Construction is almost as pervasive as smog in China. On any given road, at any given time, one will have to climb through random piles of rubble- making a short walk to the dumpling stand an exercise in risk calculation- “If I balance on that unsteady rock, leaning forward, I can leap over the manhole and edge around aluminum fence OR I can dodge between bulldozer and the claw thing and zigzag my way across the road.”
The Chinese adore manholes. I always walk looking down because one never knows when there will be a sudden drop into the dark abyss of the Chinese sewage system. On the beach, it is no different. We came onto the beach at low tide to see Chinese men and children hurrridly, haphazardly digging manholes. As the tide came in, we watched in bewilderment as they built a fortress of sand in front of the manhole, desperately trying to protect their manholes from the unavoidable exposure to water.
In the US, and in the western world, children build sandcastles. I remember carefully carving out a moat around my castle, so that my sandcastle would have a moat and be unaffected by the incoming tide. This form of irrigation does not seem to occur to the Chinese men who were performing what actually might be the definition of “exercise in futility.”
My friend and I watched and analysed the sad endeavor, coming to the conclusion that there must be some point to the action that we didn’t understand.
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