How time flies. 2024 will come after around 10 days.

When I was a kid, I once wrote an article about the future. I imagined that in 2024, people can shop online, take online classes at home, and drive flying cars. At that time, I would never have imagined that in the coming twenty years,  two of them would actually become a reality step by step. I could not even imagine that COVID-19 would really force me to shop and study at home. The world is really magical. In 2023, ChatGPT was born. I don’t know how artificial intelligence will completely change our lives in the coming 2024，that anything can happen in an instant and everything is full of unknowns.

I have become the adult I expected as a child. I will be faced with a variety of new choices, and these choices may very well change my whole life. I don’t know how to deal with the world changing drastically. I feel more deeply that as an ordinary person, I am just a grain of sand in the tide of the times. I don’t know where I came from and I don’t know where I am going to. It seems that I have chosen my life, but in fact I am swaying forward step by step under the invisible control of society. I often think about the purpose of this life and often feel empty and meaningless.I know loneliness is the normal state of life. Communication between people is a kind of spiritual support, but it is also a cage of freedom.

Anthropology is such a broad concept to me. I gave up studying a so-called high-paying science major because I knew I wouldn’t love it. But choosing to study a seemingly illusory topic, especially today when artificial intelligence is so popular, is this really the right choice? Make money in pain or become impoverished in obedience, it’s a hard decision – choose your preference between the two Rotten Tomatoes. Even though I like culture, I still face many choices. For example, I love reading, but I don’t like writing papers. I like communicating with people, but I don’t like studying people’s behavior.

Being a human being is hard. While constantly thinking about life, we also have to constantly withstand severe beatings from society. For example, I just found out that a rental website fraudulently deducted 160 euros from my account, but I can’t get a refund because they wrote the subscription terms in mini translucent font on the Q&A page. I feel haggard because of these things every day, and I can only console myself that it’s good that I’m still alive. For example, every time I see the elder sitting in wheelchairs or pushing mopeds, I have to think about what the world will look like when we age and whether we will still get support at that time. Or, will we live to be their age?

It is not good to think too much. In this vast universe, everyone is so confused and at a loss. What we occupy is only a small fragment in the long history of the Milky Way, and it will always become a thing of the past before we have time to think about anything further. But I’m so grateful that I am thinking. If a tree can think, then it wouldn’t be bad to be a tree for the rest of my life.

Anyway, 2024 is coming.

09-50-M1-T2: Tutorium 2 zu „Einführung in die Ethnologie“ | Tutor: Ben Baumgarten | WiSe 2023 |6297282| Xiying Huang | Literaturliste

 

^[1] Banton, Michael. Social Anthropology of Complex Societies. 1st ed., London: Routledge, 2013.

 

^[2] Cole, John W. “Anthropology Comes Part-Way Home: Community Studies in Europe. Annual Review of Anthropology”, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 6, 1977, pp. 349-378.

 

^[3] Hannerz, Ulf. Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.

 

^[4] Herzfeld, Michael. Anthropology Through the Looking Glass: Critical Ethnography at the Margins of Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

 

^[5] Howe, Leo. “Urban Anthropology: Trends in its Development since 1920.” The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 1, Mar. 1990, pp. 37–66.

 

^[6] Jackson, Peter. “Urban Ethnography.” Sensing the City: A Companion to Urban Anthropology. Ed. Anja Schwanhäußer. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2016. pp. 17-40.

 

^[7] Nath, Suman. “Urban Anthropology.” Anthropology for Beginners, 29 Apr. 2021, http://sumananthromaterials.blogspot.com/2021/04/urban-anthropology.html.

 

^[8] Pardo, Italo, and Giuliana B. Prato. Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory. 1st ed., London: Routledge, 2016.

09-50-M1-T2: Tutorium 2 zu „Einführung in die Ethnologie“ | Tutor: Ben Baumgarten | WiSe 2023 | 6297811 | Elisa Schulte | Literaturliste

 

Akbarian, Samira. 2022. Klima, Kunst, Kartoffelbrei: Zum „Anschlag“ auf ein Monet-Gemälde im

Potsdamer Barberini-Museum. VerfBlog. https://verfassungsblog.de/klima-kunst-

kartoffelbrei (Zugegriffen: 08.12.2023).

Bäcker, Gerhard/Kistler, Ernst. 2020. Ein drohender Generationskonflikt?. Bundeszentrale für

politische Bildung. https://www.bpb.de/themen/soziale-lage/rentenpolitik/291719/ein-

drohender-generationskonflikt/ (Zugegriffen: 18.12.2023).

Fuchs, Arved. 2010. Klima und Gesellschaft. In Der Klimawandel, Hrsg. Martin Voss, 41-46.

Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Habibi-Kohlen, Delaram. 2023. Klimagerechtigkeit im Generationenkonflikt. Psychoanalytische

Überlegungen zur intergenerationellen Abwehrstrukturen. Psychotherapie im Alter 79: 287-

301.

