Ape Rifle

Getting to China’s capital was certainly eventful. Our bus ran into a torrential downpour between Zibo and Jinan, and the latter’s bus station was quite flooded by the time we arrived. Since all the buses were still arriving and departing in about half a foot of water, the scene was absolute pandemonium. The drivers were jostling their vehicles to drop their passengers on the one dry concrete platform.

Dozens of people milled around barefoot, their pants rolled up with briefcases/parcels/rice bags held firmly above the head. Inside the massive (and newly renovated) station, the ceiling of the men’s washroom was leaking like a waterfall, making standing still long enough to relieve oneself at the urinal a very unpleasant experience.

I thought for a few seconds about capturing the bus station scene on my camera, but reason got the best of me and I proceeded to score us tickets the hell out of there.

The ride to Beijing was pretty uneventful, taking us through northern Shandong and the featureless plains of southern Hebei province. Things gradually got more congested as we approached Tianjin, and the surroundings got noticeably grimmer and more industrial. We were treated to a massive gridlock of belching industrial trucks between Tianjin and the capital, not exactly a very picturesque place. Smokestacks, motorcycles and a lot of dust.

Entering the capital area was system shock.

China suddenly dropped away and we entered what could only be described as the outskirts of a large North American city. Massive highways criss-crossed the landscape, their spaghetti junctions sending cars in every possible direction. The highways were extremely well-paved, and well lit. We ended up on some ridiculously wide ring road, the many lanes bursting with car lights in the darkness. I think Beijing must have more cars than the rest of China combined.

All around us were office parks on steroids, their glass boxes easily topping off at 40 floors.The skyscrapers glittered in the night, scattered between the many highway junctions. I realized that, unlike almost every other Chinese city, Beijing keeps the lights on at night.

My mom immediately noticed that the buildings seemed better built than in any place she had seen so far in the country, and I got the same impression. They were tall and faceless, but there was no white tile to be found. Designs were simple and, dare I say, tasteful. I guess somewhere past Tianjin we took a wrong turn and ended up in suburban Toronto.

After another cab ride that seemed to involve more endless highways, we arrived at our hotel. I worried about being cheated, given Beijing taxi drivers’ reputation and the fact that, my previous time in a Beijing cab, I had most definitely been cheated. This driver, however, was definitely above board: he had to stop for directions, so he knocked off a good 10-15 kuai from the meter.

As I sat in the room of our nice hutong courtyard hotel, with its nice furniture and CNN in the background, I got that all-too-familiar feeling: what planet had I just landed on? Could Henan really be in the same reality, let alone a few hours away?

The next day, a much more familiar world revealed itself in the daylight. As we made or way to the city centre (about twenty five minutes to the south of our hotel by foot), we navigated narrow streets shaded by trees and crowded with the usual vehicular clutter. Small family-operated businesses lined the way, and shirtless old men strolled about between naps. The scene was a little eerie, however, as a decent chunk of this old neighbourhood had been reduced to rubble. Lone restaurants left standing in a wasteland of debris.

A street near our hotel

My mom and I did all the usual tourist things. Tian An Men square was a bit overwhelming at first: massive, imposing and hopelessly communist. The Forbidden City was simply amazing. The Summer Palace was nice, although smothered in a horrible haze. The Peking duck was delicious, accompanied by good conversation and cheap local beer. The bars and cafes around Houhai were fun and bustling on a warm summer night, and they gave us (by this time we had met up with Justin, another teacher from Hangzhou) a chance to people watch and enjoy free cigarettes that some “promotional girls” kept throwing our way. An afternoon and evening wasted on a patio on Sanlitun were also an afternoon and evening well spent. In many ways, Beijing was like my vacation from vacation.

The famed City

The famed Square

Seen at the Summer Palace

Onwards, Capitalist roaders!

On a more somber note, we had the surreal experience of witnessing someone set themselves on fire/blow something up in the middle of traffic right across from Mao’s smiling face at Tian An Men (also letting us see how many “tourists” were actually government security agents). The man was whisked away in seconds.

