I left Japan on wednesday this week, on a little ‘world tour’ of places I’ve always wanted to visit. It’s nice to be able to take a break for a couple of months even if the specter of money and ’security’ always hangs up somewhere in the background. Still you only live once and having lost my job at the paper in Tokyo, the occasion to take a break and travel was too good to pass, especially as being in Tokyo meant that parts of the world I’ve always wanted to visit were a lot closer and easier to get to.
The trip started in Beijing, where I’ve been for about 4 days. It wasn’t the place I originally wanted to start my trip from, but I realise now that it’s actually quite a fitting way to start. And that’s because Beijing is truly a world away from Tokyo in many many ways.
Even though my time here has been short, it’s been really vivid and enjoyable, full of surprises, impressions and discoveries. If I had to try and sum up Beijing in a few words it would have to be: smoky, chaotic and surprising.
Chaotic is definitely the impression that will stay with me the most after I leave this town. Coming from Tokyo with its relative organisation, cleanliness and hypercapitalist overtones, Beijing just hits you upside the head. The place is chaotic in so many ways, it took a little while to get my head around it after being in Tokyo for so long. But while this chaotic element is surprising, and daunting, it’s also incredibly refreshing.
The place I stayed at was near a main road crossing, and on the first day I stepped out I found myself standing on the side of the street for about 15 minutes just looking at the world go by and taking it all in - the chaos and noise were incredible. Streets are dirty and grimy in a way I haven’t seen them since being in Japan. People were doing all sorts of things, going about their business, hustling, kids were playing on the street, or even using it as a toilet, and most surprising was how chaotic the road itself was. People were crossing wherever they wanted, cars and buses didn’t stop at red lights, bikes also went about their business, and somehow even though it was all over the place, it all worked in a weird and strangely efficient way. I soon realised that if no one seems to care, then the easiest to make it across the street is to also not care, and it’ll work out. After Tokyo’s lack of jaywalking and structured traffic, it was nice to be able to go back to a more raw and I guess organic way of doing something as simple as crossing the street.
The noise and chaos stayed with me during the 4 days here, with an added feeling of oppression from the pollution, which wasn’t helped by the hot and humid weather that just kept smoke everywhere in the city. It was 2 days before I got to see the sky over Beijing, and even then it only lasted until about 3 or 4pm by which point it was smoky again, with a film of pollution hanging over the city.
Again though, while the heat and smoke were uncomfortable they just added to the whole aura of the city, making it all the more entertaining and in a strange way enjoyable to discover. I went for a run yesterday and realised how heavy the pollution actually is. The Olympic athletes are obviously in for a treat, regardless of the government’s claims that everything is well under control. My favourite quote during my time at the paper was from a Chinese official who said that pollution in Beijing was not that big a problem because ‘the smoke coming out of the factories used to be red and now it’s white’. When you put it like that.
While the city itself was a major shock and refreshing change of scenery after Tokyo, another element that really surprised me was the people. Maybe it’s because I spent so much time in Japan, where China and Chinese bashing is common place, or maybe it’s because I worked at a paper there too, where countless amount of misinformation and ridiculous opinions about China were printed regularly, but I soon realised that at the back of my mind I was expecting the Chinese to be a little well… dodgy I guess and also distant.
The reality couldn’t have been further from that. What I found was a warm and friendly people. Ok so people do stare at you pretty much non stop in the street, but after about half a day I realised that if you just stare back at them, then the stares turn into smiles and some of them will say hello and try and talk to you. Random people in the street offered me help on a few occasions, and even though language is also an obvious barrier here, the Chinese are a lot more hands on than the Japanese and quite happy to do entire transactions via gestures and signs. Politeness and tradition are definitely not a hindrance here as they are in Tokyo, and that element of spontaneity and freedom that comes from trying to make yourself understood any which you can is something I really missed while I was living in Japan.
