Cities

Today, I put myself into pages of Paris pictures from the guidebook passed to me on the very first day I was there.  I never read it when in Paris.  Now while I was looking at all the beautiful pictures of the city's architecture, its famous cafes, its chateaux (hotels), its gardens and flashback on the time I was at the banlieue (suburban) hotzone of Paris, it just dawns on me that the beauty of cities is cruelly similar.

IN PARIS There, at the banlieue, low-income immigrants live.  There, people asked me to be careful of gunpoints.  There, I found not crepe, nor madeleine, nor cheese, but Turkish kebab and Chinese rice.  There, children need tutoring to be able to read.  I regret coming there only once, too busy with my life to ever come back to tutor, too busy with my life to ever think tutoring worths my time.

IN SINGAPORE There, lychee martini and rooftop indoors golf are weekend popular hangout spots.  There, beautiful Christmas trees with zillions of flashing lights, gleaming its beauty on Orchard.  But there, hawker centers, chinatown stalls.  And there, poor elderly are abandoned; teenagers not giving a second chance to try harder, better.

IN PALO ALTO There, wine tasting rooms are packed.  Cool cafes and frozen yogurt and tea are for local entrepreneurs. Food of the world is just by doorsteps.  But there, homeless people, East Palo Alto where children don't speak English.  But there, late nights back on the train left one with a sense of insecurity and of an isolated land.

In high school, we were taught that there would be some ways to create a better world - going to college will help us answer that question.  In college, we were taught that we could create a better world - having a passion and pursuing it after college will do.  After college, when there's no teachers around to instill hope and idealism, we taught ourselves that our world can't be much better, at least in the short term.  Is it true?  Or are we still shaping the future?