Wheat-dogg's World

BEIJING — I cut short the previous post, because I realized what time it was: the beginning of rush hour! The time flew by while was writing; it was already 5 pm when I left the Starbucks.

Rush hour in Beijing is like rush hour in any big city. As an experienced New Yorker, I knew what I was in for: commuters packed like sardines in a rolling tin can. It was either brave the commuting hordes, or sit in Starbucks for another hour to wait rush hour out. I decided to brave the crowds.

Onve you have experienced the arcane, century-old NYC subway system, any newly designed (aka modern) system is a piece of cake. Beijing’s subway is no exception. Pardon me while I bore you with details.

My hotel, part of the 7 Days Inn chain, is in Sihui, near my friend Katrina’s Beijing home. It is neat, no frills place, a bit like a Super 8 or a Motel 6. You get cable TV, a nice bathroom, a kingsize bed, free Internet, a smallish room, and free breakfast for 169 RMB a night. My stay here was a total of 1014 RMB for six nights, or about $150. [You can add that to the cost of renewing my passport. That, and another 900 RMB for train fare.]

I realized earlier in the week, while riding the subway with Katrina, that the 495 bus line two blocks from the hotel connects to the Sihui (四惠) subway stop on Line 1. Since she was leaving with her mom later in the week, using the bus would make my getting around on my own a lot easier.

So, here’s my routine for the last few days here. Walk to the bus stop. Pay 1 RMB. Walk two blocks to the subway stop. Pay 2 RMB for a single-use fare. Press the fare card against the turnstile sensor. Walk down to the platform. Zip to the intended destination (facing crowds at rush hour). Insert the subway fare card in the exit turnstile. Proceed to destination. Repeat as necessary. Each one-way trip cost me the equivalent of 44 cents — a lot cheaper than a cab. Given Beijing’s traffic, it’s also a lot faster.

Both the bus stops and the subway stops are announced en route in Chinese and English. The bus signs are mostly in Chinese, but 495 is a loop and the stop I needed was the bus terminal near the Sihui subway station. The subway system, like Hong Kong’s, is clearly laid out, with bilingual signage and maps. Very modern and efficient.

To get to the embassy, I had to transfer at the Guomao station onto line 10. To reach Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City, I had to stay on line 1 and get off at the Tian’anmen Dong stop. The subway also runs (obviously) to the Olympics park, the airport, Beijing rail station and a ton of other places.

My tour books say that Beijing will not give a visitor a true sense of China, and in that I concur. China’s capital is in so many ways yet another big city. It sprawls across the flatlands here, like Denver or Los Angeles, or like the Boston-Washington, DC, megalopolis. The ancient character of the city is all but gone, victim to first the Maoists’ desire to obliterate the pre-communist past, then to the Chinese capitalists’ desire to make Beijing a world-class city.

Aside from the Forbidden City, other ancient parts of Beijing are little specks compared to the rapid modernization here. Ring roads (expressways) encircle the central district like an archer’s target, with the Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square at the bullseye. Cars are everywhere; I read a few days ago that 1,500 cars are added to Beijing’s streets each day.

Katrina and I managed (almost by accident) to find the home of famed Chinese author Lao She. It is now a museum in the hutong (old neighborhood) where he lived, Dong Cheng Qu. Lao wrote, among other works, Rickshaw Boy (Luotuo Xiangzi 骆驼祥子), which I remember seeing on my parents’ bookshelves years ago. Lao’s is a sad story. World renowned as an author, in the mid-1960s Cultural Revolution zealots humiliated Lao publicly and forced him to admit that his literature was counter-revolutionary and thus worthless. Broken, the gentle author “disappeared” on August 24, 1966, either by committing by drowning himself in Taiping Lake near his home or (it is alleged) by being murdered by the Red Guard.

Some hutongs still exist, but now it seems like they are being preserved partly to attract tourists. South of Qianmen, one of the few existing relics of the old walls surrounding the Imperial Palace, is a shopping street that resembles old Beijing. An imitation trolley carries tourists along the reconstructed buildings. I walked about two blocks into this glimpse into the past, then gave it up. The architecture is pretty, but the whole experience is rather dull and cold.

Beijing in February is not really hospitable to tourism. When I arrived Tuesday morning, it was snowing. It snowed again overnight, inducing Katrina and me to cancel visiting the Forbidden City in favor of computer shopping (and eating at Pizza Hut, where I showed her that the proper way to eat pizza is with one’s hands, not with a knife and fork). Yesterday was a little dreary, but the sun poked through the clouds enough for a walk around Tian’anmen Square. Today it was cold, but sunny, and tomorrow promises to offer the same. So I will spend most of the day in the Forbidden City — in between rush hours, of course.