Built to Last

A simple motto, used countless times on American TV commercials, 'built to last' is a phrase that somehow doesn't apply here in China any more. So focused on growth and development, the quality of the growth seems secondary sometimes to the speed and appearance of growth. Things age quickly in China.

It seems strange that in this country famous for a Great Wall built around 2000 years ago durability has become passe. The technology, the buildings, the cars, nothing is made with thoughts of longevity. A thirty year old building in America is newer than a five year old building in Shanghai. It's not that people don't maintain things, there is a service army bigger than a military regiment, but rather that they don't construct for the future - they construct for the now. Everywhere I go I feel like I'm in a cheap imitation of a building in China, until I realize that I am in a building in China and most are simply cheaply made, everything is superficial.

I was told that people in the country care more for durability than city folk, which I'm sure must be true. Fashion becomes a low priority when winter's warmth factors into the equation, just look at the hoodies, jeans and boots of Boston for example. In the country quality matters because people are poor and things need to last. In the country the great leap forward, the real one with tangible economic benefit, hasn't quite reached everyone yet.

In the city, though, the lure of modernization dazzles everyone's eyes. The scores of buildings are nothing more than plaster over cement blocks - no wood, no insulation, no central heating. Someday these buildings will all be too old to support people, to support themselves, and they will need to come down. Will we one day hear of great turnover in Shanghai's skyline? Unlikely, and I don't mean to suggest these buildings will topple on their own, rather they will slowly and slowly sink back to being crowded, unkept lodgings for the underprivileged. Yet the images of the rescue workers in Sichuan after the earthquake bending the rebar of collapsed grade schools with their bare hands serves as a hollow reminder of the worst that can happen from cutting corners.

I can't help but wonder what happens when everything gets old. Will it the city become a tragic tale of boom developments, like so many ghost towns in Alaska? Or will the city continue to grow, to adapt and learn to build lasting structures? I can't help they figure it out soon, because soon there won't be enough land anymore anyway.