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Rise of technology and obsession with gadgets blinds us to the wonder of nature
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With summer vacation just one month away, many parents are occupied with thoughts of how to keep their kids busy during this period of learning limbo.
No doubt many children will be packed off to summer camps of various sorts, or else sent on trips with relatives. There was a time though when children could be safely left by themselves outdoors.
Typical kids today 鈥 provided they are old enough to hold a tablet computer or other mobile device in their hands 鈥 do not like the idea of being outdoors. The mother of a 13-year-old boy told me last week that her son will refuse to go outside, even when he鈥檚 forced to.
Sadly, the delights of nature seem lost on many of the youngsters reared in the brave new cyber age.
Many parents dangle inducements of various kinds to keep their kids outside. Travel is one common way to get children out of the house. But on any trip, e-gadgets are essential to keep antsy or bored children pacified.
When I spoke to my own son recently about going on a trip ourselves, he replied: 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 care less about where we go. I鈥檓 only interested in the kind of hotel we stay in and the view from the window when the plane takes off.鈥
Unfortunately, we don鈥檛 need to go too far to see how smartphones 鈥 and technology in general 鈥 have come to symbolize the only meaning of our life. On May 13, a 21-year-old youth in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, allegedly committed suicide after a taxi driver drove away with his iPhone.
Nature can teach
Such phenomenon are not unique to China.
An article published in the Guardian in January reported that several well-known British authors were 鈥減rofoundly alarmed鈥 about the replacement of 鈥渘atural鈥 words with words 鈥渁ssociated with the increasingly interior, solitary childhoods of today,鈥 in the new edition of Oxford Junior Dictionary.
Citing research findings, the article claimed that a generation ago, 40 percent of children regularly played in natural areas, compared to 10 percent today 鈥 while a further 40 percent never play outdoors at all.
These authors argued that 鈥淎,鈥 鈥淏,鈥 and 鈥淐,鈥 should stand for acorn, buttercup and conker, rather than for attachment, blog and chatroom.
Love of nature used to be part and parcel of Chinese education.
Commending the classical work 鈥淪hijing鈥 (The Book of Songs), Confucius observed that the ancient book was vital to 鈥渇amiliarize a learner with the names of birds, animals, grass and trees.鈥
According to research by a scholar in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) the book contains references to 37 species of grass, 17 varieties of herbal medicine, 43 kinds of trees, 24 sorts of grains and 38 types of vegetables.
Many songs in the book reflect a time when human life was slower, more deliberate and mindful; when existence was spent in intimacy with the world鈥檚 flora and fauna.
At the beginning of another Chinese literary masterpiece 鈥淭he Dream of Red Mansions鈥 the story starts with another kind of plant which, having imbibed 鈥渢he essences of heaven and earth and the nourishment of rain and dew ... cast off its plant nature and took human form, albeit only that of a girl鈥 (in Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang鈥檚 translation).
Synthetic landscapes
Later, one of the most poignant scenes in the novel is the burial of fallen flowers by the heroin Lin Daiyu.
I can鈥檛 imagine what a new generation of home-bound children would think of such scenes. Indeed, last weekend when I mentioned books in the presence of some children gathered at my home, I felt as if I had made a serious faux pas.
Nature has a lot to teach us.
For those with the imagination to see it, all of the mysteries of life and fertility can be seen in a single blade of grass. There are so many lessons to learn from watching how, by gradual accretions, a sapling grows into a giant tree that could outlive us all.
Alas, in modern times, a towering tree appears so insignificant amid a jungle of skyscrapers. And rather than marveling, as the poet William Blake did centuries ago, at the 鈥渋mmortal hand or eye鈥 that frames the fearful symmetry of a tiger in the forests of night, we admire the chains and the cage which confine toothless beasts in our zoos.
Nature is no longer something to marvel at, but something to be tidied, managed, trimmed, pruned and purged. We take great pride in our ability to discipline trees and shrubs, and our ability to trim them into pleasing shapes and patterns. We love lawns more than big trees, for a manicured lawn depends on us for irrigation, fertilization and pest control.
City folks no longer have the patience for a tree to grow up or a flower to bloom. At a small price we can simply have them transplanted long distance from elsewhere for our amusement. In a sense, what we refer to as nature is a nature of synthetic landscapes, carefully managed and engineered the way one would arrange a window-display.
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