Out of Service

Time has a funny way of passing.  It has been only five days since I arrived in China, but it feels like more has happened in these five days than the past three months combined.  (I suppose waking up at 6am and going to bed at 1am for the majority of the week has helped).  

We left Hong Kong this morning at 6:45am and traveled to Shanghai, where we will spend the next four days doing...well, largely the same things we did in Hong Kong: visiting businesses, trying new foods/restaurants, and generally trying to avoid the copious amounts of fake Rolex salesmen that inhabit every street corner of every street ever paved.  

Shanghai, and Hong Kong to a lesser degree, are cities of 

extreme contrasts.  Government-run slum highrises that house thousands of impoverished families sit directly next to Armani tailors; an armless beggar sings in an underground subway that sits directly below a Masarati dealership, which is filled with rich twenty-something investment bankers looking for ways to spend their money.  

I am aware that these contrasts exist in the United States, but I think the extreme proximity in which the Chinese have to live -- usually out of necessity from lack of land -- highlights these normal occurrences into something unique.  It is not uncommon to see below poverty families living literally next door to an all-marble office building streaming with smartly dressed business people.  Apparently zoning laws aren't high on the "to do" list of the Chinese Government.  

It seems that no trip goes completely according to plan, and this week we had our first major hiccup.  In Chinese elevators, we have been told many times, there is always

room for one more.  We quickly found out, however, that the elevators at Hong Kong Baptist University don't appriciate this lovely adage.

As the doors closed on our lift packed full of business students, it let out a heart-stopping screech and haltingly dropped about a foot.  As if to further torture us, the elevator bravely tried to haul us up, only to drop another foot to a violent halt.  The screen blinked "Out of Service" at us innocently.    

After a sadly misguided attempt to pry the doors open a la "Panic Room", we simply waited until the bewildered security staff managed to extract us twenty minutes later.  

How convenient, then, that this experience provides a perfect metaphor for a summation of Hong Kong: a wonderful and industrious city that is sadly being overworked by an ever-growing population.  Unfortunately, the city cannot conveniently flash "Out of Service" until it is reset by an aging security officer -- it must endure its trials and either prevail through savvy governing, or fall ill to the pains of growth.  

Only time (and the Chinese government) will tell.

-McG

p.s. - please comment on my posts.  It makes me feel loved.  Emails are nice too.