Exercise #2
February 27, 2022 By: TAORUI LIU
My ancestry hails from Fujian Province, China. My grandparents were born in the same province, though they moved to adjust to changes in their work assignments. According to their narrations, they met while my grandfather was working as a middle-level government administrator in Fujian. Even though my grandmother had attained a considerable level of education, she willfully chose to be a housewife. They stayed for several years without having any children. During this time, they would move around together from town to town. Some of the towns and cities they stayed in during this phase of their lives are Xiamen, Jinjiang, Putian, Nanping, Longyan, and Fuzhou. In all places they stayed, they were passionate about the environment, especially their immediate environment. Their account of their youths details the many species of trees they kept in their compounds. My grandmother was particularly fond of growing and grooming trees as fences.
When they had my father in the early 1970s, my grandparents had settled in Wufeng Residential District, Fuzhou. My mother’s family had lived there for even longer than my father’s. They spent their childhood in this area including schooling at their elementary and high school levels, which was in the 1980s. During their childhood, the two (with other friends) would frequent the Zuohai Park located in the neighborhood. They even had their honeymoon at the lake in the park, and they have nostalgic memories of the place to date. Expectedly, I was born in this calm neighborhood. My childhood was quite similar to my parents’ because of having spent it in the same place. However, mine was a bit different in that the nearby park was more developed than before. The environment influenced my life goals, as I remember aspiring to be a fish farmer when I would grow up.
I was lucky to spend my childhood while my father was still working. He inspired me greatly with his constant tales of his adventures around the province and the country. I would later on notice that my passion for the environment was slightly different from my parents in that I was more into fauna than flora, while they were more passionate about flora. They would take me to different parks and take pictures of us that I still keep to the time of writing. The integrity of the environment has been on the decline with time, as people keep encroaching into forested areas to build houses or cultivate. This trend ensues because of the growing population in the area. Also, urbanization has contributed to the degradation of formerly forested land.
The passion I have for the environment has compelled me to participate in several noble initiatives such as tree planting while I was a child in Fuzhou. At first, it felt as if I was simply following my father around to these exercises. However, there were times he would be too busy to participate. I found myself moved to still participate in my little ways nevertheless. Moreso, whenever I would come back from environment-related exercises, my parents would laud my efforts and sometimes gift me. Eventually, I became overly enthusiastic about it that I would fight with my siblings for simply ridiculing me or tampering with my picture collections. From my recollections, I remember seeing men being more devoted to environmental preservation than women. Regarding class, the lower and middle-level class people seemed to have more concern for the environment than the upper class.
I moved to Vancouver, BC, Canada for purposes of studies. Coming from a different cultural and geographical background, I have come to appreciate the many differences in how the two groups of people treat the environment. One of the core differences is that in Fuzhou, the community around forested areas and animal habitats were more responsible with their environment. It is common to find people planting tree seedlings in their compounds and public parks. The Vancouver situation is starkly different. People do not have the internal motivation to take the initiative to conserve the environment. However, and on a positive note, the city has very stringent laws requiring the community to be more environmentally responsible. Also, the Vancouver community is very sensitive to animal rights. In the year 2014, animal rights activists publicly criticized the Vancouver Aquarium over the issue of breeding whales and dolphins in captivity. This criticism was so intense that the aquarium had to give in and resort to banning new whale and dolphin acquisitions.