The first time I went to Beijing, and indeed my very first time on the Asian continent, I was seventeen. The year was 2007-China's much-talked about coming out party of the Olympics was still a while away, Sarkozy, Obama and Cameron weren't yet in office, the financial crisis was only just brewing and my little mind hadn't yet been blown wide open by the sensory smorgasbord of the Far East. Needless to say, I loved my brief time in the capital and am still immensely grateful to the Buies for making it possible and for our Mandarin class at Branson for making it so much fun. Landing at SFO, though, I couldn't help but feel genuinely sad-and normally I love coming back to its silent sterile emptiness (not sure why, but I do). When, I wondered, would I get the chance to come back? I could have easily stayed in Beijing for months more and felt that I had barely scratched the surface of the behemoth of the People's Republic, and the UK-which would be my new home in a few months' time-was just as far away as California.
Really, I have such amazing memories of that first visit, and they've hardly faded since then. I still remember how the late winter air felt, the dusky early morning light over Tiananmen Square at the flag raising ceremony, the gritty black tickle in my throat I developed after just a few days and, at the foot of the Great Wall, laughing over something that was distinctly un-funny so hard that we were all in tears. Plus, I brought back loads of STUFF-souvenirs, I guess, but not much in the way of 'I went to Beijing and all I bought was this stupid t-shirt!' sort of things. The massive brass Tibetan ceremonial dagger still resides on my mother's coffee table, the Cultural Revolution-era propaganda posters are folded up in storage boxes in St Andrews as I type this and I still lounge around in my mint green and navy silk bathrobes. In short, that trip to Beijing has stayed with me, and I couldn't wait to go back. I just didn't know when I would be able to; as hard as I tried to think like General Patton ('I shall return'), it's not easy when you're a just a dumb seventeen-year-old.
So fast forward a bit to me in Shanghai Hongqiao train station, getting ready to board the night train to the capital, and you can imagine that I was rather excited. The train, first off, was so pristine and white that it kind of looked like a mental hospital-a bit different from the lovable but grimy third class cars in which Natasha and I trundled around Rajasthan. I could wax poetic about the downy white comforters and bottled water in our private compartment, but, so as not to sound like a country bumpkin/weird train afficionado, I won't. Despite having lived in Britain for three years, in which the trains are overpriced, often delayed and generally a bit crap, I still find train travel novel, which I suppose comes from growing up in California. The sleeper train had me excited enough as it was, and when I opened my eyes to the early morning fog, birch trees and low blocky buildings, it brought to mind my first glimpse of northern China from the plane and had me raring to go.
Yours truly getting way too excited over how clean the train was
Beijing and I have both changed a lot since 2007-they had the Olympics, and I moved to a tiny wind-blasted town in Scotland (though I suppose some other stuff has happened too). Anyone who's experienced pre- and post-Olympics Beijing will tell you this, but it really is striking how much cleaner the whole city is-the air, the sidewalks, the streets, the buildings. In my Chinese politics module last spring, our tutor (the famous Marc Lanteigne) told us that, in the months leading up to the opening ceremony, the government kept running tally of all the 'blue sky' days in the capital. 'Blue sky' didn't actually mean perky blue expanses with puffy white clouds; 'blue sky' meant looking at the pavement and being able to see a faint shadow. Kind of misleading. When we were there three years ago, we had quite a clear first morning, but mostly it was mottled grey haze of varying thickness. Even out by the Great Wall at Mutianyu the sky was the colour of dust. By the time we headed back to California, most everyone had a low hacking cough that sounded terrible, which was particularly unfortunate considering that this was the height of the avian flu epidemic. US customs is notorious for holding people for hours at a time, and I think that the combination of death-cough and 'I've just been in China' would have set off some alarm bells. (Ahh, the memories.)
So when that early morning haze burned off to reveal crystal-blue skies overhead, I was pleasantly shocked. No more black lung for me! Up at the Great Wall at Simatai, the difference was even more pronounced. Up in the lush and verdant mountains, I felt as though I was in Tahoe-not the country that boasts seven of the world's ten most polluted cities. Not to digress, but I'm looking over a list of the planet's most polluted places right now, and it's making my stomach turn over (though that might also be last night taking its toll, oops). When I did a paper on the impact of environmental problems in China, I looked over a photo essay of some of the cities in the rust belt up north. And let me tell you, Jesus Christ, it simultaneously made the bile rise in my throat and brought tears to my eyes. Photos of places like Linfen make Guatemala City look like a garden spot. Very distressing.
Anyway-it wasn't just the air that seemed so much cleaner; everything generally looked as though it had been hosed off and given a new coat of paint. Even the hutongs looked as though they'd been spruced up a bit...which, to be honest, made me a bit sad. I really do love the sleek, spotless efficiency of Geneva and Singapore, but I'm a big fan of chaos as well. I love hectic markets with monkeys running around and people selling mysterious meat on sticks and haggling and dilapidated buildings festooned with clotheslines. The Beijing government certainly did what it set out to do for China's coming out party, but I hope they leave the hutongs alone now.
It's also a lot quieter in Beijing now, as people actually seem to be taking notice of the no horn signs all over the city (yes, the ones that I first thought meant 'no playing trumpets here'...embarrassing). Rather than the cacophonous symphony I remember, it just seems to be occasional beeps now. My mother, who literally jumps when she hears loud or sudden noises because I've 'shattered her nerves', will be relieved to know this (because I WILL drag you to Beijing one day, Mom).
Another difference is that the streets are no longer mobbed by the same throngs of bicycles anymore. There are still loads, of course, but it's nothing compared to the swarms I remember. Our flat in Embassy House back in 2007 looked out onto a massive intersection, and I remember that we could watch the frenzied dance of trucks, cars, people and bicycles for a good twenty minutes at a time. The bicycles were like locusts, threading in and out of cars and somehow avoiding getting flattened. I suppose it's not just Beijing, though-China is going car-crazy at the moment. Think 1950s America, but with 1.3 billion people. Kind of frightening, actually.
But so much of Beijing is exactly the same-the stunning monuments of the imperial past, the wholly delicious kao ya (roast duck!), the heavy curly sound of the northern accent. It's impossible not to be blown away by the splendour of the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace or the Great Wall. Tiananmen Square-the very very first emblematic place I went in China-was just as I remembered it, which is to say HUGE. Pictures can't capture the scale of the place. And looking at Mao's portrait gave me history-geek chills-another thing that was just the same. Oh, Mao-'cult of personality' doesn't do him justice. Even after doing a lot of really stupid s*** and being dead for 30 years, he's got a larger-than-life portrait in the nerve centre of the world's burgeoning superpower. It sort of floors me that one guy with poufy hair and poor dental hygiene was able to alter the course of human history this much. Historiography as an academic discipline tends to sneer at using individuals as the primary unit of analysis-you know, the whole idea that history has been determined by a succession of kings and emperors-but when you look at people like Mao Zedong, it makes you think. And in Beijing, you definitely feel his presence more than you do in Shanghai (though I'm sure there's a less creepy way to say that).
There he is!
One nice difference about this time around? It was a lot easier to say goodbye, because I know for sure, like General Patton, that I shall return.
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