CONTRADICTION: Urban and rural

In a courtyard garden hidden between new-built art deco skyscrapers, a group of 3 old women sit on a concrete abutment screaming at each other. If you were standing on the other side of the 10-foot wall forming the other side of the yard, you wouldn't be able to see the ladies, but you could certainly hear them, and might wonder when the cops would be called to break up a fight. But there are smiles all around. One lady with short, permy gray hair makes an amazingly quick move that seems decades younger than her years, shoving her conversation partner forcefully. Nearly tumbling off her seat, her buddy regains herself and takes a swing back at the perpetrator.

There is a timelessness about the exchange: people enjoying each others' company, gossiping, soaking in sunlight which does get through the clouds sometimes here in Beijing. This is a scene that has happened every day in China all over the place, for thousands of years. Surrounded by supermarkets, malls, movie theaters, and Starbucks, it seems that most people--especially older folks and families--keep some kind of routine that feels like it has been ingrained here since antiquity. Sitting under a tree together, chatting in the park. Taking a stroll around the block after dinner. Practicing taiqi in the courtyard, late at night once the city is calm. As many Ferraris, Bugattis, and Rolls Royces as you see stteaming down the avenues, it cannot take away from the undercurrent you get than this place is so, so old, with ways of doing things as ancient as the Wall.

A friend visited here some time ago, it was his first trip ever to mainland China. I asked him what was his strongest impression, just several hours after getting off the plane. Despite all the KFCs, McDonalds, luxury brands, and news reports about China's economic explosion, the proximity people maintained to a rural way of living is immediately palpable. "Not just the way people dress, but the way people walk, the way the look at one another.." Like you're in the middle of a village in the midst of a city. There are downsides, but in Beijing there's a village's warmth and a rawness, a realness to the lifestyle here that you simply don't get in the developing world.