TMChan
a second look Johannesburg people usually look shocked when I say Jo’burg is one of my favourite cities. They seem embarrassed, as though what I was telling them was not that I liked their hometown, but rather that I was growing an extra toe. With delicate tact, they want to know things like how long it’s been that way, and if I can do anything about it. But most of all, they want to know why. There are a lot of reasons why. Sure, if I had to go head to head with those who hate it here, they would have a simpler case to make than I would it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get down on Jo’burg. They, however, are not the point of this article. This article is meant to be a public disclosure of why I like the city. And for anyone who disagrees with me . . . well, just relax. It’s easy to discredit me. First of all, I’m an American who lives in Melville. Second, I’m leaving soon. And third, I readily admit that I suffer from that old Crosby, Stills and Nash adage: when it comes to cities I live in, I just “love the one I’m with”. I am the kind of person that liked living in New York City during the ugly years when people in the East Village didn’t lock their car doors so the steady stream of thieves could break in without breaking the windows. I cut my city-living teeth in New York City before the clean-up: I had bars on the windows of my tiny apartment. I was even mugged at an ATM around the corner. I remember I phoned my mother and she said: “Hey, it happens in big cities. You live in one. Isn’t it great you weren’t hurt?” And I thought, yeah, she’s right. If you want to run with the big dogs, you have to leave the front yard. I went to NYC because I was attracted to all the excitement, and that included a certain amount of madness.
And I think Jo’burg is in the same league. It is a bit more mad than other places what with all the retail sales of clothes hangers at traffic lights and taxi combi drivers who make pedestrian-dodging an imprecise art but you know you’ve left the front yard when you get here. Like a hardworking, mean-streets cousin to the photogenic Cape, Jo’burg has that back-against-the-wall fighting spirit that makes a broken nose look good. Sunsets are beautiful all around the world, but in Jo’burg, they are more spectacular. Is it because of the dust and pollution? Absolutely, and getting rid of the pollution would be great, but you’d still have the dust. And then there are the Jo’burg people. The extreme and daunting social problems of the city, in a roundabout way, make the people a very special breed. They can be cantankerous but they are also crazy, sexy, cool. The people carry a kind of worldliness about them. Jo’burg people are savvy because they have to be. Even the most sheltered Northern suburb mall dweller hiding behind his eight-foot walls and razor-wire fencing cannot shrink from reality. It’s dangerous here. You have to be alert. That which world travellers often learn on the road, “watch your stuff, watch yourself”, people who live in Jo’burg already know. Sure, when I go back to the States for visits, my friends cast quizzical looks at me when I get in my car and do that Jo’burg move where I stuff my purse under my seat. But what do they know? They still do things like leave their cars running and unlocked when they go into the post office. And then they act shocked when the car is stolen. It’s nice to live in an age of innocence. But it’s even nicer to have survived into the age of experience, and nicer still to drive home from the post office in your own car. Jo’burg also makes it impossible not to be exposed to all sorts of things that would, in other “world-wise” cities, turn heads. In Jo’burg neither a child dressed up to look like Britney Spears nor a woman balancing a large package on her head would elicit stares. It’s hard to imagine that the Spears girl would not turn heads in Istanbul, or that the woman with the package on her head would not cause rubbernecking in Manhattan. By contrast, Jo’burg people make no fuss, exhibiting the nonchalance of people who have seen a lot. At the same time, relatively speaking, it’s hard to be really pretentious in Jo’burg. People try. But really, you know, it doesn’t work well. The circumstances create a certain level of intolerance for pretentiousness. It’s a city with a past where opportunity was linked to race, and the resulting stark contrast between those who have and those who do not makes pretentious people look more pointless here than in other places. Any story you tell about a play you’ve seen or a place you’ve been has to have some basic, fundamental human appeal or no one really cares. That makes Jo’burg people seem relevant, important, and intense. Even casual conversations are about poverty, crime, race, politics and sports. These topics sound hackneyed to Jo’burg people but if you really think about it, aren’t those the things everyone in the world should be talking about on a regular basis but doesn’t (ok, with the exception of sports)? It’s true I often get exhausted by Jo’burg talk. In my early days in Jo’burg I spent a lot of time holding my head. But Jo’burg is about how-much-can-you-take stamina. It’s a macho city. As for material pretentiousness, you hardly need me to say anything. It’s hard to covet goods with any real enthusiasm: things get redistributed here. I remember when I bought my used car, my Jo’burg friends were quick to tell me where along the list my car fell in terms of the most popular ones to carjack. People here are just friendly and helpful in that way. If anything, Jo’burg people are almost zen about material loss: you can’t be too attached when you know it’s going to be broken or stolen. After people broke into my car and liberated my radio, it was with no-nonsense pragmatism that my friends told me: call PG Autoglass. I did and they came like a Formula One race car pit-stop team. They rushed in, cleaned up the broken glass, installed the new window and I was back on the road in under 15. No-nonsense, no hassle, no emotions almost zen. That is not to say that Jo’burg people do not have a sense of humour. They do. Generally, they laugh a lot at themselves and at others. They have a highly developed sense of the absurd. They have to this is a city where thieves break in to steal milk and lock the doors on the way out. It makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. It’s ironic, distressing, funny. In so many ways, Jo’burg is all about this bittersweetness. People are tough because the circumstances are tough. The sunsets are beautiful because the air is full of pollution and dust. Things are funny because they are heart-breaking. And it is this bittersweet intensity that is Jo’burg’s most captivating quality, a magnetic tension that is at the core of this city where people from all over converge to battle for ground. NYC in its buzzy old days was a similarly bittersweet place full of struggling poor immigrants and hard-luck kids dreaming of big city lights. Now, it’s Jo’burg that has the buzz, the energy and intensity that makes you feel like if you can make it here, well, you can make it just about anywhere. It is an amazing city. No doubt one of the greats. Jo’burg, I’ll miss you. And hey, for all those who want to get out of the front yard, the big dogs are all here.