Haunss, Sebastian/Sommer, Moritz/Fritz, Lisa. 2020. Fridays for Future. Konturen einer neuen

Protestbewegung. In Fridays for Future – Die Jugend gegen den Klimawandel. Konturen

der weltweiten Protestbewegung, Hrsg. Sebastian Haunss/Moritz Sommer, 7-14. Bielefeld:

transcript Verlag

Jamieson, Dale/Di Paola, Marcello. 2015. Klimawandel und globale Gerechtigkeit: Neues Problem,

altes Paradigma?. Bd. 18: Wiener Reihe. Klimagerechtigkeit und Klimaethik.

Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Marg, Stine/Zilles, Julia. 2023. Vom Verschmelzen alter und neuer Konfliktlinien. Gesellschaftliche

Polarisierung in der Auseinandersetzung um Energie- und Klimapolitik. In Fridays For

Future, Hrsg. Jan Pollex/Anna Soßdorf, 167-191. Wiesbaden: Springer VS

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09-50-M1-T2: Tutorium 2 zu „Einführung in die Ethnologie“ | Tutor: Ben Baumgarten | WiSe 2023 |6297282| Xiying Huang | Freitext

This is a small plastic transparent packaging bag, which is a 6 cm square, with a cute cartoon image of a yellow jelly bean. Let me name it Yellow Bean. Mr. Bean opens his mouth wide, showing eight teeth, as if he is going to swallow something. Obviously Mr. Bean has been used by his owner for several times. The adhesive strip on his back is almost non-sticky and is covered with dust and dirt. Two small pieces of transparent tape are both on the upper and lower sides of Mr. Bean, with still some white powder left on them, which seems to indicate that he was once fixed on the wall for decoration. His mouth is the best home for candy, chocolate, cookies, earrings or ornaments. Mr. Bean, or plastic bag, is an old friend to humans. There is a long story about his family.

In 1933, a chemical factory in England accidentally develops the most commonly used plastic – polyethylene, and it was the first time this compound had been synthesised into an industrially material. 32 years later, an engineer Sten Gustav Thulin designed the one-piece shopping bag and it was patented by the Swedish company Celloplast. The plastic bag quickly replaced cloth and paper bags in Europe. In 1979, plastic bags, which have successfully occupied 80% of the bag market, have been used across the world and especially in the United States. Companies that produce plastic bags have begun widely marketing their products, exaggerating the advantages of plastic bags over paper bags. From 1982, more and more stores switched to plastic bags, following the two major supermarket, Safeway and Kroger, and within just 10 years, plastic bags almost completely replaced paper bags and dominated the world of shopping bags. However, in 1997, Charles Moore, a navigator and researcher, discovered the Pacific Garbage Patch – Ocean circulation will accumulate a large amount of plastic garbage, which seriously threatens the survival of marine life. For example, plastic bags have killed large numbers of sea turtles who eat them by mistake. Therefore, since 2000, more and more countries have introduced “Plastic Bans”, implemented strict regulations on the use of plastic bags, and charged high taxes to protect the environment. Today, plastic bags have become a global environmental issue. On the one hand, humans have yet to find synthetics or any other materials to totally replace plastic. The advantages of plastic are obvious, such as being thin, stretchable, light-transmitting, water- and oil-proof, low-cost and durable. People cannot live without plastic and plastic bags. On the other hand, plastic bags cannot be degraded naturally and will cause serious pollution after being discarded. The protection of animals and the ecological environment is urgent to human beings.

“Wait! This is not my fault!” Mr. Bean suddenly talks to me.

“I’m born to be your best friend! I can help you to keep food clean.”

I am shocked, but he continues talking.

“But humans don’t want to be my friend forever, they use me only once or twice, then I’m abandoned. What can I do? No one is perfect! All my wish is just living a long life.”

That is true. We enjoy the convenience plastic bags bring us, but seldom consider their fate after being used.

“Hey, are you listening?”

“Yes, yes… I’m sorry for not thinking of your feelings before.”

“Well, it’s not late. Thank you for picking me out of so many stuffs. Thank you for choosing me out of my buddies. Maybe I’m the least valuable of them all. A gust of wind can blow me away…”

“No! You are so worthy! Even though you are the lightest and cheapest one among your buddies, you can do so many things they can’t. You are not afraid of dirt, water, and oil, you are so convenient to carry. You can protect all my little treasures like a soldier. And you are so cute that I knew I liked you the first time I saw you. Would you like to keep my ring in your big mouth?”

“No problem! But if one day you don’t need me anymore, remember to send me back to my brothers and sisters! I don’t want to be left in the nature and stay alone for hundreds of years…”

Mr. Bean eats my ring and runs into my bag. “Nice ring, but tastes bad.” He adds.

I am so glad to meet Mr. Bean. Even seemingly weak one has tremendous power to change the world. Just like our habit of reusing and recycling plastic bags. People and plastic are not in a hostile relationship. What we need to do is help each other. After getting help from plastic, it is our duty to help them return to their place of birth and realise their own value. Thank you to the plastic bags for their nearly a century of service to mankind. They are not demons, just misplaced. They are not trash; they are misplaced treasures. How to rationally use plastics and protect the environment is an issue of human. I know there will be one day, technology can help plastic bags coexist harmoniously with the environment.