Neighbourhood activists we are today, congregating on a corner beneath the hideous shapes that announce the Jingan Sculpture Park. At the start I feel a frisson of concern - how will the police react? Dissent is barely tolerated after all. I should not have feared, as this was a government sanctioned group that helps out in the community.
We walk in green T-shirts, some 30 of us, promoting a low carbon lifestyle by marching along our local streets and handing out leaflets & folding plastic fans to passersby. At least our walking creates no carbon, even if we stir up some of the city’s construction dust.
Aren’t we preaching to the converted? We might more effectively target the drivers waiting in their cars at traffic lights, though we’d be met with anything from incomprehension to ridicule at the notion of abandoning a hard won right to enjoy motorised convenience and comfort. Walking back from an innocuous & controversy-free march, we pass a vast, gleaming new Rolls Royce, about the size of many Shanghainese people’s apartments, with beads hanging from the mirror.
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