Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Only in China - barbed wire on the walkway

Only who has been in China long enough knows that in general, the attention given to the well-being of citizen is much much less of what is given to economic development, money or face or "looking good".
this morning I had a painful reminder of how a plot of grass can be more worthy than well-being of a passer-by ....

At dawn (still dark), I was running my usual route and the walkway was blocked by construction material, piles of gravel, etc (actually the stuff is there for over a month ...), so stepped over a strip of grass dividing the walkway from the road (as I have always been doing since the walkway was obstructed by the construction material).... and "Huaaaaaaa" ....
some idiot from the local government put barbed-wire (!!!!) to avoid the people stepping in the grass !!! My leg was wounded in several point and blood was flowing ... grrrr
I was really enraged, not really for the pain, but for the total disregard in this country for the ordinary people. They (the administration) did not cleared out the walkway of the material, but add a barbed-wire to simply put-off the people from their "precious" grass, that gives an impression of modernization to this dirty town and gives face to the "development" activity of the government ...
So anybody having to use that walkway, either make a U-turn, either climb over some construction material left there for the convenience of some home-build, either risk his skin slipping by the barbed-wire ...
everything was so typically Chinese that my colleagues understood my feeling straight away ... "the grass is taken care more than our lives" was a good comment.

Anyway ... this is my left leg after after the accident. Other cuts are in the right tight and right/left tibia ..

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