Observations on Beijing

Beijing continues to intrigue, throwing up difficulties (breathing) and pleasures (photographing) alike.

James from ispyshanghai.com was up here the other weekend for a visit with his girlfriend. Before coming to this city I tried pretty desperately to find a placement in Shanghai, memories of its skyline growing more rose-tinted (and ironically less hazy) by the day. My brief encounter with Beijing in 2005 was punctuated by plumbing problems (of the non-vulgar kind) and homesickness, while images of Beihai Park and the Summer Palace had by this year been replaced with news footage of smog and congestion.

But when I consider Beijing now, not as a political symbol (don't forget they've only had 60 years in a history of 5,000) but as a city, a patchwork of human experience... it's invigorating.

If I want live music, I know where to go. If I want to spend the day with friends in a pleasantly landscaped park (can't believe I was the first to upload a photo of it to Wikipedia), I'm spoilt for choice. If I want to spend £10 and eat like a 老大 or 50p slumming it nextdoor at the baozi joint - it's simple. As Pa is fond of saying, "what more d'you want?". Some things are amiss of course. It remains to be seen whether Line 10 (which rather handily connects me to both of Beijing's youth-iest nightspots Sanlitun and Wudaokou and the CBD, which I've yet to explore) will solve my daily sardine-tin experiences, but my personal feeling is that the city needs about fifty more subway lines and a sub-subway. Construction sites continue to look like deathtraps, dust continues to accumulate on everything and Houhai has so many clone bars that out-of-towners will never find real character without a copy of City Weekend and an astrolabe.

Comparing Beijing with Shanghai is interesting - certainly I get the impression that Beijing is playing "catch up". From the shiny new architecture and weekly nightclub openings to what-the-hell-took-so-long things like replacing paper subway tickets you had to hand to a woman on a chair with plastic ones you put into the turnstile (just a few weeks ago). But then again, we have the rather unique Factory 798 while they're planning an enormous Disneyland...

Here come the Olympics! Here's a story I'm fond of relating: during our last day in Beijing in 2005 we were in a taxi on the way to the railway station when we heard the live announcement from the IOC that London would host the 2012 Games. I didn't expect to be here for these ones though. I look forward to the rumoured nightlife opening-hour restrictions and hordes of Johnny Foreigners thrusting their mullets and baguettes in my face during my journey to work. Seriously though, I expect it will be fun.

China can only benefit from this torrent of outsiders bringing their ideas and arguments with them. I hear some mutterings in the Western press about a "propaganda coup" - but I think something different is happening. In their attempts to preserve unity, the government has encouraged nationalism to the detriment of socialist idealism. Students pay lip-service to their political education, but in private are apathetic. Their parents are faintly embarassed to talk of an era when patriotic songs blared from every radio while the iconography of that era has been relegated to ironic art and souvenir clocks. There's no "struggle" for them - their lives are comfortable - so why should they care? In the short-term that's good for the leaders: the rebellious youth movement of the 80s is a distant memory. But in the long-term, where is the next generation of dogmatists coming from? There's no-one here on the ground saying "the Olympics are a victory for the socialist system!" or "the Olympics reflect well on our leaders!" - instead they say "the Olympics are good for China" and "the Olympics will give us a chance to meet the world".

In other news:

• My friend Rich visited from the UK last month, we saw lots of the city and also travelled to Dalian (China's "most livable city") - very pleasant;
  
• A whole load of other interns and I went to a beach party at Laolongtou where the Great Wall meets the sea;
• I told a waitress "我的中文很差" and she said "我的英文很差!" and we laughed about it;
• I saw Kung Fu Panda - not the strongest plot in the world but some beautiful renderings of an idealised Ancient China and some laugh-out-loud moments (eugh what a cliché, just be glad this isn't a movie review blog);
  
• I ate a scorpion;
  
• I've seen experimental French-Chinese fusion, swing and jazz - but have yet to venture to D-22 to catch up on the Beijing punk scene...
  

Final thoughts:

• I was introduced to nciku.com, a Chinese-learning site with the most useful thing ever, a Flash thing that recognises even the poorest attempts to handwrite a Chinese character and links to definitions;
• I'm getting extremely fed up of reading on the BBC that the Olympics will be Beijing's "coming-out party". Kindly rephrase.