B cities: where cement’s the new black.

That’s what being in a B-city is like – you see truckloads of concrete and to-be concrete stacked up next to what is currently the chic-est shopping mall in town.

Lotte’s so swanky you see these cute Korean-looking girls in glass booths and mickey-mouse gloves (they’re REAL girls) greeting every brand-hungry, air-con seeking chinese rushing into the mall. These poor dears.

Yet turn around and it’s a gargantuan construction site. Its Komatsu-meet-Khiels and the rugged sacks over SAKS avenue.

Can’t say I find it pretty at all, but that’s what a ‘B city’ (which by the way hosts 10 million people… ) is all about in China – B for bulldozers, barricades and just pure bottom-up digging.

 

Strangely though, Tianjin stands out for so much that’s left of its history, though I’ve come to learn from the people here that they’re not exactly thankful for it.

This is so different from Singapore where we seem to take pride in the fact that we were once a colony. Here in Tianjin, having been robbed of their freedom by the French, the Brits and the Italians leaves a rather bad taste in their memory, but thankfully, so much of these are somehow left untouched…