i have become a city boy?
The fringes of the Denver metro area remind me of the fringes of Beijing. It’s the provincial feel, I think, and the monochromatic population. White instead of brown skin, here, but everyone is eerily similar to everyone else. There’s also a lot of new development going on:Â fresh, tasteless capitalism. Shiny new buildings sit awkwardly on the grassy plains like costume jewlery in a hay field. Not to mention their parking lots. In one such Wal-Mart-sized superstore, I genuinely feel like a foreigner: its enormity is devoted entirely to hunting and fishing. I speak the language, but don’t understand the people.
The one thing you do see here that you’re not likely to see there — aside from hundreds of times as many cars — is obesity.
Loveland, Colorado might be exotic to foreigners the same way the outskirts of Beijing were exotic to me. What’s interesting, though, is how similar we all are. Provincial is provincial, urbane is urbane, powerless is powerless, greedy is greedy, saintly is saintly. People are people are people.
Still, I sincerely hope never to have to live in a place like that. =)