Having come from a fairly small town, living in my second megalopolis has been quite an experience. I was used to being called a "city boy" back home by some and that is because I lived in a town of nearly 46,000 people. A sizable city you may think if you were to compare it to the smaller ones that surround it with populations of 3,000 people or less. Believe me, there are some with less than that back near where I am from. The kind of towns that you drive through if you roll through the four-way stop. The kind of towns that have that similar layout of a gas station (serving as the local watering hole and hangout joint), an old self-wash car wash (if it is a fairly 'large' town), and a few houses of varying states of decrepitness.
I used to think my hometown was fairly large as well until I moved overseas and into the heart of Seoul. Seoul has a city populations of over 10 million and a metro over over 25 million. Yes, you read that right. Slap on six zeros behind that 25. If you think of your local Wal-Mart as being crowded on a pre-holiday evening, I can assure you that you haven't seen anything yet. The cartloads may be bigger back home, but until you have elbowed your way through a store, you can't really say you have experienced being somewhere crowded. Riding the subway is generally fine in terms of space. Often times there are plenty of open seats even on the busiest lines, but, and I mean but, wait until you hit rush hour when everyone is getting off work. Those Discovery and Travel Channel shows about Tokyo where people are nicely shoved into trains that are overflowing with people are a reality. Take it from me, the best way to get on is to just lean against the people and sort of just lay back. If you can manage to do just that you have successfully boarded the train. Human osmosis would have happened and you would have been sucked into the crowd without problems.
Bangkok is also a monster of a city. Sporting over 8 million people in the city proper and over 14 million in the entire outlying area, there are a lot of people everywhere. I have seen traffic jams within the city itself that would cause your blood pressure to rise just by looking at a snapshot of it. Being unemployed I have become sort of an export mall wanderer. Scoff if you will, but these malls are big enough to get lost in. The Siam Paragon near where Soojeong works is one of the biggest shopping malls in Asia. It has everything you could want from Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Lotus, Mazeratti, restaurants, cafes, movie theater, 8,000 square foot gourmet market, and the largest aquarium in Southeast Asia. To navigate a behemoth like this requires skill and stamina.
Don't get me wrong, big cities are great for entertainment and shopping. It is so nice being able to have such a variety of shops and restaurants to choose from when you want to go out for the day. My town boasts one movie theater (maybe two now), one bowling alley, and not a single full-sized mall. I have become more of a city person than most of my fellow classmates who moved to bigger cities in America are. Los Angeles and New York City might be large with their 4 and 8 million people respectively, but Seoul still dwarfs them and my time in Tokyo (with 13 million people in the city and 35 million in the metro) set me up for the win. I have been to almost every type of cafe you can think of, hit countless museums of various sorts, spent time wandering palace grounds, and seen the latest and greatest technology being implemented in buildings and other public institutions.
When all is said and done though, I would much rather live out my days in a smaller city. Sure I may not have all of the options for entertainment and food, but there is something magical about streets lined with big shady trees, parks that have creeks and lots of grass to play on, and little local restaurants where people really get to know one another. Besides, I can always hop on a plane and go and visit one of the big cities that I have called home in the past. I have the experience and know how to survive in a bustling city where there are plenty of people and more buildings than trees. I may be a 'city boy' these days by virtue of circumstance, but I would like to think that I still remain a small town boy living in a big city. Call me a city boy if you will, but as for me, all I can say is 'thank God I'm a country boy.'
No comments:
Post a Comment