What is true however is that the Chinese for the most part will try and take you for a ride when it comes to business. Again that has been really refreshing after Japan, having to haggle, discuss or just try your luck is something I forgot about. And it’s sometimes the case that you just ignore them and move on to the next thing if they’re really trying their luck and just taking the piss. But while this does happen, it never really felt like there was any malice behind it, and let’s face it that kind of stuff happens the world over, it’s just that on your own doorstep, where you’re a local, you never really think about it.
I was expecting crime too I guess, and strangely enough talking to some people who’ve been living here for a few years, it seems that crime is also a totally exagerated phenomenon, something which I again realised no doubt comes from my time in Japan where Chinese and crime seem to go hand in hand according to public opinion. Apparently crime here is no that much of a problem if you’re a foreigner, and people tend to be quite honest and helpful when it comes to lost property and the likes. As the guys I was speaking to said, the thing you got to watch out for here is people trying their luck more than anything. That’s not to say crime doesn’t exist, as Beijing is definitely not as safe as Tokyo in terms of petty crimes and the likes, but overall it seems that again I was under a totally overblown image of crime in China, and realising that this might not be the case is surprising in one way but also fits quite easily with the impression I got from the local people. As I said once you get past the staring, spitting and general ‘not giving a fuck’, the Chinese are really warm and friendly, in a way that feels a lot more natural than the Japanese to an extent.
As a city Beijing is just as full of contrasts and surprises as Tokyo but in very different ways. Where Tokyo’s hypercapitalist, futuristic elements contrast with the traditions of the country and its people, in Beijing the traditional elements from the country’s rich past contrast with its more recent political past.
On my second day here I went to the forbidden city, the old imperial palace in the center of town. Walking around the city’s streets and squares, it’s impossible not to feel a sense of awe and fascination for what is a truly splendid vestige of a time past. The sheer size of the buildings, the intricacy of the doors and wooden carvings and just the sense of history that is imbued in the place.
What was really interesting though was how suprising it felt to then step from this place and onto Tienanmen Square, made famous by China’s bloody cultural revolt. The square is right in front of the palace’s main entrance, and as I came into the palace from one of its side entrances, stepping onto the square was a real shock. The awe and sense of fascination I felt inside the forbidden city essentially continued as the full size and sheer impressiveness of the square and its surrounding buildings hit me. Where the forbidden city impacts on you through its sense of history, its size and its beauty, Tienanmen actually impacts you in a much colder way. It’s the sheer size of the buildings surrounding it and its vast space that actually strike you, contrasted against the chaotic flow of traffic that passes through it.
But the thing was, I didn’t actually find those buildings or the square itself that attractive. The building’s distinct communist-style construction and the various monuments and military symbols around the square felt a world away from the forbidden city’s rich history. And in a way I’ve found that is what symbolises Beijing as a city for me: this contrast between its rich and attractive historical past and its recent political one, which is a lot colder and distant. And you can feel this contrast through the buildings, the streets and the people and through it also see how the government really has tried, and continues to, suppress the country’s past as well as any sense of freedom or originality.
Yesterday I was walking around the suburbs, north of the city, looking for some shops, and this contrast continued everywhere I went. Huge portions of the city’s suburbs sprawl out in a mass of concrete buildings, tower blocks and totally unattractive streets, and yet amongst all this there are still elements of China’s history and culture hidden away, small traditional side streets and other things which really make you realise that Beijing is a city in a weird state of flux, caught between an obviously rich and proud past, and an oppressive and in denial present.
Add to this elements from the country’s recent move towards capitalism, with parts of the city resembling any Western capital city with shopping streets, malls, KFCs and Mc Donalds, and you have a city which seems to be in a crisis of identity, and a people who obviously are too. Oppressed and controlled by the state and with most of the world’s eyes on them, it’s only normal that the Chinese and their capital would find themselves in such a situation.
If anyone reading this is thinking of going to Beijing I would heartedly recommend it. It’s truly an amazing place and one that is likely only going to become more and more interesting as it continues to open up and deal with its past, present and future.
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