Two Chinas seperated by one block

I live in the apartments provided for me by the school in which I teach. These apartments are on the school grounds,so whenever I leave to walk close to the school, most of the people are used to seeing foreigners, or 外国人(waiguo ren), as they call us. They also call us laowai (老外), but in this blog I will us 外国人.
So, as I was saying, whenever I stay on the street that I live on (Xiangcheng Da Dao), there is no more pointing and whispering about 外国人 than I am used to. Of course it still happens, but it happens everywhere I go.
However, yesterday and today I went to a different street, about one block away from Xiangcheng Da Dao, and it was as if I were in a totally different world. First of all, it seemed as if the people there had never seen a 外国人 before. The staring was much more prominent than before. Also, the whispers and comments of 外国人 were a lot more noticeable and came a lot more often. Usually it is more the children who point out that I am a 外国人, but on this street, the adults seemed to need to point out that fact as well. On this street, I heard 外国人 every couple of steps, as well as had people looking and pointing at me the whole way down the street.
The other fact that makes me feel like this street is so different from the street that I live on is the way that it looks. The first time I was on this street, I was with one of my friends, and as she pointed out, it could be the background for a commercial about the starving children in Africa. Although on one side of the street there are apartments that are o.k. looking, the other side of the street has concrete huts with people crowding outside. My friend was correct - it does look like that commercial, except that the children running around outside the huts aren't African children, they are Chinese. It is a very different scene than that of the children in my school, in their uniforms, playing on rollerblades and listening quietly in classrooms. It is amazing to see and experience the two different Chinas just one block apart.