Shenzhen, on the edge of the mainland of China, is apparently where Hong Kong goes bargain-hunting on the weekends. Local Hong Kong, that is. One of the first things I noticed upon leaving the train station was that Cynthia, Meara, and I attracted many more stares than we ever did in HK, where non-Asians are an everyday sight, taken for granted, merely part of the landscape. It was the first time since Tai O that I had felt really uncomfortably conscious of my difference, my sense of not-belonging.

We took the MTR Kowloon Tong station, my destination on weekday commutes to City U, and there changed to the KCR [Kowloon-Canton Railway]. Even on the train there were be few westerners. As we rode through the New Territories, we saw a great deal of construction: innumerable cranes towered over half-finished buildings. The city, it seemed, was continuing its spread northward as well.

And it felt strange to go through customs and immigration, to have to purchase a visa, to see the guards and feel the strictures all around. There was a profound difference in atmosphere between Shenzhen and HK, difficult to pinpoint, but omnipresent. The city was dirtier, perhaps, or grittier -- not that Hong Kong isn't both gritty and dirty in places -- or just more hard-edged and rough in ways I couldn't quite explain.