City of the Underground...NO PHOTOS!
Trip Start
Dec 2007
1
38
41
Trip End
Aug 2008
Beijing,
China
Monday, March 10, 2008
It is the Underground City. This is the ultimate in "Mutual Assured Destruction" Mania knee-jerk reactions.
In the late 1960's the tension between China and then still Soviet Union Russia escalated to alarming levels. It was US vs. Russia circa 1960 times 10. It was to the point where it wasn't whether the two super Communist powers would go to war, but to what degree. The two Red Armies did have a limited escalation of tensions from 1967-69 over the border disputes over the Zhenbao Islands. Whether they would jump into a bigger skirmish type scuffle staged in a fault-line disputed territory (perhaps the recently unified Vietnam or Cambodia), similar to the USA vs. China battles in Korea, or if they would really go for it and invade each others land. Russia and China roughly border each other on the east, and have only Mongolia in between, so a full scale tussle could be easily imagined. With this in mind, Chairman Mao decided an entire Underground City should be constructed under Beijing, with enough space for the entire population of China's capital to be housed for months or years on end. That's 16 million folks living in a cave city until the nuclear dust could settle. This project was completed (or abandoned) in the early 1980's, and it is said that most of Downtown Beijing sits on hollow ground...and on a tremendous earthquake fault line...um, is this a good idea?
Now that the USSR is no more, and Beijing quickly becomes a city wide construction site, the Underground City is becoming High Rise Building basements and Parking Garages as there is more earth-moving going on here than probably anywhere else on earth right now. As the city reshapes itself into Communist-Capitalist hybrid much more effective than a pseudo-electric Toyota Celica vehicle, the Underground City is being destroyed and the entrances that were hidden in train stations and schools are being blocked up. Only a few passages remain, and a couple of these pathways to the subterranean fortress have become tourist attractions; that is if you can find them. You see, nobody knows it exists. Not Taxi Drivers, not regular Beijing citizens, not Hotel Concierges, no one....trust me.
I hop into a cab and point most happily at the Chinese letters that are written next to the Underground City in the guide book and my smiling, if not shower deprived, Driver drives off in great speed. He races straight downtown, and drops me with great gusto right in front of Tiananmen Square...um, no. I get out and consult the map. The Underground City is shown as a dot on the map and unless the door way is actually 4 blocks wide, this place could pretty much be anywhere. I start wandering....and without much success. There are huge tour buses rolling in with tourists who are headed to the Forbidden City soon park on every side street, so walking on one side and seeing what is on the other is impossible.
I go in and out of tiny Hutong mazes for what seems like hours, until I notice the rickshaw drivers. They all have lists of attractions to which they can whisk you away, at a very small price. The 2nd to bottom entry is "The City of the Underground" which is a title for the attraction I really like much more than the Underground City for some reason. I walk in the direction they seem to go be going, and with my poorly drawn map, I find myself smack in the middle of a bustling hutong full of Weekend activities. Cooking, Cleaning, Children playing and of course, Old Men playing cards...what is it with people playing cards in tiny groups all over town. It is weird. Doorways crowded with semi-destroyed bicycles and piles of junk, next to tiny restaurants and even smaller shops. About half way down the tiniest and most obscure labyrinth twists is an old wooden door on which the words, "Un..er..oun Cit.". are written (well almost written) in vinyl stick-on letters.
Even with the missing letters and all, I feel an adrenalin rush of uncharted discovery, just like Columbus, Pissarro, or the first guy to be with the Olsen Twins. I walk inside and a group of young people dressed in army costumes greet me with two simple clearly pronounced English words; not "Good Morning," not "Hello Welcome," not even"You Again?", but simply "Twenty Yuan!" I shell out the cash and a young man who speaks beautiful English leads me down a series of moldy dark passageway stairways. He asks many more questions than he answers. He wants to know where I'm from. He wants to know what Pittsburgh is like. Do I like China? Have I been to China before? Do I like Chinese food? What is my favorite Chinese food? What have I seen in Beijing? What is your favorite place in Beijing? When do I leave? What do I do for a living? Do I like the Olympics? What is my favorite Olympic Sport? Do I know the names of the Olympic Mascots? Which my favorite Olympic Mascot? (Jing-Jing, the Panda is his...) Where do I stay? Where is that? Do I like it? Is that in Lido? Do I like Lido? 5 minutes into the tour, I feel I somehow stumbled into the strangest of all Human Resources job interviews, and I should have updated my resume.
Finally, we reach a landing in a cavern that has a single 60 watt strangely colored light bulb hanging from some dangerous looking frayed electric wires. The glow of the illumination combines the odd light amber color of the bulb and the irregular stripes of green mold growing on the bulb itself to make a surreal 1960's Saturday Night at the Fillmore light show effect. Some semi-disturbing moving bolts of light pass in front of your eyes and across the hollowed out walls as a breeze blows the bulb just slightly. It is like something you might imagine modulating behind the Jefferson Airplane or Quicksilver Messenger Service, as Sunflower passes you the tab of acid she promised to give you before you left your Berkeley dorm room, but she forgot they were in her other purse.
My tour leader then explains the idea of the Underground City, (which I already know) and that the Underground City was expected to house all of Beijing's 16 million residents. I'm thinking with the two of us standing here...I'm a little cramped. On the walls are great propaganda posters and pictures of Russian tanks and airplanes. I ask if I can take some pictures, and my guide utters the greatest response to any question I have asked so far in my many weeks in China. He says, "You may take all the photos you like, but only with your mind..." Ah, a poet and a tour guide.
We begin our tour, and he points out that if we walked down this corridor, we would go to the Forbidden City, and if we followed this one, we would be lead to the Temple of Heaven. He points down some dark hall, and says that is where there was a full classroom for the children's education. We pass a hollowed out area that has a folding cardboard table with some white (well, at some point, I'm sure they were white, but now they are a very dingy combination of gray, green and very unappealing beige.). This he says is the hospital. To me it looks like a sickly, badly set dinner table. The kind you could easily imagine resting beneath a case and a half of nearly empty, mildly crushed aluminum Budweiser cans in a just out of college, 6 guys in a two-bedroom, breakfast nook. An IKEA pressed wood table that one of the guys got from his parent's basement, or another found on the street amongst the neighbor's weekly garbage pile as he stumbles back from the corner boozer at 3 am. Hey, don't knock it, that's how I acquired most of my furniture at that time in my life.
Further down the musty dugout we go, "This is a room where many soldiers would keep munitions. Is that right? Munitions?" I nod, and we trudge on. Everything is the same, but the posters are awesome. Chairman Mao waving and smiling, some of earnest looking children with rifles, and still another reminding the cave-dwellers not to light fires to keep warm. In about 25 minutes the whole thing is over, but not before the tunnel kicks you out into a silk factory where dozens of smiling faces ambush you with their fabulous wares. Silk sheets, shirts, banners, and even underwear. Girls, how about a hot pink silk G-string with the words "Sexy," poorly silk screened on them in overly ornate cursive writing? Give me a call before I leave and I'll pick up a pair for you..
