walking backwards
I visited the Chapel Hill public library today. It's been at least 9 years since I've been there and its interior hasn't changed much. I was very surprised that the library didn't feel any smaller to me since whenever I visit some place from my childhood that used to seem big, it would now seem small. I guess either I haven't grown much in the past 9 years or nine years ago I had a pretty realistic view on how big the library actually is. But this time while I was there, I found a nature trail outside the library that I didn't know existed before. Walking through the trail, I would come out into these very rich neighborhoods, composed of big, fancy houses situated near woods (with SUV parked in the dive ways of course). It would be really nice to live in one of these houses, be next to a nature trail, could walk to the library any time....but it must be very expensive to live there. How much and how long did these people have to work to own such property? What do they do? What did they give up to get there? Was it their money or their parents' or grandparents' money? Being in a neighborhood like that reminded me of how rich most people who lived the Chapel Hill were. No doubt Chapel Hill is a yuppie town. But I remember there is a poor side of Chapel Hill too, because no matter where you go, a place with rich people has to have a place for poor people. The two sides feed into each other. Without the ying, there is no yang. I remember going to the poor side of Chapel Hill when I was in elementary school to visit the apartment of one my friends who (although I didn't think of it then) must have been none too well off as her father was a struggling artist and her mother a house wife. The apartments were high-rise, perhaps 6 or 8 stories. It must have been a housing project because now that I think about it, the image of UNC's south campus comes to mind (yep, HoJo, Motown and E-haus). Funny because when I saw the apartments, they reminded me of China, of my grandparents apartment in Beijing. I was only 9 then and I guess the apartments in Beijing were the most deeply ingrained memories in my mind. But even more funny, my grandparents' apartments in Beijing were actually new, modern and well-to-do apartments. The juxtaposition of time, perspectives and the environment on a person's memories makes life interesting.