For the majority of my visit, I viewed Beijing like most casual visitors: as a modern city with gleaming high-rises; clean, straight streets; stunning athletics venues; and excellent Beijing (formerly Peking) duck. But I knew there was more to the story and wanted to use the chance I had at the Olympics to see more.
I had dual-good fortune there that allowed me to do just that. First, my friend Nicole from college moved over almost a year ago with her boyfriend and was a phenomenal guide with impressive Mandarin for such a short time in the country. Second, my extremely generous former coworker, David, and his wife, Lily, let me stay at their family's apartment where Lily was also back from NY. Together they helped a weary traveler more than they could imagine. I was in good hands!
Throughout the two weeks I spent in Beijing, I alternated between the spectacle of the Olympic events and attempts to gain that understanding of the real Beijing, even if I didn't have time to discover the real China. Both goals were difficult.
The Olympics were everything you'd dream them to be. I was able to buy some event tickets through the country-specific web site in May, which took some research but actually wasn't that hard in the end. We bagged some others from scalpers, random mysterious phone numbers, and a few fellow tourists.
Seeing Beijing involved a bit more creativity. You were constantly funneled into the tourist sites, which on the whole didn't disappoint. I marveled at the Forbidden City in the rain....
and the Great Wall in the hot sun....
but the lives of ordinary people seemed out of reach.
This remained the case for me until one day when I was walking down a random road (I walked a lot more than most in Beijing), and saw a postered wall that I thought might make a memorable photo.
As I was bringing the camera up, I saw someone emerge from a crack in the wall and realized there were small houses behind. So at the next more obvious opening, I went in. Inside was like stepping back 30 years to a small Peking village. Unlike the glass and steel of the other parts of Beijing, I found brick houses huddled close together with sights of life at every turn.
I had stumbled into a hutong. These charming centrally-planned neighborhoods were previously had covered Beijing from head to toe, but are being progressively ripped up to make way for modern developments. The local people are paid some money and moved to another location by the government. And, at least during the Olympics, those that hadn't been cleared yet were like the ones I had found, surrounded by masking walls with Olympic covering, hiding the un-modern from the casual Western eye at a time when all eyes were on Beijing.
My criticism of the race to modernism was tempered by the apparent high standard of living that I saw. I've been on the outskirts of major slums in Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and Mumbai, and what I saw in Beijing wouldn't even come close to being classified as a slum. There were clean public toilets (men's & women's) scattered around, sturdy houses, and most people looked quite healthy. I'm sure there are less fortunate hutongs in Beijing than the downtown one I had stumbled into, but to my untrained eye, the lower-class Chinese people seemed to be well taken care of.
Now, I'm certainly not running out to cast my vote for Communism in the next election, but I have found my criticism to be more cautious after that experience. Think of it as a balance. In China, the people let the government generally decide where they can live and in return have mostly clean, affordable housing. In contrast, people in India seemed to have amazing freedom of where and how to live, but they get no help from the government to improve the conditions. I suppose the trade-off for the general population in India is that when a new road or airport desperately needs to be built, it takes years of democratic consensus building to get anything done (and some well placed bribery, I assume). But the Beijing government could bulldoze this whole hutong village next week if they decided it was the best spot for the people's much needed car wash. The India press would be in an uproar, while the Chinese government controlled press would toe the party line.
With this imagine swirling through my head, I saw the Olympic venues in a new light. Looking on the "Bird's Nest," the main Athletics stadium, I could appreciate it as the best stadium I've ever seen, but also imagined the thousands of people who must have been displaced over the years as this massive village was being built (first for the 1990 Asian Games, and then expanded later for the Olympics). But the stadium is graceful and, paired with the neighboring Aquatic Center, makes for an awe inspiring entrance into the Olympic village.
We were lucky enough to secure 4th row tickets in the Bird's Nest for an evening of Athletics events early in the first week. Dressed head to toe in red, white, and blue, we cheered with all our hearts. I had to laugh because I felt like all of the hurrah-America spirit I'd kept toned down for the past 3 years of living in the UK seemed to come spilling out all at once. I think there are a million Chinese people with pictures of a 6'6" guy with a 4' American flag and a big smile. Thankfully, I wasn't alone.
In addition to Athletics, I saw boxing, USA men's soccer (not so good), and women's soccer. My luck struck again because the random woman's soccer tickets I purchased 5 months prior happened to be the semi-finals with USA vs. Japan! The USA team was amazing, coming from behind to win 4-2 in excellent form. They went on to beat Brazil in the finals and win their 2nd consecutive gold medal. Again, our seats were great and Nicole and I were waving our 4 foot American flag. Early on, a friendly Chinese man saw me trying to wave the whole flag myself and left his family, climbed over 5 rows of seats sitting next to me for the whole game to help wave the flag whenever I wanted. He didn't speak any English at all, but seemed thrilled with the cheers and high-fives I offered at each USA goal.
Near the end of the match I offered my impression of a giddy teenager at a Justin Timberlake concert when I loudly professed my love for the tattooed Hawaiian star Natasha Kai....and got a hang loose sign in response. How cool!!
As you can imagine, my camera snapped away for 2 weeks straight, so I'll leave with a few of my favorite shots.
Happy 2009!!
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