A friend long ago told me once, “I drove by a hollowed out building tonight, and thought of you.” He was referring to a non-specific building on a non-specific roadway into Columbus, Ohio. The building was halfway demolished, and under that precise orange glow of American street lamps, it must have looked a bit otherworldly, a little breathtaking. Here on the other side of the world, construction cranes groan into the dead of the night like creatures from the abyss, unnerved and persistent. I must have stood in the rain for minutes, surrounded by posh apartment towers in front of a construction site operated by ghostly hands — hauling metal, dropping bricks, grinding dust. It's eerily beautiful, accidentally mesmerizing, or as a friend long ago may understand, I just have a thing for unfinished and/or half demolished buildings. I love the lightness of a massive, skeletal frame, love the unpolished cement gray, and if such a love could endure, I'm probably in the right place.
In China, gray buildings rise like rows of tombs, somber and sad. For every block erected, dozens more fall. It is a place where majestic cranes rule, their long arms reach out, like overseers to a brighter future. After thousands of years, China is extending the Great Wall by crafting towers, roads, and bridges in that same shade of gray. There's something apocalyptic about all this movement, and yet, behind the frenzy, a stillness, more serene than any Times article can prescribe, is here.
Finally I can think.