The Yin and Yang of It

I find I'm falling into routines. Routine deadens my awareness – what I’m willing to see, to notice, to experience. There’s a lot of comfort for me in routine, but I have to fight against it or everything will start looking and feeling the same. And that’s definitely not what I want. It’s a delicate balance between comfort and awareness, with comfort always tugging at me the hardest.

The weather has finally given this city a respite. Oppressive heat, dense humidity, freak me out earthquake, umbrella destroying winds and rain, and now a gentle breeze. It was nice to walk after dinner as the gathering dusk turned neon. This city is such an enigma to me. I stroll down these vast boulevards, some with huge arching trees separating and shading the two rivers of traffic, and I could be in any large, cosmopolitan city in the world. Shops, restaurants, hotels like I’ve seen in New York, Paris, Barcelona. For me the uniqueness of this city is defined in the dense, lush underbrush of lanes and alleys, running like rabbit holes every 10-15 yards off the boulevards and thoroughfares --- every single one of them, and all over the city (not just in one or two areas that tourists are supposed to avoid.). The deeper down those rabbit holes I go, the rawer it gets. Like an archeological dig of the human condition, all exposed and visible. And it’s not just the black and white (like I saw in mainland china), it’s got all the grays in between. In these rabbit holes run the lifeblood of this city. I’m attracted and frightened at the same time.