The Sound of Hands in the Land of Circulation: The Intersection of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province and the Japanese Vein Industry -October 2002

The Sound of Hands in the Land of Circulation: The Intersection of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province and the Japanese Vein Industry -October 2002

In 2002, a quiet but sure flow of circulation was emerging between China and Japan. In Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, out of a population of 500,000, 60,000 people were engaged in the recycling industry. Old computers, discarded plastics, and scrap metal were dismantled and given life again, supported by human labor. Manual labor has a precision and flexibility that machines cannot match, and this city has attracted the world's attention as a sacred place for recycling.

Meanwhile, in Japan, waste cardboard and scrap iron were being exported to China one after another, and there were concerns about the hollowing out of the venous industry. Japanese collectors were gradually exhausted by the inexpensive Chinese market for recycled resources. In the shadow of the loss of the leaders of the recycling industry, the idea of a recycling society was showing signs of fraying.

The Chinese government, realizing the danger of pollution and chaos, introduced a recycling town system and began to consolidate small businesses. It was as if the memories of the pollution that occurred during Japan's high-growth period were projected back in time to China. The sound of demolition echoing through the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang Province was not just the sound of work. It was the sound of the world's material civilization seeking reconstruction, a silent dialogue between the two East Asian nations between the past and the future.