roads that conform to the human foot

[asakiyume]

Paul Salopek, this morning, talking about traveling in rural Yunnan Province, China:

Almost without being aware of it, [we] are losing touch with the human hand itself, what the human hand can make ... This realization paradoxically gelled when I stepped over the Myanmar border into China, possibly because I had these conceptions that I'd be walking into the most industrialized country in the world. And I didn't. Instead ... not only [are] the houses all handmade, but the roads to reach them were conformed to the human foot. People were still moving between them on foot or on bicycles or, on occasions, by pack horses. And even the tools to make this environment, I noticed, were handmade.
Source: "Writer Paul Salopek started a global journey ten years ago. Where is he now?" NPR Morning Edition.

The human hand and foot. I'm not holding this up as a way everyone should live--not at all. (I want there always to be thousands of different ways to live.) I just really appreciate how this show what people can do. We're not merely catalysts for automated processes.

Comments

[sovay]

(I want there always to be thousands of different ways to live.)

I like that a lot. And none of them data-scraped, please.

[asakiyume]

Yes, no strip mining or topsoil removal in our lives.

[sartorias]

Ah, I like this thought. I also have noticed he's right, from my HeyGo excursions into Chinese villages far from big cities.

[asakiyume]

How cool--I think it's neat that you've visited so many places that way.

[sartorias]

:-)

[anna_wing]

Yunnan is the one of the poorest provinces in China.

[asakiyume]

Yes, he didn't say so in so many words, but he allowed as to how economic conditions were often behind a life like this.

[anna_wing]

There are reasons why people tend to flee the village for the city, first chance they get...

[asakiyume]

He acknowledged that, too!

Tangenting

[amaebi]

Something that bothers me a lot in the US is my strong impression that in urban, suburban, and tech society the physical world somehow implicitly imagined to be quaint, small, and trivial. In these sectors, engagement with a traditional craft seems to be displayed as a performance art choice when personal, an anthropological phenomenon in backwater life when mentioned as a regularity in some societies.

Going by public discourse you'd think agriculture was a minor enterprise, and mostly not worth considering.

Re: Tangenting

[asakiyume]

I'm thinking that when people are cut off or unconnected from something, it's easy to imagine it as unimportant or as just magically and effortlessly doing its thing somehow/somewhere, out of sight. One's own life is full with one's own problems and activities, which all take place in a very different kind of setting, using different tools, with different demands, timeframes, all of it. Appreciating--or even just remembering about--other lifeways is a muscle that really needs continuous stretching.

Smiling at "engagement with a traditional craft seems to be displayed as a performance art choice when personal." I know what you mean!

A lever for power, too

[amaebi]

Moreover, not-knowing is not necessarily purely involuntary, and can be cultivated as a lever.

I speak as a veteran victim of
1. Housework is unimportant to me. I don't notice it or care about it.
2. Housework takes no time and no skill.
3. I can't possibly do housework because I don't know how and have no time.
4. Why is this place so filthy/disorganized?

Re: A lever for power, too

[asakiyume]

The contradiction between 2 and 3 is especially sweet/awful.

Re: A lever for power, too

[amaebi]

Let me point out the contradiction between 1 and 4 as well.

And I left out "Your standards are too high! I can't measure up!" which also goes dandy with 4.

Re: A lever for power, too

[asakiyume]

Indeed!