Notes from Beijing

Beijing was the only place we went that we had been before. Obviously the impending arrival of the Olympics has changed much of Beijing. It’s cleaner, less litter and rubble than I remember. We actually saw the sky a couple of times, a rarity in any Chinese city much less the dirty capital.

Order and cleanliness has its costs. There were fewer vendors and less street food available. Better enforcement of traffic laws meant that it was much harder to hail a cab, as there are apparently no pickup zones all over the city.

The revamping for the Olympics has gone into the 11th hour, with many projects still half completed with a month to go. The underground walkways near the Forbidden City are being retiled, and (for whatever reason) reek of turpentine. The new subway lines are mostly completed but have done little to relieve the crowdedness of the rush hour train, where the last person on to the train is often physically crammed into the car by the platform cops. The subways also switched over from paper tickets to a BARTesque card system halfway through our trip. The new system proved as baffling to the residents as it was to us. The stop in front of the main Beijing Rail Station was a particular disaster, with one entrance not selling tickets and another subject to bizarre and unpredictable closures. We were effectively prevented from using the subway system after the changeover.

Beijing has also been busy redecorating its historic sights, something which is usually a mixed blessing. All of the ancient structures get some shiny paint and a few new decorations of dubious authenticity. We caught the old summer palace (圆明园) in a state of half renovation.

We don’t do a whole lot o touristing about in Beijing. We mostly enjoy the food, and take a break from rushing around to see everything. Beihai park (北海公园), built on the sight of Kublai Khan’s old palace, was certainly a nice place to stroll around.

Dongyue temple (东岳庙 ) was also a fascinating excursion. It’s odd to find a temple that serves as both a place of worship and a tourist location. Dongyue is filled with strange statues demonstrating the types of things that you find in the various Daoist afterlife departments. That’s departments, as in Department of Motor Vehicles. There are seventy-six such departments in the Daoist afterlife, including the Department of Animal and Insect Births (busy one, that), and the Department of Implementing Violent Deaths. One is left with the impression of a bureaucratic religion where, if you lose your receipt, you are forced to wander the earth forever.

We also tried out Beijing Opera for the first time, which was colorful and screechy. On account of extreme jetlag, it turned into the single most expensive nap that I have ever taken.

Language in Beijing has its quirks, but in general is one of the easier places for me to deal with. A lot of people there can speak okay English, but expect you to speak Chinese. I rather like that, as it encourages learning, and is a product of Beijing cosmopolitan environment. I’ve found that Beijing is one of the few places where if you ask a question in Chinese, people will actually answer you, as opposed to exclaiming “你说话 !” (You spoke!)

The Beijing accent is easy for me to understand, as it is close the variety of Mandarin that I am most familiar with. However, there is no way in hell I would ever attempt to speak in the Beijing dialect. Beijing ren tend to add an “r” (儿) sound to some words, a quirk that makes Beijinghua sound like either a hungry cat, or Chinese spoken with a pirate accent (“yar!”). The trouble is that I just can never figure out which words are going to get the “+ r” treatment. It also just strikes me as weird that some foreigners prefer to use the Beijing dialect. No other dialect in China gets this treatment; you don’t hear anyone learning Shandonghua or trying to learn shanghainese (with its bizarre tonal structure).

The food is good, with a bevy of Sichuan restaurants as well as many locations devoted to Beijing’s own “use the entire pig” take on cuisine. And yes, the roast duck is delicious, but I was delighted to discover that there is a cheaper fried version of it, that’s just as awesome.