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A dream walk along a carless street

By Kerry Xie (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-31 08:12

Usually our dreams just clear out the nonessential information we get from day to day, a mental disk defrag, if you like.

But last night I had an awesome Lionel Richie "Say You, Say Me" dream. Not one of those "I Can Fly!" dreams. This was better.

I dreamed that Beijing banned all cars within the Third Ring Road. Who needs special powers or wealth when the sky is so blue and everyone is so happy?

As the dream began, I knew it was morning and time to go to the office, but as I stepped into the street, the usual honking press of automobiles, angry as bulls in rodeo pens, had disappeared. Not a bus, Audi, Volkswagen, or even QQ in sight.

The pedestrians and pedal pushers, usually so grim and nervous-looking, went boldly down the middle of the street, stopping each other to shake hands. A gaggle of children skipped to school arm-in-arm, singing "Cars are done, peace has begun!"

"Could this be?" I wondered, not daring to hope. Passing a newspaper kiosk, the headlines of China Daily confirmed what I had heard in a bold, two-inch font. There could be no doubt. Blessed be! I gingerly stepped off the sidewalk and nearly got beaned in the head by an errant football from a street game in progress. I smelled steaming baozi, not exhaust, and heard whistling magpies, not beeping commuters.

Best of all was the sudden and pervasive relief, like when that drilling in the apartment upstairs finally cuts off, only a hundred times more intense: the calm new Beijing vibe.

Not everyone was grooving on it, of course. One man with a swollen belly and self-important eyes stood on a corner shaking his index finger and shouting, his pampered plaything of a wife pouting behind him. "Driving is my right! How can I get to my office in time?"

Most passers-by just smiled and shook their heads, but an old lady strolling down the former fast lane stopped to rebut. "What are you babbling about, pangzi? In a car it used to take at least an hour to get from Guomao to Zhongguancun, with all the dummies like you who liked to look rich sitting in a traffic jam. It was faster on the subway, and we still have that! Look."

She pointed to an approaching vehicle I couldn't make out or hear, until it rang a gentle chime. An electric street trolley! It was done up in imperial red and dragon detail, but was thoroughly modern, whisper quiet, and hauling 50 happy passengers at a smooth, uninterrupted 20 kph. Street urchins clung cheekily to the back rail, then jumped off under a bridge. As I recall it was the overpass at Shuanjing.

I saw many cars atop, but none of them moving. The Third Ring Road had finally become a parking lot, as the heavens seemed to have always intended. Car owners clambered down circular steel stairways to the nearby subway entrance, or to approaching trolleys. Besides children's laughter and news vendors hawking, only the "Dao! Dao!" of Third Ring parking attendants broke the calm. There weren't even scooters to dodge; this was dream Beijing, not Bangkok.

As I dream-strolled, partaking in the general bliss, I passed a cluster of dissenters in overly-logoed clothes, hissing, "The world will think we are poor! Beijing is losing face!"

But time had passed in that dreamy way, and I saw more headlines at another newsstand. "UN holds up Beijing ban as model for sustainable future", and "Economist magazine ranks Beijing world's most livable city".

Soon the pro-car resistance melted away, like blubber off a high school student whose father doesn't drive him to school anymore. Besides, the rich soon found a way to show they were better than everyone else, with SUBs - sports utility bicycles - huge, hard-to-maneuver contraptions with moon buggy tires, their riders sitting half a meter higher than other bicyclists.

A loud, sustained bus honk jarred me out of the beautiful dream. I pulled the blanket back over my head and tried to go back to sleep, but the traffic wouldn't let me.