There is an alley/shanty town behind our house. It is fun to walk through it because it is so typical Chinese. There are little noodle making shops, living frogs waiting to be purchased and cooked, charcoal bricks that are burned for road side meals, and fruit and veggie booths where the vendor is smoking right next to the food. As I walked through the shanty town with a friend the other day she mentioned that the vendors live there...and I was just like - where? They live in make shift tents or in their store/shack.
I think most people would walk through this alley and be disgusted. As they should be - limited running water, poor sanitation, poor hygene. The mosquitos in Beijing are so horrible and when you think about their ability to spread disease - it makes you all that more disturbed. Real estate prices in Beijing are comparable to any other big city around the world. I am sure in 5 years that this alley will no longer be here. Is that progress?
As I walk down the alley I think of how fresh and full of flavor everything is compared to their big box counterparts. The organic produce in the US even fails in comparison. It makes you realize that with modernization and prosperity that there are some sacrifices made. It also makes you think about how the rest of the world lives - I don't think it is unique to china that people are living in shacks and tents with extreme temperatures. It makes you think of what we have come to expect in the US for ourselves. The tent cities reported as travisties by the media in the US are daily accepted realities everywhere else in the world.
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