The incident from a distance

Our trip to the Great Wall was also quite interesting. Due in large part to organizational fatigue on my part, we left it to the last minute and had to settle for a quick trip to Badaling on a local bus (and by local I mean the rattling, smoke-belching kind).

After passing through some eerie abandoned amusement parks and getting stuck in a country road traffic jam (blue trucks once again being the culprits), we arrived at a sparsely crowded Badaling, not at all the carnival I was expecting it to be. For such a touristy portion of the wall, the climb is still pretty steep; being as intelligent as I am, I wore sandals and soon had to take them off and go up barefoot. I ended up in more than a few Chinese tourists’ pictures, grinning like an idiot.

The wall was impressive, but the view was severely limited by the heavy haze that engulfed the mountains. Unfortunately, this is all too common in China: scenic spots lose out to heavy, unregulated industry. We walked to the end of the restored section, my mom got in a picture with some random Chinese tourists, and we made our way back down to catch the bus back into town.

It was at this point that something very strange happened: the pollution cleared up completely to reveal blue sky and puffy clouds. As this happened, a group of dignitaries were arriving at the site in a column of limos and wailing police cars. I could not believe the drastic change in air quality; I ran back up the wall to get some shots of the now much more picturesque surroundings. I also caught a glimpse of the visiting dignitaries, and they were definitely of the foreign variety (later we figured they might be relatives of the Syrian president, who was in town at the time).

Returning to Beijing through an hour or so of sprawl and gridlock traffic, the heavy haze soon returned to settle on the area. My mom and I spent that time playing conspiracy theorists: had the government just engineered a “beautiful” Great Wall scene for visiting foreign dignitaries? Did they know exactly what factories smother Badaling in smoke and shut them off for an hour? It was a little weird.

The wall smothered in haze

What the dignitaries saw, about half an hour later

During my time in the city I experienced two Beijings. The first, which is the most noticeable, is a projection of power on an inhuman scale. The impossibly large boulevards, the mammoth government ministries, the skyscrapers, the ring roads; everything is too wide and too big. Faceless avenues sprawl through endless clusters of bland highrises, their dull colours helping them to fade away into the heavy smog. It is a perfect manifestation of modern urban China: capitalist money funding questionable socialist planning. This is the ugly grid Beijing, the one most visitors probably complain about.

Wide enough for ya?

Beijing, the biggest office park in the world

What Beijing looks like outside of the center

The second Beijing I saw was much more down-to-earth and approachable. It’s a city with a certain funky edge to it, its hipness not nearly as in-your-face as Shanghai’s. It has quiet neighbourhood streets, relaxing patios and old men playing cards on the curb. Its cosmopolitan elite don’t seem as concerned with flaunting money in your face as they are trying to appear cool and cultured. Young people with money sit around cafes, trying hard to look completely disinterested in the political power games that fuel their city.

Just a few blocks south of Tian An Men square, a middle-aged man wearing nothing but boxers walks home from the bustling night market, supper in hand. In fact, half of Beijing seems to take off its clothes in the blistering summer heat. Local restaurants are packed with red-faced patrons arguing over the bill. Friends sit out in the lane, gossiping and smoking the day away. This Beijing is much more of a real city, and very Chinese one at that.

Bustling in the night

A quiet afternoon in a quiet neighbourhood

In the interminable Beijing vs. Shanghai debate, I would have to back up the nation’s capital. Sure it is artificial, over-planned and “not a realistic window on China”, but many capitals the world over are not realistic windows on their respective nations. It is a government’s duty to make sure tax dollars are spent on sprucing up the capital to fool tourists into thinking the whole country is civilized.

In many ways I think Shanghai is worse in this department. It wants to come across as a free-wheeling Asian New York, but instead is a government showcase over-planned to look like a “free-wheeling” Asian New York. Pudong was no accident. If you want to get into the Beijing vs. Shanghai “which is more artificial?” fight, I’d put my money on the so-called financial capital taking the prize.

But back to the matter at hand: I really enjoyed Beijing. When you get tired of the forced grandeur and smiling Maos, there is still a great northern Chinese city to explore.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 9th, 2004 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Canada, Photography, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.