D

Everywhere you want to be--dust!

We arrived in Beijing September 12, 1999. For the first week we were here, the main impression I had was one of dust, dust , and more dust. The only place I know that has more dust than Beijing did that week is Cairo, the King, or should I say Pharoah, of dust cities. Later in the week a few days of rain laid much of the dust on the streets to rest. But that still left a whole universe of dust mainly in museums and shops. I was astounded to see the glass shelves of some stores so thick with dust as to render the glass opaque. It is not every shop and not every museum, but it seems, in museums at least, that specialists come in and set up a museum exhibit and thereafter the exhibit is not touched for weeks, months, even years! In one case, just one article had been removed from an exhibit but it stuck out like a sore thumb because the once off-white cloth had darkened to a very dirty grey except for under the missing piece. Now, I'm not very houseproud, but even my fingers itch to get hold of a duster and do something about things like that.

Growing like Topsy!

Since that first week my major thought as I have walked the streets of Beijing is that it is truly a city being constructed before my very eyes. Everywhere I turn there are new high-rise buildings, each one more modern and brand-spanking new than the one before. Sun Dong An Plaza, World Trade Center, Oriental Plaza, Henderson Center, and on and on. At first, I thought the tall buildings were show pieces, limited to Chang An, the main boulevard of the city, built to prove that such things are not exclusively capitalist icons. But as I got to see more of the city I quickly came to the conclusion that these new buildings are not communist show pieces at all. No, they are what they are, capitalist icons! Because the biggest surprise of all, is that Beijing is a capitalist city. Everything here is driven by commerce.

All of the new buildings house enormous western style supermarkets and shopping centers. You might think that they are built for the few ex-patriate Americans or Brits that have been exiled here for some reason or another, but no. They are in evey section of town and are all filled with Beijingers, of every age and income level.

Another impression that can't be escaped is that Beijingers live in a cloud. Alas it is no ordinary cloud. It is a pollution cloud. China boasts or rather suffers with six of the ten most polluted cities in the world and Beijing is one of them. The most tangible for the tourist is of course the pollution from cars. You can smell it, you can see it, and worst of all you can taste it. Take a breath at an inopportune moment and you can get a mouthful of diesel fumes, yuk! With the air pollution and the dust and dirt from building sites, simply keeping one's hair clean is a major battle. I have always found it foolish to shampoo every day, but here I can finally believe that it might be necessary.

Come and See

But don't cancel your plans to come here just yet. Apart from building new buildings, the citizens of Beijing have also been renovating old buildings, which is a wonderful thing for the tourist to behold. Beautiful sights abound: the Forbidden City, of course, the Temple of Heaven, most certainly, not to mention the Summer Palace, the Botanical Garden, the Buddhist Lammasery, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, all of them a tourist's and a photographer's delight. True, some of the restorations are showing a little wear and tear here and there, and yes, the inevitable layer of dust in place, but even so, the magic of these places can't be denied.

Unfailingly Friendly

Another major impression, and perhaps in retrospect the most important, is that the people of Beijing are unfailingly friendly and helpful. They are also sometimes very frankly curious, staring at you unabashed as you walk by. But smile at them and utter the all-useful Ni hao? and that penetrating stare will transform into a wide smile, a nod and a returned greeting. Before coming here, friends asked if we were not worried about ill-feeling because of the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Perhaps naively, we were not. Having lived in Hong Kong for four years and worked with Chinese from all parts in the USA, we felt sure that individuals would make a distinction between the government of the USA and individual citizens. We will probably never really know for sure, but our experience here has been of warmth and genuine interest. Even the government bureaucrats that we expected to show some remnants of the infamous communist coldness have melted as soon as one or the other of us has tried to say a few words of Chinese. A blow to our egos, but we must sound so awful, because it never fails to raise a smile.

The final impression I would add is one of pride. Pride that China is finally out of its self-imposed exile. Pride that the country is doing so well, economically. And last but by no means least pride in their past that they are once again free to express.

Jan Bates