Growing Up

Cultural behavior is formed in countless ways, that is to say, we can never fully understand the effect on the psyche of different stimuli. We cannot eliminate variables to run proper tests, which is why we speculate, guess and conjecture (hence the respected scientific status of Anthropology). I like to wonder about an often overlooked environmental influence; I wonder about how the view from your window effects your outlook on life.

I've heard from my friends who grew up in Montana that they could never live in a place without mountains. They claim they are reassuring, comforting. Friends who grew up by the sea claim the same thing. I can't help but wonder what growing up next to something so big, something which dwarfs all human beings equally and completely, does to a person's mind. While I doubt that it increases religious beliefs, I feel like it must impart the feeling that we are all just smaller pieces of a larger world, that there is something (society, humanity, a deity) bigger than ourselves. I have no proof, and I wouldn't dare speculate that people who spent their childhood surfing or hiking are better people, but I can't help but wonder if there is an effect.

Which is why I'm fascinated by how a young Chinese person is influenced by the scores of apartment buildings, one after another, fading into the horizon. Knowing that each window of each building is a family, I feel a person would certainly have an understanding of a bigger society, but is it the same reaction as a child of the sea? I fear that it would cause people to be less humane, showing no empathy for others because they are simply aware that there are too many to realistically show empathy for. Does the skyline create socially conscious and aware individuals, or does it create self-centered, greedy me-first types?

As it is the Chinese are not prone to these philosophical wonderings, so I struggle to locate answers when I ask direct questions, and the culture is still distant enough from me that personal investigations reveal all too little.

Not that I'm one to throw stones, I'll admit I've never considered the mental effects the suburbs make on impressionable youths. But gathering how positively the landscape has effected some of my friends, I can't help but wonder if the cityscapes of China have that same positive effect.