Goodbye, Beijing! I like you.
Trip Start
Jul 05, 2008
1
28
30
Trip End
Aug 30, 2008
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Beijing is huge. It's huger than huge. As far as you see and as long as you travel, all you see are big tall skyscrapers and wide inner city highways. And none of it looks old. It looks like it sprung up last night. Some of it must have, as quite alot of the buildings are still empty, but covered with Olympic signage to make it look less creepy. You have to look very hard to find anything old in this city. Because it's all kind of glossy that way, it feels a little fake. It's obvious that half of the city has been recently obliterated and rebuilt. Several times I went looking for something recommended in the 2007 LonelyPlanet, only to find that it has disappeared and been replaced with a parkette or new buildings or whatever. Aaron and I went to check out the renown hutongs (small alleys) near Qianmen in central Beijing. They've been completley destroyed and rebuilt with brand-new "authentic" hutongs. Why tear down and rebuild them? I guess they didn't realize that Westerners like to see things a little ragged, a little real. The new "hutongs" are basically stores for tourists or still empty, they're that new, and they are all uniform and totally devoid of character, even though great pains have been taken to make them "look real". It reminds me of Wild West land in Disneyworld. It's eerie. What happened to the people who lived there before? They did the same thing to Wuanfuging Street, which used to be a market area, but has been torn down and rebuilt with tourist-geared stores and big malls. They also set up a very fakey "nightmarket" there, which they've done as a strip of totally uniform food vendors that sell alot of crazy and good food (grilled starfish, beetles, seahorse, etc and some more normal things), but once you walk down the strip you see that the food stalls repeat each other after awhile. If you've never seen a real nightmarket, you'd never know just how fake this is (ie this fool who doesn't know any better, here is one of the stalls from the nightmarket, they all look exactly like this and they all wear uniforms SEP http://www.flickr.com/photos/grchiu/167358539/ ).
Not everything here is new and phony. The heritage sites are all excellent. I already told you about the Great Wall and Tianenmen Square. After Aaron left (boooooerns!), I went to the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City (one day for each of them). I walked alot, as the subways are still jacked full of post-olympic tourists, and I like walking anyhow since taking the packed trains by myself is not any fun without someone. The Temple of Heaven was very beautiful and situated in a huge peaceful park. There are actually lots of temples inside. The best part was the Long Corridor, where old Chinese men sat along the banisters gambling and playing Chinese Checkers. The Longevity Pavilion was also cool. It's set up like the infinity symbol, and there was a group of Chinese people there singing, I think they were some kind of club that met weakly. The Summer Palace is also located in a ginormous park area, much larger than the Temple of Heaven, complete with a huge lake where you can take paddle boats and dragon boats. There were billions of people there, and I was dissappointed by the pictures I took because of the very murky light. I think this would be a great place to go outside of the Olympic madness, and even still it was very peaceful and beautiful. Today I went to the Forbidden City, which was again rammed with tourists. It's amazing to think how freely you can walk around there now, considering it was totally off limits to regular people for over 500 years. Regular people from ancient times would have been awed to think of going in there. It's an amazing place, and worth revisiting. All of these big ancient monuments were grand, and I'd really love to have a chance to revisit them during quieter times and at a more leisurely pace, and to learn more about them. Of course it's very difficult to explain things like the Forbidden City to someone, and words just don't do these places justice. They deserve to be experienced and felt. For some lucky reason, I got to visit them.
My wanderings around Beijing softened my attitude to the city. People actually do live here. You just have to get out of the touristy Beijing-does-Disneyland areas, which is hard at first since it's all kind of sly, and you're kind of funelled in that direction. But walking around was very enjoyable. That's one of the best things about Beijing: it is very pedestrian friendly. It's easy to move around on foot, there are tons of walkways and underpasses, and lots of huge shady sidewalks. Also there are no scooters to be seen, a handful of sneaky electric bikes (too quiet), and lots of people on regular bikes. This is because every street has a very, very generous bike lane. Toronto take note. I discovered some non-restaurant food off the main roads, including some nice rice thing that was full of green onion, yum, for 0.6 yuan. They also do this wrap thing with a very very thin crispy yellow wrap full of bean sprouts, carrot, and green onion. Beansprouts are my favorite vegetable. So for 5yuan, this made me very happy. I also found lots of smaller streets, which of course no one ever tells you about, that are full of regular people, regular stores, and regular lives. Loved that.
Travelling around solo in Beijing has been far better than in Indonesia. First of all, no one harasses me here. You just get left alone, thank god, because that really stressed me out and made me uncomfortable. Secondly, it's very easy to get around. Stressing over travelling when you're on your own is very difficult, I was always worrying about being over-charged, sent to the wrong place, and safety. A blind monkey that speaks Quecha could get around easily in Beijing. It's a big weight off my shoulders. Thirdly, everyone appears to think that I live here. I couldn't count the number of foreigners who've come up to me and asked for directions or advice. When I tell them that I don't know any better than they do, and whip out the guidebook to help them, they're totally amazed. "Really? I thought you must live here"; "Don't you live in Beijing?"; "Sorry, I just figured you were local". I've had that happen in a couple big cities that I've visited. I look comfortable in cities?? I guess I look like I know what's what! ... I got everyone fooled.
Could I live in Beijing? Definitely yes... except for one problem. The air pollution. The air is kind of murky now, even with the crazy Olympics restrictions. I've seen pictures of it in regular times, and after living in Kaohsiung, I do not need to go through that again. Nor do my lungs. It's a shame that the air is so bad. Aside from that, there is nothing that isn't first-rate about this place. No cock-roaches, rats, or stray dogs (ahem, Taiwan). Not a piece of garbage or a cigarette butt to be seen. Probably all related to the police that are everywhere and likely to crack you upside the skull if you litter. Good for them. Thoroughly modern infrastructure, with none of those ghetto hanging wires from Vietnam or anything like that. However, there is a kind of restrictive feeling about the place. It's hard to identify, but because of all the rules and restrictions to movement, you are kind of forced to live within a set of largely invisible barriers. You have to get your passport scanned every time you use an internet cafe. You have to get your bag scanned (like an airport) whenever you go on the subway. Even if you're not up to anything, it gets into your head.
I think, with all the changes undergone here recently, what Beijing needs is some time to grow into it's new skin. All of this new stuff and rebuilt old stuff needs a decade or so to roughen up and develop some character. I like you, Beijing. I can wait.
