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Saturday, August 9, 2008

The Many Faces of Green








Business culture as risk factor for AIDS in China


Elanah Uretsky, a medical anthropologist from Yale University research examines the role that governance plays in structuring contemporary male sexual culture in urban China and in transforming the Chinese HIV epidemic from an epidemic of injection drug use to one that is increasingly transmitted through sexual contact. Her research lead her to Ruili China. A small town located near a line of indigo hills along China's border with Burma, this area features prominently on China's AIDS highway. Ruili is of particular interest as scientists are retracing what researchers currently believe to be the most active transmission route for a viral strain unique to Asia.

Having lived in China for sixteen months and sending most of that time in Ruili, Elanah Uretsky has developed a personal and intimate sense of the problem of AIDS in China. Trace the lives of urban men who are trying to benefit from the many opportunities available in the market-oriented period of post-Mao China. Urestky highlights the struggles local Chinese encounter between traditional family expectations, traditional Chinese masculine entitlements, and contemporary expectations of state loyalty that often govern their success. All too often the requirements of work lead men to engage in a minor ritual process called yingchou that often includes feasting, drinking, and engaging in certain types of sexual relations, often with prostitutes. Work in China, seems to carry with it a very specific meaning, the provision of which are all modifications of pleasure, and may include food, drink, entertainment and the company of a commercial sex worker. Using these ‘pleasures’ as instruments of ‘work’ is often linked to political and economic success for urban men in contemporary China. A sense of loyalty and obligation to work related duties in a rapidly transforming socialist system structured by both a market economy and traditional patron-client relations has led many men into situations where they are informally required to solicit the services of a commercial sex worker as part of their job.

Banqueting, drinking, and entertainment activities are embraced by Chinese society governed by both traditional socialist patron-client relations as well as deeper seated traditions of relationship building also known as guanxi. Guanxi (gwan-shee) is the Chinese term for mutually beneficial relationships essential to success in the Middle Kingdom. Cultural and societal norms like guanxi are providing some of the framework for the success of the sex trade in China as well as vulnerabilities to STD and HIV infection for both the men and their sexual partners. This cultural practice of personal relationships fosters an environment where the local cultural of networking (guanxi) must employ ‘work’ related outings to karaoke clubs, massage parlors, or hair dressing salons, and of course, the entertainment services sought at these establishments, as integral and expected aspects of work used to satisfy the government officials who provide access to important resources and allowances. Ultimately this perfunctory entertaining and hosting of guests draws men out of the home and into the brothel in the name of career preservation, career advancement, and corporate success. This career success and lifestyle obligation, in turn, leads to areas of ‘high-risk’ for contracting HIV/AIDS. This ‘relationship’ building work that is associated with guanxi is a cultural device that is corrupting Chinese society and may well help HIV/AIDS become an epidemic that would ruin not only the local businessman as he tries to move up the social ladder but China as a country as it tries to move grow globally.

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Is Clothing Made from Bamboo the Answer?


For centuries bamboo has been used for its strength and durability in architecture and art across East Asia. Only recently finding an audience in the western world, bamboo is being transformed into, among the most unlikely of eco-products, clothing. Why is bamboo clothing so remarkable? Bamboo cloth has been called a seamless cotton-and-silk blend. The fibers made from bamboo are softer than cotton, has a natural sheen to the surface and still manages to feel similar to a silk or cashmere fiber. If that’s not enough, bamboo absorbs water 3-4 times better than cotton and stays 2-3 degrees cooler in hot temperatures thus making it the perfect summer fabric. Bamboo clothing has taken off in many commercial aspects. Bamboo is also much cheaper than silk, costing about one twentieth the cost of a pound of silk. The new dynamic cheap fabric caught the eye of the famous Los Angeles based designer Kate O’Connor. In an interview with bamboocloths.com Kate O’Connor said she plans to have half of her 2000 knits for next year to be made of bamboo cloth. Because bamboo is one of the world's most prolific and fastest-growing plants, and is able to reach maturity in four years or less, bamboos applications to be used as an environmentally sustainable alternative are taking root.

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Sustainability in Arizona?


Would it surprise you to know that Arizona State University (ASU) in Phoenix Arizona is actively shaping the world of social responsibility and sustainability today? A university in the desert, ASU is faced, everyday, with sustainable challenges that, despite their daunting nature, do not prevent the capital city of Phoenix from being the fastest growing city in the US. Associated with this rapid development, ASU students and faculty helped design and implement, Tempe Town Lake. This two mile long water source helps address problems of water shortage and less the destructive flooding that occurs in Arizona during the rainy season. While ASU has always faced sustainability problems, ASU moved itself to the forefront of sustainability by opening the nations first School of Sustainability (SOS) last year. Offering everything from bachelors to doctorate degrees, SOS and ASU’s president, Michael Crow’s commitment to furthering social responsibility and environmental change in higher education, is effecting a positive change across the globe. Following its commitment to sustainability and change ASU’s president started a so-called University Climate Initiative. The initiative, which is close in scope to what some American mayors have tried to do, hopes to “get other university presidents to sign up for a series of renewable-energy objectives and carbon-emission objectives.”1 While being in the desert has led ASU to take on sustainability as a way to tackle some of its major challenges to development and growth, the entire world will benefit from the work that is being done at ASU in the future.


This is an excerpt and may not be copied or cited without permission. Please contact me directly to learn more.