down south

I flew into Shenzhen, arriving a little past midday on Tuesday afternoon. As I stepped out of the airport, I squinted through the sunlight to read the bus numbers and find the one that would take me to the train station. I squinted! There was sunlight! Not muted yellow light strained through grey clouds and a polluted haze. No! I looked up, and there was the sun, its brilliant self shining imposingly in the middle of the clear blue sky. Blue sky!
The train station was a good 45 minutes from the airport. I tried to use the time to read, but was constantly distracted by the sun's rays that lit up the hills a rich, luscious green. Hills! Green! More mountains than hills, actually, though the word "mountain" suggests (to me, anyway) something harsher, colder - if not barren then at least sparse, if green then covered with grass but with few trees. These mountains, though, were thickly layered head to foot in dark, leafy foliage - unspoiled natural beauty. Unspoiled, until I saw one with a sunken reddish-beige face, heavy machinery carving it away in sheets, as one would do a piece of cake.
The earth from the mountain will, I suppose, be used to fill the coastline, creating new land for developments like the golf course that my parents can see from their 22nd floor apartment. Manicured lawns, displaced trees, transported sand, man-made lakes - all imitations of the very nature they replace. The white egrets, which once made their homes there, have been pushed to a small enclave on the edge of the golf course, their bountiful wetlands now just a meager reservation.
Or maybe the mountain is being leveled so that several large apartment communities can take its place, thus nurturing the fast-growing real estate market. I remember riding the metro in Shanghai and passing rows and rows of tall, rigid, identical apartment buildings, so straight and perfectly aligned, like a battalion of soldiers standing at attention. An aerial view of the city probably looks like a Risk board with opposing forces all grimly ready for the charge. Shenzhen, though a smaller force, is undoubtedly amassing its own armies; competition's always welcome in that Special Economic Zone.
In Hong Kong, construction continues as well. Expansion in the north, in the New Territories - the suburbs, if you will - where there's still untouched land. New train lines, including one stop just outside my old high school. We used to take a 'snake path' up to the school gates, a small footpath worn through the tall grass up the hill from the main road. The snake path is gone, as is the grass. A once isolated school tranquilly overlooking Starfish Bay now neighbors a mass transit line. In the south of Hong Kong, on Hong Kong Island, where practically every space available has already been built up, construction comes in the form of renovation, razing, and rebuilding, motivated by the constant promise of land appreciation as well as the strains of a growing population and a growing economy.
Despite the urbanization, Hong Kong maintains a greater beauty than Shanghai - something in the way the city is built in and around the mountains, with the sea on every side. And, of course, it benefits from the climate. The sun not only brightens one's outlook on the city, but also nourishes a wide variety of vibrantly blossoming trees - trees that are not relegated to parks and botanical gardens, but rather are spread throughout the city, coloring the otherwise soulless, glass and metal landscape.
Though I enjoy Shanghai immensely, spending the week in Hong Kong was like getting a taste of home. The sun, the warmth, the color - I'd forgotten how much I love to be down south.