in them.

It wasn't until Li Ping (Joyce) and I were riding together that I found out.
Being a silly bugger I asked her what kind of vegetable it was.
She laughed and told me they were baby trees.
Oh treelings! I said.
I knew that!
Ha Ha!

There must be hundreds of thousands of them in some of the larger fields and once I knew what they were I knew that the ugly bare hill I had begun noticing would once again be full of life again in the near future. I then began to see the big picture. China and its people have been here for a long long time, a lot longer than my people have been in Australia. There would have to be some structure and timetable to this process for all the other hills to be covered in trees.

I also then began to notice other things attached to cycle of these hills.

Living in shabby huts located on the side of the dirt roads that have been made for the movement of the felled trees are some of the families who spend their lives stripping the life from the lush green hills. I would pass by these shabby huts and like the trees they would be there and then they would be gone.

I became close to one of the families that lived out past the Temple that I pass on my afternoon Village/Temple Bike ride. For many months I would pass their home and stop to give snacks or small presents to the twin boys who lived there. These families pretty much have nothing. Their house is made of four wooden posts and they then wrap black plastic around them and add a door type thing. They then cover the plastic in straw and leaves.

Maybe this acts as insulation?
Here they sleep, eat and live.
There never will be school for the kids.
They too will relocate their plastic home and strip the life from hills.

Their homes can always be found next to a small running river as this becomes their bathroom. During winter time ...
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Photos from this trip:
1. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day
2. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 01
3. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 02
4. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 03
5. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 04
6. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 05
7. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 06
8. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 07
9. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 08
10. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 09
11. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 10
12. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 11
13. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 12
14. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 13
15. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 14
16. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 15
17. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 16
18. Arbor 'Tree Planting' Day 17

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