I'm not sure what if it was the neon pink and yellow neon lights that were painting lines on my walls or the saintly individual playing the saxophone somewhere nearby; I felt an electric type of excitement about being in this place again. A little chuckle escaped from within and I thought, "I love it here." Just a few hours before I had watched a gathering of some 20 people, all at or close to the age of eighty, playing tradtitional Chinese instruments that were probably invented a thousand years ago. Two and four stringed lutes were being coddled into making creaking, rustic sounds as those who were instrumentless sat nearby and sang or watched with old unpolished eyes.



To hear the sax bellowing below me created this image of cultural tectonic plates crashing together and forging new mountainous ranges that divided the young from the old. Such as it is here in China, the clashing has only really started and I imagine whole continents will be slowly chipped away by the warmly welcomed western front.



The old generations are passed over treasures, inherently saving what's left of the traditional life. True to the Chinese spirit of living in harmony with ones surroundings, I can imagine a slowly creeping smile etching itself onto the face of the old man as he listens to the same saxaphone that I am and remembers the days when those didn't exist.

The time I have spent in China has morphed into a strangely static, almost mundane, life. Gone is the sense of adventure that used to prick me every time I looked out my window. Only infrequently do I hear that voice in my head saying, "Wow, dude, you're in China." I used to hear it often as I gazed upon a life so completely different than the one I knew before coming to China. The stark and contrasting angles and colors of Chinese life have melted into greys and familiararity.

The life I knew in China before moving to Beijing, the mindblowing capitol in the throes of modernization, saw me merging with the largely rural provincial life. The peasant scenes that surrounded me everyday reminded me of National Geographic and of the adventures that reached deep into the belly of the third world beast depicted in it's pages. There was no Starbucks down the street selling overpriced lattes or giant supermarkets selling imported French breads. Instead I had console myself with green tea and noodles.

Beijing offers everything except what I want. If I so choose, I can eat pizza one night and a fine calzone from a mostly authentic Italian restaurant the next. I can't however watch as farmers follow an ox driven plow, their eyes hidden by the brim of a round grass hat. Neither can I watch as a peasant hauls a basket of freshly harvested vegetables to an outdoor market. Instead of those picturesque scenes unfolding before me I'm confronted with a city that doesn't greatly differ from the cities I left behind in the good ole U.S.A. With all of it's flashy buildings, McDonald's restaurants, billboards advertising western corporations eager to get a piece of the Chinese population, I could almost imagine I'm not in China. Almost.