Malls and Migrants

The first image is Guangzhou East Railway station. I visited through here on a day trip from Shenzhen. During Chinese new year GZ's train stations are synonymous with the largest annual human migration on the planet. Migrant workers and students alike collectively do their part to test the limits of ticket servicepersons' patience. I had the dubious honor of joining the masses in the middle of the fray as I had to purchase my return ticket to Shenzhen.

On the other side of the economic spectrum, in the second image we have a dragon dance, familiar to SF Bay Area folks, taking place in a ritzy mall, which felt like much less familiar a setting for such an authentic cultural display. I had been looking in vain for these kinds of New Years' festivities streetside as seen in Chinatown back home. I decided that the mall must be the new 'authentic' for affluent shenzheners. As opposed to the migrants and students, this Shenzhen middle class - businesspeople and office workers - stick around the city during the holiday and frequent these ubiquitous, unavoidable malls.