China re-visited

I was in Hong Kong, in reality as I had known it before ever setting foot in Beijing. Hong Kong was as I had known it to be...a fast-paced, modern, metropolis quite familiar with international standards and quite similar to what I was accustomed to in the US. Yet, that very same day had I just been in Beijing. Never before in my travels had I ever felt that I not only moved across space, but also time. Somehow, my flight to Beijing was a time machine, taking me to the past by about twenty years. My flight out of Beijing brought me ahead twenty years...back to the present.



I stood in the New Town Mall in Shatin. The brand name stores were all there: Godiva, Shu Uemura, A/X, BCBG, and so on and so forth. Beijing also had its rare share of brandname shopping areas, except, the difference here was, this shopping mall was filled with people and the atmosphere was warm and vibrant. In Beijing, the brandname shopping malls are usually cold, sterile, and empty places.

People in this mall were walking about with a carefree attitude that I hadn't seen anywhere in China. I realized it was the attitude of people who had everything they needed. People who lived in relative comfort.