They’re taking down
the man-sized, red “chun” character
at the front of our compound. Chunjie’s
over. The New Year is underway. Driving
my daughter in at 6:20 AM this morning it was already starting to get light
out. We both noticed it. Usually that
ride is pitch black. There was a mist on
the road as we went and it augured for a polluted day. But now, driving in to the city three hours
later, it’s not too bad. I’m reminded of
an Afghan carpet dealer I once bought a lovely prayer rug from in Peshawar, on
the Afghan boarder in north western Pakistan.
This was 1996. He was from
Kabul. I’d asked him how it was
there. He replied: “Not too bad.
These days, only rockets. Not too
bad.”
The sun is out, which helps.
I wonder if it has the power burn off smog? I’m en route for a must-do, box-tick meeting
at a bank, where I’ll officiate some corporate business. Utterly uninspiring, plodding sort of thing,
I simply have to get done. Oh dear, a different sort of pollution just now as
we drive over the canal, on the road here.
Olfactory pollution. That smells
nasty. I’m glad I don’t live next to
that stagnant estuary. Lord knows what
somebody did and disposed of to make that smell happen.
Trying to stay positive though, on this morning ride
in. I’ve done this ride over years and
years now. This is Jingmi (Beijing to Miyun) Road.
It used to be called Jingshun
(Beijing to Shunyi) but they extended the highway. I used to do this commute in 1999 and from
the road, the changes aren’t that dramatic. There’s a Mercedes dealership,
where there used to be a ramshackle group of shops selling things for one’s
yard. There are better cars on the road,
and the sides are a bit better on the upkeep.
But mostly, it's the same dusty side road to the airport highway, that
its always been.
We’re up and on the airport expressway now. We’ve just passed the fifth ring road. Off to the right is the Wang Jing area, which
has ten or so new tall buildings going up.
Some of them look interesting, architecturally. Others, monotonous. I think of Wang Jing as the place with lots
of Korean stores, where my kids like to go to get cool pens and stickers. I’m sure there is a whole theme to the
development of the area and why it is being built up the way it is. Closer to the city Sony and Siemens both have
their office towers. I’ll have to look
up Wang Jing’s raison deter besides being in the north east, with easy access
to the airport.
Editing now, Wang Jing is actually a subdistrictit is in
fact also known as Beijing’s “Korea Town.”
There is a tech big park, Siemens has their HQ, and a half a dozen
foreign brands have large R&D centers there. (I would have figured they’d have been out in
HaiDian) None of those brands, incidentally are Korean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangjing_Subdistrict
If I strain my eyes, I think I can see buds along the
branches of the poplar trees, 枯木逢春[1], to the rescue from our winter
doldrums. Poplars are the default
planting along this airport expressway. Beijing
is so dry, you need trees with long, thirsty taproots, to go way down deep in
search of water, to survive this climate.
Mere hardwood deciduous trees, like an oak or a maple aren’t going to
cut it. Budding poplars sound nice, but
as any long time Beijinger knows, that means the puff balls, “SARS Puffs” as my
friend says, that fill the air in spring creating a hay fever like
proliferation of fuzzy white bits, that mock a snow storm. We have the Chairman to thank for these, as
Mao was supposedly behind the mass forestation project that prioritized the
mass planting of poplar trees.
Not doing a good job of staying positive as I pen this. Right, well, off to my right are my favorite two trees in all of
Beijing. Right here at the San Yuan Qiao cloverleaf there are two
trees, which are also beginning to bud.
When they erupt it will be a grand thing. I believe they are Jacaranda's but I'm not sure. They have grown so they look like a couple. Nothing to complain about there. Once they bloom, the trees and that turn off the highway, will be bathed in a massive purple aura.
I must find a way to plant that type of tree in my home back in New York. We always think to do that but never get
around to it.
Big garbage truck we’re passing now. I can recall living in Dong Cheng, in the old
city, in the late 90s, the trucks would pass, slowly through the neighborhood
with a tinny little melody blaring out, reminding folks to bring out their
garbage. It all seemed quite atmospheric
until my wife clarified that the tune, was from a revolutionary opera and was
the thematic equivalent of “Let’s Lynch the Landlord.”
At the bank now. Auditory
pollution. There is a “take a number
system.” Every few minutes the speakers
blare out that they are serving “B1011”, or “A903” in Chinese and then in
English. I head out to the
bathroom. It’s a good old-fashioned
Beijing bathroom from the 90s. Olfactory
pollution again. The smell of strong
ammonia. Grout on the urinal fixtures
smeared sloppily, dirty with time. On
the shelf before me an odd glass vessel, that might have served for an ashtray,
or might have served to hold incense, but doesn’t. What is the mystery liquid? Ammonia?
But the makeshift feel of this facility induces an immediate
nostalgia. I remember being young and in
China. I remember when this was the best
that China could do and the gulf between my perceptions and those of people who
were used to public squat facilities, without plumbing.
The person I’m with is filling out forms. There’s another anachronism. People won’t remember how to do that before
long. She’d already had three different
forms with voluminous writing prepared.
But, they were the wrong form.
Imagine that. So, she dutifully
sat down and began to fill in three new full pages. My cue to sit down. My only function is to present my old and new
passports. I have done this. Now I wait and listen and stare around at all
the aspirational advertising, of happy retired people and happy Chinese people
on vacations, and happy professionals sipping coffee beneath English and Chinese
writing that talks about the peace of mind, that comes with wealth management. This too is a long way from the days in
Shanghai, in 1993, when there was only once bank in the city I could use to
secure cash from. These days Chinese
ATMs that take foreign cards are far more user friendly and ubiquitous than in
Tokyo.
Off to the next meeting. Nothing to complain about really. We were done quickly, the winter sun is shining, there's a cab there waiting, the Allman Brothers' "Southbound" just came on the mix, and there isn't even one rocket.
Off to the next meeting. Nothing to complain about really. We were done quickly, the winter sun is shining, there's a cab there waiting, the Allman Brothers' "Southbound" just came on the mix, and there isn't even one rocket.
[1] kūmùféngchūn:
lit. the spring comes upon a withered tree (idiom) / fig. to get a new lease on
life / to be revived / (of a difficult situation) to suddenly improve
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