The pace of change in Chinese cities is truly frightening, every day great monoliths of steel and concrete are thrown up across the country. Partly due to the epic migration of people from the countryside to the city and need for housing, but also to serve political interests and fuel a vastly oversized construction industry. The destruction of the environment is massive, and the loss of the past is tragic. Build it fast, build it big, and build it now. To hell with yesterday and to hell with tomorrow.
Beyond this there is only jungle. Stretching out into the distance a great swath of concrete monoculture raising up to provide humanity with the ecosystem of modern life. People lament the loss of what came before; the green, the grass, and the calm; but every day the jungle grows and grows
They used to build towers in wood here you know, but now they build them in steel. They used to build towers to hold the spirits here, now they build them to hold the people. They used to behold themselves to faith and fate here, now the make their own luck and their own fortune
We'll turn our fields into debris, we don't need gardens and we don't plants when we have commerce. There used to be life here but now there's only shards of concrete sitting silently in the dead earth; no-one what the march of progress will bring here next week. is this the end or the beginning?
They destroyed our river when they built the motorway over it. We used to fish in this water and swim over there but now all the animals are dead and the sewage from the city makes the water filthy. The road brings us food and money from outside; the pollution and the noise is terrible; but we are no longer hungry. Those lanes of steel bring us closer to others but take us further away from ourselves.
Everything is getting smaller. They say this city is larger than ever before, but we would walk as children for hours and seeing nothing but fields. Now we only have this sheltered stadium of grass to play and meet. We take the busy metro through the city and every stop is surrounded by buildings and cranes; we have no space to move and the pace of life is shattering.
