Citizens vs. Villagers

It's been quite some time since the last chance I visited Surabaya, the metropolis where I was born and grew up in. For 6 years now, I've been living in a village on the slope of Mount Welirang, where the air is clean, the water is fresh, the people live in harmony, and diseases are rare.
Sounds like Paradise?
Perhaps, yes. Especially to the eyes of those who spend their life (almost entirely) in big, crowded cities.
I didn't put too much realization into it until last week, when my Diamond Director came all the way from Jakarta to give a two-days workshop in Surabaya and I was scheduled to meet her.
(Feel free to read my experience with Nadia M. Yuniardo here.)
Since the hotel she was staying in was new, and we didn't know the exact spot (though we did get the address), Octavian and I went asking people along the streets.
I was very much taken aback as finding out the way people of this city responded to a couple of strangers' question.
"I don't know," some of them replied, without the slightest concern.
"There," a suspiciously eyeing man said. "Go there. Turn right."
"Follow that road," said another, avoiding our eyes (or was it because he was deep into other matters that his eyes were not focused?).
Very pathetic!
"What's with these people?" I wondered.
We began to feel deep pity for the Surabayan. Too much burden at work, at home, in the neighborhood, and extremely high competition in social life must have overwhelmed these people and resulted in the ever-increasing rate of stress.
I suddenly missed my village that I just left for simply a couple of hours. Oh, how the villagers always smile and speak kindly from the heart (even to strangers)! How we always greet each other as we run into each other on the roads! How life is ever so tranquil and blissful!
Without stress, without the need for competition, without air-noise-water pollution, and without fast-food restaurants, people tend to live healthier and longer. It's a treasure we won't give up for the wealth of the metropolis!
We finished our business in Surabaya as fast as we could. And, just as the sun was going down, I told my husband, "GET ME OUT OF HERE...!! THIS PLACE IS DRIVING ME NUTS...!!"