Voices
Transformation of capital changes lives on two levels
By Lara Farrar (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-11 11:40
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All major cities are composed of complex ecosystems of human existence. Layers of life and survival, hope and sadness, and intertwined social strata mix and mingle in unexpected ways.
Beijing is no different. However, here such undercurrents of life that thrive beneath the glitzy, modern veneer that many say is all too quickly overtaking the city are harder to find. But they are there.
"When you arrive in Beijing, there are two layers of identifiable structure," said Xing Ruan, author of New China Architecture, in New Beijing - Reinventing a City, a documentary about the rapid redevelopment the capital has witnessed in recent years.
"You arrive at the airport, take a taxi on the elevated highway and then reach your five-star hotel and then you go to various conference centers and flashy buildings and you visit the Olympic sites. That is one level," Xing said.
"Beneath that elevated level, there is the ground experience, and those people who live in slum conditions, temporary buildings, high-rise towers and residential neighborhoods," he said. "These are the people who operate in a very different way. That ground experience is incredibly rich."
As a reporter in Beijing, I have had the privilege of taking part in the ground experience - an experience that many foreigners and even some Chinese rarely see.
Some of it has been disturbingly tragic, like my trip to a local hospital to speak with Xi Xinzhu who set himself on fire to try to stop demolition crews from razing the home he and his family had lived in for decades.
Similar acts of desperation take place at a frequency that cannot be called often but is hardly rare. They happen - at whatever rate - only miles from our apartments, our comforts, our innocuous lives.
Other ground experiences include my walks through hutong, knocking on the doors of strangers, hoping to talk to old Beijingers about their disappearing lifestyles in the now. At those mostly decrepit, traditional courtyard homes I discover they have already moved away.
In their place, migrant workers live in the only form of affordable housing they can find that does not involve laborious commutes from far-flung apartments on the outskirts of the metropolis. Fresh blood pulsates through old arteries of the city, creating a new authenticity, however oxymoronic those two words together may seem.
Conversations with people such as Duan Zhaobin, a beipiao, or Beijing drifter, who moved here seeking fame, fortune or whatever other opportunity would take him one rung higher up the ladder of economic prosperity, are instructive.
Duan, 45, lives alone in a dormitory he manages at a private school in the Haidian district. On his wall a sign reads: "If you have a quiet and stable mood, you will go further in life."
I also reflect on the weeks I spent following Ibrahim, a refugee from Darfur who came to China because he heard this is the place to come to build a future. Ibrahim could not find a job, or anything else, so he spent his days and nights on the streets of Sanlitun.
The point is that history is not being paved over in Beijing. It is being rewritten. Culture is not being destroyed. It is being redefined. Authenticity is not in the past. It is everywhere, here, right now. And it should be embraced.
