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[AldoLeopold]

9. I'm not an engineer

I'm an environmental scientist. BIG difference.

I've studied Chinese history quite thoroughly out of interest. My first bachelor's was in history, after all. I like "The Walled Kingdom" by Rodzinski.

That being said, the 40+ scientific journals I've researched concerning smelting operations and airborne deposition of heavy metals, funded mainly by the state and only allowed by the state, are fairly clear about what they (the state) want - more smelting, less bitching.

I recall an article I researched for a class project showing Cd levels some 200 times higher than WHO permissible limits in leafy vegetables and potatoes around a small subsistence farming township somewhere in central china - I couldn't get a precise bead on it because Google Earth had it blacked out. Anyway, these were chronic and even acute levels of toxicity and the Chinese scientists, in concluding their journal, advised that the inhabitants simply "eat fewer/less leafy vegetables and potatoes."

This is why many people throughout China are protesting outside of smelting and chemical facilities and have even caused some forced shutdowns of construction for new facilities. They're not stupid. They know they're being slowly poisoned to death.

I still hate learning Mandarin. I've studied German in college and, believe it or not, Latin in High School, and have never found the process exciting or interesting. To me, its just drudgery. Give me a universal translator any old day.