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For me the city, the city at the heart of my culture is Paris. But in Paris, and only in this city, do you find cockroaches. Only in the city are there rules that you have to follow and only in the city can you dare break these so called ‘rules.’ In the city you may be an outlaw if you wish. Within the country there is a connection; between people and their own conception of rules. People there know the law. Perhaps the law is a member of their family, so they cannot break such rules easily, as the structure and their interaction is defined in a different way. Country people live close to nature and community and far from commotion or cockroaches. The first time I went to Paris, I was seven years old. I did not understand the city then. But when I was eleven my mother took me to a museum, and I learnt art lives within the city. They city is art. Only in modern China can you see such contrast so concretely, so distinctly. When I spend time in the countryside I can hear what I heard in my childhood. The whisper of nature, the talk of the city. I used to hear, “he or she lives in Paris.” Now I hear “he or she lives in Shenzhen.” And Shenzhen, where we congregate, has become the equivalent of an American dream. In French we have a phrase, “fleur bleue” or “blue flower.” This implies something naive, innocent like the naive notion of better life in a city. But the seduction of city, of this Delta Mega-City, the danger and potential is intoxicating. We can sense it, feel it and witness it - in demolition, construction and migration. On one lonely street, every dialect of China interrupts and corrupts the voices of the local people. In this city the people are lonely; in the countryside they are alone. The city is also about survival. Baicai struggles to survive in the city. Along the corridor, from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, in the heat of the concrete and air-conditioner exhausts, anything natural must by definition, struggle. More concrete is dumped in China than anywhere else. And the cement solidifies what appears to be at times, chaotic. But there is order even in the sense of chaos. The vector that draws us here, between the concrete is the feeling that anything could happen: Possibility and chance, luring people and meshing culture. From this we draw our inspiration. All such contradictions construct the cityscape. The cityscape of predominantly rural China begins with Shenzhen, the doorway to the mainland. So this month we invite our readers through the door and on to her streets, avenues, alleys and parks, through the slums and beyond to the urbane. Welcome to the urban edition of Baicai. We live for the city… Baicai
"Living for the City" by S.Wonder
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