For those who do not know, the author first landed in the US at age 12, in a neighborhood called Roxbury in Boston, MA. Any Bostonian would timidly tell you that this is one of the city's roughest neighborhoods, a classic inner city African-American area with high crime rate, poverty, and plenty of dilapidation in a formerly industrial neighborhood. Despite being almost directly south of the city's downtown areas, the 'hood that is Roxbury sees little sign of gentrification that has made restored the historical glory of the downtown, only helping to accentuate its continued obviously rundown nature through contrast.
Now imagine a Chinese kid grew up in the safety of a safe mid-sized Japanese city with little English comprehension being tossed on Roxbury's streets without any cultural awareness. That kid had to grow up fast in the nearly exclusive black area where the occasional white guy wandering through looked completely freaked out. It was (and still is) a dog-eat-dog place, and not being strong to protect yourself means constant bullying and perhaps something worse. Or at least, like what the author learned to do, one needed to become "a brother with different skin color." If one does not join the local culture, one will get hurt.
Fast forward 16 years, and the author is walking through Johannesburg's downtown area. Even in the so-called "safer side" of the city center, he is simply amazed by just how the place resembles Roxbury. The taxi driver that took him there summarized it the best, "don't worry, you won't see a single white guy here. They are scared." Indeed, with colorful graffiti covering characterless concrete block buildings, rundown street-corner restaurants serving up jumbo hot dogs and fried chicken, and congregation of black guys walking down the streets shouting racial slurs against the Chinese guy walking through, it is just so similar.
But what amazes even the author himself is that, upon seeing all of these, he did not feel unsafe or out-of-place...instead he felt right at home, back to a familiar neighborhood, and found another self. After years of disappearance, his "ghetto accent" (the first kind of English he learned, not through school but through sometimes unwanted interactions on the streets) came right back, and he found himself talking in thick slang that neither the South African listeners nor himself a few minutes ago never he is capable of talking in. And oddly, it felt joyful to walk around the area, despite myself being the only non-black on the streets.
Yet the fact that inner-city Johannesburg resembles inner-city Boston (and elsewhere in major American cities) belies an obvious fact: the massive wealth and racial disparities across geographies that are truly unfortunate fact in both American and South African cities. Unlike the clueless migrants in Cape Town, the residents of inner-city here are not out of place. They have shops, proper residents, and thoroughly urban lives that they feel right at home living. But the urban life one sees on the streets in the inner-city is just so so different from the suburban one, consisting of gated compounds, malls, and long drives in between.
And two kinds of urban lives almost never cross. The city center is still home to some offices of major corporations and their wealthy suburban-living workers, but even this slightest bit of interaction is being erased. Urban decay in the inner city is pushing offices to new suburban CBDs, without only empty space being left behind. The story of the Carlton Center, by far the tallest building in Africa, speaks volumes on this front. The anchor tenant, 5-star hotel, shut its doors in the late 90s, and the only thing stopping the owner of the building selling it is the slump in prices due to the economic crisis of 2008.
The once-luxurious mall at the bottom of the building is now full of cheap fast-food joints and discount clothing stores, and the star attraction, the viewing deck aptly named "Top of Africa" is now devoid of its souvenir shops and restaurants, but in turn covered with graffiti randomly carved into the walls and wooden display panels. The windows are dirty and the floor tiles are chipping off in many places, giving the impression that the attraction will not be in surprise for much longer. If the continent's tallest building can be maintained in such terrible condition, one can only imagine the conditions of other inner-city buildings.
Who knows, perhaps it is this rundown feel that the author enjoys. The inner city, because it is now empty of all the pretentious wealthy (white) folks, feels like a "real" neighborhood with a real street culture. People do not retreat into the safety of their gated compounds, instead braving the (fairly well-lit) streets and hanging out on the streets. Potentially dangerous, sure, but that is not enough to deter people. Roxbury and downtown Johannesburg, and other inner city neighborhoods teach residents that fearless energy, and for the author, who had to learn about it the hard way, it is a life lesson that serves well as he continues to venture into the sometimes scary unknown.
Now imagine a Chinese kid grew up in the safety of a safe mid-sized Japanese city with little English comprehension being tossed on Roxbury's streets without any cultural awareness. That kid had to grow up fast in the nearly exclusive black area where the occasional white guy wandering through looked completely freaked out. It was (and still is) a dog-eat-dog place, and not being strong to protect yourself means constant bullying and perhaps something worse. Or at least, like what the author learned to do, one needed to become "a brother with different skin color." If one does not join the local culture, one will get hurt.
Fast forward 16 years, and the author is walking through Johannesburg's downtown area. Even in the so-called "safer side" of the city center, he is simply amazed by just how the place resembles Roxbury. The taxi driver that took him there summarized it the best, "don't worry, you won't see a single white guy here. They are scared." Indeed, with colorful graffiti covering characterless concrete block buildings, rundown street-corner restaurants serving up jumbo hot dogs and fried chicken, and congregation of black guys walking down the streets shouting racial slurs against the Chinese guy walking through, it is just so similar.
But what amazes even the author himself is that, upon seeing all of these, he did not feel unsafe or out-of-place...instead he felt right at home, back to a familiar neighborhood, and found another self. After years of disappearance, his "ghetto accent" (the first kind of English he learned, not through school but through sometimes unwanted interactions on the streets) came right back, and he found himself talking in thick slang that neither the South African listeners nor himself a few minutes ago never he is capable of talking in. And oddly, it felt joyful to walk around the area, despite myself being the only non-black on the streets.
Yet the fact that inner-city Johannesburg resembles inner-city Boston (and elsewhere in major American cities) belies an obvious fact: the massive wealth and racial disparities across geographies that are truly unfortunate fact in both American and South African cities. Unlike the clueless migrants in Cape Town, the residents of inner-city here are not out of place. They have shops, proper residents, and thoroughly urban lives that they feel right at home living. But the urban life one sees on the streets in the inner-city is just so so different from the suburban one, consisting of gated compounds, malls, and long drives in between.
And two kinds of urban lives almost never cross. The city center is still home to some offices of major corporations and their wealthy suburban-living workers, but even this slightest bit of interaction is being erased. Urban decay in the inner city is pushing offices to new suburban CBDs, without only empty space being left behind. The story of the Carlton Center, by far the tallest building in Africa, speaks volumes on this front. The anchor tenant, 5-star hotel, shut its doors in the late 90s, and the only thing stopping the owner of the building selling it is the slump in prices due to the economic crisis of 2008.
The once-luxurious mall at the bottom of the building is now full of cheap fast-food joints and discount clothing stores, and the star attraction, the viewing deck aptly named "Top of Africa" is now devoid of its souvenir shops and restaurants, but in turn covered with graffiti randomly carved into the walls and wooden display panels. The windows are dirty and the floor tiles are chipping off in many places, giving the impression that the attraction will not be in surprise for much longer. If the continent's tallest building can be maintained in such terrible condition, one can only imagine the conditions of other inner-city buildings.
Who knows, perhaps it is this rundown feel that the author enjoys. The inner city, because it is now empty of all the pretentious wealthy (white) folks, feels like a "real" neighborhood with a real street culture. People do not retreat into the safety of their gated compounds, instead braving the (fairly well-lit) streets and hanging out on the streets. Potentially dangerous, sure, but that is not enough to deter people. Roxbury and downtown Johannesburg, and other inner city neighborhoods teach residents that fearless energy, and for the author, who had to learn about it the hard way, it is a life lesson that serves well as he continues to venture into the sometimes scary unknown.
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