by Ann Major

Created on: January 22, 2008   Last Updated: July 25, 2011

Having a preference for city or country living often depends on the age group. At a certain time in one's life, there is a yearning to replace the faster-paced city life with quieter surroundings of the country. For someone who has yo-yoed back and forth between country, city, small town, bigger city, back to the country again, rural living is definitely the way to go.

This writer was born in a small village with one dirt road which led to an enclave of homes with no running water and no toilets. What was available was comparable to an outhouse in the old days in America. Eventually relocating to a congested city such as Hong Kong was a complete turnaround.

Living in Hong Kong was like being in a citified cage, where no youngster could venture past his apartment building without the presence of an adult. Children were walked to and from school by extended family members.  In a city of that caliber, the attitude is to trust no one. So other than going to school, pastimes often consisted of looking out of the apartment window, watching moving throngs of people being moved along like a human wave.

Sundays were rest days for every working person and a day for doing shopping. So on Sundays, citizens emerged from safety of their crowded rooms/apartments to the streets below; shoving and being shoved, borne along the sidewalk, a wave of shackled people.  City living was no fun.

Small-town living on the East Coast was definitely better than Hong Kong as summers days were spent rummaging around garbage piles, looking for bits and pieces to create masterpiece "go-carts"; walking on railroad tracks to blueberry fields; stealing apples from farmers' yards; and going to adult movies; attending wrestling matches. These activities would not have been possible in a city setting, and because of the era and place, there was more safety within a small-town, rural-like setting.

When adulthood necessitated living in suburbia, privacy was certainly not a luxury which could be afforded. The suburbs do give an individual the chance to be anonymous. If one does not want to know one's neighbors, then city-living or suburbia is the place to be. Socializing with neighbors in the suburbs can sometimes incur unpleasant consequences; when you no longer get along with your neighbors, and houses are in close proximity, where do you go?  

Even though this writer's son considers the country to be, oh so "bo-oring!", the friendliness of country people cannot be denied. Everyone

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