Today, having wandered the
slightly scary back streets of Chang An, I find myself enjoying a bowl of
noodles and vegetables at a small restaurant about a quarter of mile from Star
City. The manager, a strong looking bull of a man in his mid-forties with a
ready, even if somewhat gap-toothed, grin smiles appreciatively and practices his four or
five words of English on me. He is a most welcoming host, even if the depth of
the conversation is not overly impressive, given the circumstances.
When I refer to the scary back streets of Chang An, it has
little to do with any perceived threat of violence. I am told that such things
do occur but have yet to see anything of the sort after spending many months in
China during the past few years. The dangers, far more real and far more objective,
are from the ever present construction work. Not only are new buildings
constantly being erected in what seem, at times, to be the very smallest of
spaces, but an ongoing and seemingly endless program of reconstruction and
modernisation is an ever present experience for the modern visitor to urban
China.
Part of the reason for this is the rush towards the modern;
a brave new world is being constructed before our very eyes and this is being
done at an astonishing pace. Another part of the reason is the poor quality of
the construction often calls for re-construction within just a few short years.
I recently visited a friend living on the 19th floor of the
romantically named block no. 4 (of 15) in a development in one of the many
suburbs of Dongguan. She and her husband have been living there for under a
year but already there were cracks appearing in the ceilings of the stairwell
and in the walls of her flat. The 19th floor felt just a little too
elevated a position for this nomadic flaneur, given the thought that as much
attention is likely to have gone into the foundations as had gone into the
building materials...
There have been several scandals in China in recent years
where flyovers, schools and office blocks have
collapsed due to insufficient foundations or simply because of poor construction.
Indeed, I saw one amazing image recently of a brand new, multi-storey apartment
block that had simply toppled over onto its side and yet, astonishingly, had
remained largely intact. As far as I could tell, the foundations were so
shallow as to be barely existent at all. Needless to say, the company were
having difficulties filling the adjacent flats in the other buildings on the
estate...
On the smaller scale sites, such as one sees in the back
streets of Chang An, the ubiquitous material for scaffolding is bamboo. I am
told that this is perfectly safe and just as good as the steel used in the
West, but the sight of it is not overly reassuring. The construction seems very
haphazard with posts sticking out at all angles and a wide range of knots
employed, most of which did not look overly secure. The foot-ways on the upper floors seem very rickety indeed and I for
one would not certainly care to be making my way along one of these at
anything above ground level. On the outside of these hodge-podge constructions
are layered tarpaulin or scanty netting, often in ribbons, as a kind of nod
towards safety of passing pedestrians, the effect more symbolic than real.
Random rubbish, bricks and detritus of all sorts are scattered about on the
ground with no obvious sign of order. If one is lucky, you may even see some
warning cones; they are normally stacked up unused in some corner, ironically, often just
about the neatest thing about the site. No tape, no lights, no warning signs
are employed, or at least not as far as I have ever been able to discern.
Recently, whilst walking
through a back street in the city of Dongguan with two female friends, one of
whom carried a six month old baby, our somewhat absorbing discourse was
interrupted by what I thought was some particularly dusty debris being blown
through the air. This in itself is not an unusual occurrence in Chinese cities
so it did not really grab our immediate attention. Shortly afterwards though
there was a resounding crash, followed by urgent shouts and cries from
all around us alerting us to the fact that the building we were walking beside
was under reconstruction and a gentleman (other, perhaps more apt, terms came
to my mind at the time...) was pouring wheelbarrow loads of debris, mainly
bricks and metal fittings, from a gap in the wall on the third floor. We had to
take immediate and drastic avoiding action as the bricks and piping fell within
just a few feet of us. There was not a single warning cone, message board,
railings or even a piece of coloured tape to separate the growing pile of building
debris from the passing pedestrians. Personally speaking, I was somewhat less
than impressed...
The same cavalier attitude exists in relation to those who
work on these sites. On the larger construction projects one may see men
somewhat reluctantly outfitted in high visibility vests and hard hats but these
are as rare as an accurate economic prediction on the smaller sites. I have no
idea what the fatality rate is for such sites, I would doubt that the data even
exists, but it must be frighteningly high as these men take risks on a daily
basis that would never be permitted in the West.
In the UK there is an oft criticised piece of legislation
that recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary. It often finds itself the butt
of many a joke and the tabloid newspapers in that benighted (at least at this
time of year...) land often indulge joyously pointed out the more
absurd applications of the act. The Health and Safety at Work act
has never been particularly popular with either employers or employees. The
former regarding it as yet more 'red tape' whilst the latter mostly think of it
as needless nannying. Still, the figures don't lie (well, actually they often
do, but in this case they do give a certain insight). In the year the act came
into force (1974) , more than 650 people died as a result of accidents at work.
Needless to say, thousands upon thousands of others were seriously injured. 40
years later, the number of fatalities was 133, with a similar reduction in
injuries.
In the US in recent years similar legislation has come into
force with similar resistance and similar criticisms. The pioneering work of
Ralph Nader should be born in mind in this area. Again though, the effects have
been much the same, with huge numbers of people saved who might otherwise have
died or have had their lives (and, by extension, those of their loved ones)
needlessly blighted.
These measures may be particularly unpopular with
businesses who often point to the added costs involved, but what they fail to
mention is the costs avoided by the society such as hospitalisation,
recuperation, ongoing care, loss of trained and educated personnel, etc. The
reality of this has come to be realised over time and now few sensible politicians,
except perhaps some extreme ideologues on the right, would argue for the repeal
of such legislation. In the end it is, as the very apt American phrase has it,
something of a 'no-brainer'.
Many, many moons ago, as a child growing up in London, I
had the good fortune to count a young fireman as a close friend. I was just a
boy at the time, but Trevor Paul Carvosso, 'Carvo' to his friends, befriended
me and would spend hours happily teaching me snooker or table tennis, or simply
sharing a chat. He was a little crazy and unpredictable at times, always in
trouble of some sort or other, but had such an infectious good-humour that it
was impossible not to like him. On the 26th July 1969, Carvo was
manning an appliance in the East End of London when it was turned out to an
incident at Dudgeons Wharf on the Isle of Dogs. He and four other fireman were
inspecting the roof of a petroleum tank when a workman chose to apply an
acetylene torch to pipework at the foot of the construction. Seconds later it exploded
killing the workman, Carvo and all four of his colleagues. One sometimes
wonders if Trevor and the rest of the crew would still be with us today if the
Health and Safety act had come in some years earlier...
Last week, in the Guali Township of the Xiaoshan District
of Hangzhou, five firefighters were killed when putting out a fire in a factory
on an industrial estate. Apparently they were fighting the blaze from within
the premises when a roof collapsed, always a danger in firefighting, and the five
fatalities plus several others were trapped beneath the rubble. I have no means
of making any sort of judgement in this matter, but one hopes that the same
standards (or rather lack of them) that apply to the building trade in China do
not apply when committing firemen to such situations. The youngest was just 18
years old, the eldest 22; these men cannot have been that experienced and would
have needed guidance from older, more experienced heads. Fire fighting will
forever be a dangerous business, but there is no point in making it any more
dangerous than it needs to be.
Thoughts of the dangers of fire fighting and memories of
lost friends swirl in my mind as I once more find myself back in the rather
utilitarian but functional confines of the noodle bar. China itself is still
developing at an unprecedented pace and it is having to learn lessons in just a
few years that it took the West decades to come to terms with. One only hopes
that they are able to assimilate these lessons quickly. Sad to say though, that
at the time of writing it is hard to see that they are even aware that there
are lesson to be learnt at all...
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