A few things Canadians can learn from China

As I was on my long 31 hour journey back to Canada, my flight was delayed and I was stuck in Vancouver international airport for 7 hours. Jet lagged, unable and afraid to sleep (as I was traveling alone, it's best not to sleep in the airport because I had to watch your luggage and make sure you don't miss any annoucements over the public addresss system).

One thing I decided to do on my trip home was to look around Canada and to see what ideas and other things Canadians and Canadian society could adopt to from China to make Canada a better place. Basically a one month exercise in comparing and contrasting China and Canada. It's only fair I do this because I always bitch and complain about things in China, right?:)

The first thing I noticed when I sat down was the amount of overweight and obese people walking around. It's definitely a problem in Canada. I hear it's a growing problem in China as well but at this stage, most Canadians are heavier than Chinese I would say. You definitely notice a trend towards fatter children in China because of the sedentary lifestyles (playing video games, watching TV, internet bars, driving places) that many children lead these days.

I've been walking a lot around downtown Toronto since I got back and I've resisted the urge to drive my car. It's easy for me since I live very close to the Yonge Street subway line that runs north to south from uptown Toronto where I live to downtown Toronto and the central business district, in effect cutting central Toronto in half.
If I want to go to the suburbs where most of the Chinese malls and restaurants (Cantonese food 粤菜馆, mainly）I'd need to drive there, otherwise it's a hassle.

Of course, this leads my analysis into public transit. If you live on the subway line or close to the bus station in Toronto, commuting is pretty easy if you want to get around. But if you live in the suburbs, driving to work, going shopping, traffic jams, parking hassles, car accidents are all part of your daily life which, IMHO, adds unnecessary stress. It's a common phenomenon in most western countries (perhaps not so much in some older European cities/countries): driving is king. The oil industry, automobile industry are in collusion with the government, urban planners to and land and housing developers to create more urban sprawl thus making the car a necessity. That's why Bush and friends are meddling in the Middle East, right? China is also becoming a major player in the oil and resources industry. Chinese companies backed by the central government have already bought a few natural resources companies in Canada and are making a bid for a major oil company in the US. Why the big need for oil in China? To fuel the economic growth that China is experiencing right now and to gas up the thousands of new cars and millions of existing cars (Beijing has 1.5 million passenger cars already on its streets) that hit the streets everyday. Don't laugh but you may be driving a Chinese car in the next 5-10 years. Korean car companies were laughable just a few years ago but they are doing pretty well these days.

Chinese friends are often surprised when I tell them Canadians usually bike for recreation and exercise not as a means of transportation. There aren't many bike lanes in Toronto and generally it's not safe to bike on the roads anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hardcore environmentalist but I've seen the nasty effects of widespread environmental degradation and its effects on humans and wildlife in China so I think we should pay attention to that.

Moving onto environmental protection, I always admired how Chinese were so good at saving electricity, water and paper products in their daily lives. Now don't get me wrong, they probably don't do it for any altruistic reasons like saving the environment but instead are more interested in saving money because water and electricity bills can get pretty expensive (by Chinese standards, anyway) but coming home I see we waste a lot of electricity water and paper. Especially in Canada as we are a nation rich in natural resources. If w ewant to continue to be a nation rich in natural resources, we should take care of them appropriately.