After returning from a nice two week vacation back home in California, I returned to a rainy Hangzhou. The weather here, though rainy, has been decently cool. The first weekend I got back my neighbors were bustling around the neighborhood. My neighborhood is usually a very relaxed and casual place, without much commotion, nor much gatherings other than old ladies dancing to music on the deck.

 Well, I discovered from non-official sources, the mayor of Hangzhou recently took a trip to Venice, Italy. He had a wonderful time and returned with the novel idea of turning the city of Hangzhou into a Venice, so that he could leave a legacy before his term ended.

And the story unfolds... read on.

This resulted in the raising of all the Hangzhou bridges that spanned local rivers, causing more construction delays and pollution. Unfortunately, one of these rivers runs through my apartment complex. This little river was very well maintained by my apartment management and there are beautiful greenery, frogs, birds, dragonflies, flowers, trees, crickets, and more on either side of it, along with a green lawn and children's playground. The city government is taking 15 meters on either side of the river, which effectively will destroy all the greenery and the playground, so that they can redo it to make it suitable as a water taxi way, right through the middle of the apartment complex.

Of course, I didn't expect that a lot of thought went into this beforehand, but to hear of something like this actually being possible is quite shocking for me.

 Our neighbors had done their part to alert the city that they weren't pleased with this and I can certainly understand their feelings.  I feel very much for them, but even moreso, I feel for the plants, the flowers, the cute froggies that welcome me home every other day in the summer, and more. I wasn't so hopeful that the people could find justice in this situation.

That day I took a taxi out to buy some food and the taxi driver asked about the commotion in my apartment complex. I told him what happened and he told me that he can definitely understand the anguish of the people and that the city government was wrong to do this. He said the people needed to alert the city of this wrongdoing, so that the city will not proceed with this foolish move any further. I asked him if he really thgought the people had any say or power in regards to the city government, and that I thought the government was all powerful. He told me "Of course they do! There have been cases where the city has paused or even ceded some to the people once they stood up." This really brightened my day to hear, and secretly I was thinking that perhaps this society is really moving forward, slow, but moving.

It has been about a week now and the night before or was it last night, there were notices posted in my complex that the city government would come to talk to the property owners about this project, however no more commotions were allowed.

So, I'll wait to hear more about this. I've already informed my landlord and she'll do her best to help with this situation, as I really do like the place I am living in.

 Best of luck to the good people.

Comments (1)

Written by mona , on 21-06-2008 03:02 ooo i'm rooting for you guys to be able to keep the beauty around the lake!    good luck! you go girl! Report

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