This is my third trip to China since leaving ESL in December 2010. I’m trying not to less of one of those people who takes pictures of everything because in the States a street sign is a street sign but in Wuhan it’s something exotic.
What isn’t exotic, and what makes me melancholy is the constant urban renewal erasing places I cherished. The backstreet was the place I first visited on my own in China. It’s also the place where my wife and I had our first dinner together. I remember everything about the restaurant.
It’s jarring to see the changes when your memories remain so strong. Here’s the backstreet in 2008:
And here it is today, new apartments charing an arm and a leg and probably a kidney per square meter:
Where has the time gone? Wrecking balls and clouds of construction dust.
Oh, no! This is not good! One of the things I loved about Wuhan was the back alleys and the feeling like time stood still, especially in Hankou. Now what you show in this photo is just a generic, it-could-be-anywhere feeling that is threatening the identities of cities like Wuhan and Hong Kong and many others. Sometimes progress is not a good thing.