Malthusian Nightmare

"This natural inequality of the two powers, of population, and of production of the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that appears to me insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society." Thomas Malthus wrote those words hundreds of years ago and if he were alive today, standing on Nanjing rd. in Shanghai, during the peak of the October holiday, we would be shocked at the very least. China is a nation of people, that is China’s strength. The flood of cheap labor pouring into the cities from the country side powers the supply of goods that enter the global market at a fraction of the cost of other country’s production. It is that mass of people that most people think of when they think of China and I am sure now that my mother has been here and literally pressed the flesh, she would agree. I think more than the great wall at Mutianyu, more than the Forbidden City, more than being at the top of the Shanghai Financial Center, my mother will remember the massive amount of people she encountered in China. People, people, everywhere. Of course it was holiday break and we were going to some of the most popular tourist sites, popular for foreign and domestic tourists alike. She had come to spend some time seeing where I was living and working, but also to meet up with my wife’s parents. It was great for killing two birds with one stone, or really three in this case. We got to see our parents, have them see each other, and do some sight seeing around Shanghai that we probably wouldn’t have done on our own. My mother came about a week before Aya’s parents so we spent some time here in Shanghai getting her adjusted to the time difference, which I don’t think ever really took. Then we spent a few days in Beijing. Beijing, as usual, was crowded and dirty. Going to see the sights felt mostly like an exercise of pushing and shoving Chinese people, but we did get to a few places. One day we even hired a driver, who was polite, but oddly uncooperative at times. We had booked him to take us to the Great Wall at Mutianyu, then back to Beijing and to a kung fu show later in the day. As it turned out my mother got sick on the ride back. Luckily she had a plastic bag from a "I climbed the great wall" t-shirt. Later, she jokingly said it might have been more fitting had it said, "I puked on the great wall". She went to go rest in the hotel when we returned to Beijing. Faced with 2.5 hours until the show I asked the driver to take me to lunch near the Lama Temple. He said I should take the subway and then asked if I was sure I had enough time. Well, I certainly would have if he would have just driven me there. I did end up having enough time, but just barely, to go have lunch and then make it back to collect my mother and go to the show, but as it turned out she was still ill. I ended up canceling the show and returning to spend the night in the hotel room. I was actually kind of relieved to be sharing a 15X10 ft space with less than 15X10 people. The next day we got up bright and early to make our way back to Shanghai, but because of my negligence we went to the wrong terminal and missed our flight. This is the first time, out of 80 or so flights I have taken, that this has happened. At least now I can say that I don’t spend too much time in airports . We got another flight and made our way back to Shanghai where Aya’s parents were soon to be arriving. Unfortunately my mom was exhausted from being sick and traveling and so missed out on the “cannonball” taxi ride from the airport that I took with Aya’s parents. Apparently there are some rules involving the distance of a fare and your place in the queue when you return to the airport. Our driver was a bit reluctant to take our fare, but determined to get rid of us as fast as possible and so drove at 150 on the highway back to our apartment (that is about 93 miles an hour, for you km to miles folks).The next few days were a blur of breakfasts at our apartment followed by trips around the city and to nearby cities, dinners, river cruise, and other sight seeing. It seemed to go by very fast and as we sat at home Sunday night, having delivered both sets of parents to the airport, we reflected on the past week of activity. It’s always nice to have family, but also nice to see them go. My mother, despite getting very sick, held up pretty well. Aya and I started talking about the future and taking care of our parents in their old age, the conclusion of which was this; I hope my mother can be resilient enough spend her old age in a new location.