My Personal Environmental History
October 16, 2022 By: Rao Fu
My family environmental history involves multiple migrates, which means I have experienced various culture and background shift from my childhood till now. My grandparents were from the Inner Mongolia province, a territory located on the northern part of China. Inner Mongolia has a traditional pastoral economy, the relationship between livestock and pasture began thousands of years ago. Sheep and goats were the most effective ways to maintain sustenance and obtain profitability within the wide prairie of low productivity and harsh orographic climate conditions [1].
Due to substantial land cultivation, Inner Mongolia came to play an increasingly important role in the industrialization of China because of it is rich in natural coal and iron deposits (Inner Mongolia, 2009). Due to the specialty of these mineral resources, most of the steel production of China comes from the Inner Mongolia province, which generates lots of employment opportunities for industrial workers. Two of my uncles are working for the biggest steel production plant [1]. However, the excessive cultivations of prairies and lands led to severe desertification of Inner Mongolia. Due to overgrazing and farming, more arid soils were exposed to the windy weather in the north of China. Thus, in autumn and winter, there were more sandstorms occurred in Inner Mongolia. Currently, my grandparents are still living in Inner Mongolia. When they were relatively younger, they used to participate in the “Three North” forest protection project to volunteer to plant more trees to control the sandstorm weather. It is because of the “Three North” project, occurrence of sandstorm in Inner Mongolia is much less than the previous years.
I was born in the Inner Mongolia province, then migrated with parents at the age of three. During holidays or vacation, my family will go back to Inner Mongolia to visit my grandparents. Since my parents and I lived in Shenzhen, it is a modern megacity which belongs to the Guangdong province, located in the very south part of China. Since I was born in Inner Mongolia and grew up in Shenzhen, I could experience the great differences of daily habits, tones, and lifestyle between the northern and southern provinces. From my past experience, life in the Inner Mongolia is more rural and traditional. Lifestyle is generally slow paced and relaxed. Whereas, life with my parent in Shenzhen is very modern and advanced. Lifestyle is generally fast paced and stressful.
My parents migrated to Shenzhen for a better living and career opportunities. Shenzhen is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong to the south. In the early 1980s, economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in the city becoming the first special economic zone of China due to its close proximity to Hong Kong, which attracted many foreign direct investment and migrants searching for opportunities. This is the reason why my parents migrated from Inner Mongolia to Shenzhen.
In 1980s, Shenzhen was still a small fishing village where the local economy primarily depends on fishing. Due to Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform policies, more investors and entrepreneurs chose to develop their businesses at Shenzhen due to its proximity to harbor for international trade. Just in 30 years, residents and migrants in Shenzhen has transferred Shenzhen from a fishing village to a megacity and becoming a leading global technology hub [2]. Shenzhen has been dubbed by media China’s Silicon Valley. Due to the limit of the city’s area, Shenzhen is a city with more focus on economic & technological development and international trade, rather than relying on natural resources. Benefited from the development of Shenzhen, many surrounding sub-urban cities built a variety of industries and acted as a global manufacturer for a majority of electrical devices, including cell phones, laptops, and utilities [2]. Since working in the electronic industries is the most promising direction in Shenzhen, both of my parents have chosen their career path in the cell phone and laptop industries. They probably made a minor contribution to Shenzhen’s technological and economic development.
Migrated from Inner Mongolia to Shenzhen, I realized the ideology of people for the interior province and the coastal province has a great difference. Thinking and ideology of resident from interior province are relatively traditional. The seniors still have the thinking of valuing male over than female. People tend to keep their traditional awareness rather than accept new changes. However, people from Shenzhen tend to be more open-minded. They promote gender equality and are more respectful for people come from a different culture or backgrounds. As of for me, I have begun my new path to study abroad at BC in Canada. I am on my way to adapt to new changes and culture.