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The one topic that always comes up no matter which foreigner I'm talking to is the vivacity of Chinese streets. No one visits China and leaves unimpressed by the liveliness of the city streets. To many of us, simply walking down the street in China is a bit of an adventure.

One of my colleagues, an Australian woman who has lived in China almost twenty years, said, "When I go home to Melbourne, I look around and think to myself, ‘Where are all the people?' I get depressed just walking down the street. There's no one around!"

When she said this, I knew exactly what she meant. After spending just a few days in China I realized that the streets back home are dead! Practically nothing happens on the average American side walk except maybe a few people passing by and an occasional garage sale. In America the street is an undesirable place. Streets are where you are vulnerable. The American street symbolizes rock bottom. We use the street simply as a way to travel from one place to another.

On the contrary, China's streets are alive! People are free to use the street as they wish. At any moment the street may double as a badminton court, welding table, restaurant, barbershop, or dance floor.

A Chinese street is a rapid river of human activity. When you get onto the street, you sort of have to hold your breath and dive in. Walking the streets of China has become an addictive habit of mine. I could waste an entire day walking tirelessly through a Chinese city.

On any day, people may be selling fruits, vegetables, ice cream, lamb on a stick, beef on a stick, pork on a stick, tofu on a stick, pineapple on a stick, and scorpion on a stick, almost anything on a stick! Not to mention books, ceramics, alarm clocks, baskets, candle holders, birds, goldfish, socks, lighters, native jewelry, paintings, maps, lilies, stuffed animals, phone cards, posters, puppies, plants... Should I go on? I even saw one guy selling live butterflies.

Walk down an average Chinese street and look up. You'll see kites piercing the sky so high you'll think they are planes the first time you see them. Look down, and you might see anything from ducks being walked to monkeys doing gymnastics. You'll see fortune tellers and traditional medicine-men. You'll see groups of old ladies dancing to 1960's rock and roll or maybe swinging swords. You'll see people eating everywhere. You'll smell fresh mangoes, grilled meat and stinky tofu. You'll hear distorted music blaring from storefront speakers, shouts, whistles, laughs, the horns of a million cars, and the rings of a million more bike bells. You'll taste fried bread and wash it down with green tea. You'll feel the unevenness of the pavement at your feet and the tug of a beggar at your sleeve. .

In other words, the streets are where you can see China, hear China, smell China, taste China, and feel China. It all seems to be happening at 1000 miles per hour.

The streets breathe life into the city and they bring purpose to the community. They give people a reason to walk a little slower. And, don't forget, the streets allow a lot of hard working people a chance to make a living.

I know the streets in American used to be livelier and similar to the streets in China today, but something happened as America grew. We lost something. Unfortunately, you can feel the same kinds of changes coming to parts of China already. A lot of the newly developed areas remind me of the streets back home. Aside from the towering buildings and neatly kept gardens, there is nothing happening there. More and more, the life on Beijing streets is being choked by motor vehicle traffic and people, with heads down, passing by.