By Chelsea Newton
Raider Shakedown
Reporter
MURFREESBORO,
Tenn.—Associate Professor Dr. Guanping Zheng of Middle Tennessee State
University educated students on China’s need for sustainability in his lecture
“The Expansion of Chinese Cities and Its Impact,” on Nov. 26 in the Honors
College amphitheatre.
Zheng, associate
professor of Electronic Media Communications at MTSU, presented his lecture as
a part of The Honors College fall 2012 lecture series, "The City.” Zheng began his lecture with a brief
history and a slideshow of photographs from the before and after development of
China. Among the pictures, the one
aspect that seemed to stay rather similar is that of the “peasants” or
villagers. Zheng highlighted the
positives of development but touched base more intricately on the
negatives.
Zheng drew close
to his lecture by asking the audience "Develop, Developed, Developing, but
when will there be Sustainability?"
He then briefly mentioned the positives of development, brought
attention to the negatives, and left the audience with the same question:
"Where and when will sustainability come in, and if not, can we continue
developing?"
Afterwards, reporters
were able to meet with Zheng to gain a better understanding of the purpose of
his lecture. Zheng was raised in
small village in China and was one of the more fortunate children who were able
to attend not only middle school and high school, but college as well. Zheng, who also teaches courses on
Confucius, first gained concern about China’s continuous developing in 2004
when he visited his home village.
When Zheng saw children of migrant city workers being taken care of by
their grandparents and living in poverty while people just a couple hundred
miles in the cities were living in luxury and excess, he knew right then
something had to be done.
“Being a father myself, it just hurt my
heart that there were so many youngsters left by their parents," said Zheng,
in a truly heartfelt tone. "I could not do that.”
How could such a
prosperous and continuously developing country allow such poverty on the people
who helped build and feed the very cities they live in? Zheng was determined to find out. After his first visit in 2004, Zheng
began doing research and taking yearly visits to China in an effort to speak
with government officials on improving the conditions for migrant workers and
their families.
When asked about
his most current efforts to help with sustainability, Zheng explained that he
planned to continue educating people through his lectures and to provide enough
information on sustainability that maintaining our current state would suffice
for the economy instead of always seeking more.
What would he like
for his audience to gain from his lectures?
“I want to keep educating people to help
them think more about the true meaning of their lives,” Zheng answered
passionately.
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