Water
We have traveled through a few cities in China and seen a lot of different sources of water, but not a single one of them would I have had the courage to swim in. Yesterday, in Wuxi, I got an up close view of a river that flowed through the city and it was disgusting! There was garbage all over the banks, the river was really cloudy, and crap was floating in it as it flowed under the bridge I was standing on. There was a river boat tied up to the bank and it looked like they were just throwing crap overboard as well. What is even harder for me to take in is that people fish on these lakes and rivers and eat the fish they take from them. I think as Americans we take our clean water sources as a kind of “given.” It wasn’t that long ago that some of our lakes and rivers were very polluted, and some of them we are still trying to clean up (the Port of Green Bay or Gary, IN for instance). We obviously have lasting effects from our days of heavily polluting our lakes and rivers, such as the mercury levels in our fish. I love the water, so it is very hard for me to see the pollution in China. I know from here on out I will not take any lake or river in the USA for granted!