The Neighborhood

The Neighborhood

In this post, the final pictorial post for a while (I am still writing entries and would like to get back to posting things I’ve written!) I’m using your eyes – my camera to show you what I see on the way to the main road. It is an odd, inharmonious conjunction of old and new China.

Immediately after leaving the back gate we see a farm on the right and a pond on the left. Yes, that is a pond in spite of its appearance as a grassland. Please note the old farm houses in the background of the pond picture. Behind the farm picture is new construction.

Coming up to Ba Tan Lou, the road that gives access to the main highway we see an abandoned wasteland in front of a highrise development. Please note the ‘shoulder pole’ in the foreground. That wasteland is earmarked for more new construction.

The loooonnnngg road to the main highway! Most of the houses along this road have been here since the early 1900’s. Some of these houses incorporate small shops in the front rooms and the families live in the back rooms. This road is paved, for the most part.

Now very close to the main highway, as that newly built overhead road indicates. Construction vehicles constantly travel down Ba Tan Lou. Those small blue conveyances are converted motorcycles, equivalent to what the rickshas of yore would have been. For a few Yuan they will take you into the back neighborhoods. For example, it costs 3Yuan for me to take one of these motorcycle taxis back to campus. For an extra Yuan the driver will take me onto campus and right up to my doorstep. Very handy when I have heavy grocery bags!

The next picture is of more such conveyances. These little shuttles are actually government approved and they can carry up to 8 passengers. Please note the ‘shoulder-pole’ in the foreground.

The last picture says it all. A shoulder-pole braving the traffic. If you can, discern the condition of the road. It is overlaid with steel plates for cars to drive over because the road as such, is not really a road so much as a collection of potholes. In the background, that blue and white awning is a bazaar and farmer’s market. Those vans parked at the intersection are for rent (for the right price), but are not government sanctioned. Therefore they cannot advertise. A gentleman on a bicycle and construction dirt piled up behind him.

And that, my friends, is China.