Tuesday, March 06, 2007
The city don't know what the city is getting
LONG AGO, during Skull Tour '05, a shrill harridan of a woman running a Chinese restaurant in the sleepy backwater burg of Bloemfontein, South Africa asked me if I was ever planning on going to China. I replied that I would probably have to go to Beijing at some point, to which she responded, "Beijing ugly! You go to Shanghai!" I said that though that may be the case, Beijing is awash in precious skulls in need of my attention, while Shanghai is barren and boneless. She refused to hear my pleas, and kept shouting, "You go to Shanghai!"
Now, here in Manhattan, I mean, Beijing, I can kind of see what she was talking about. Beijing is indeed, by most anyone's standards, an ugly city. Grey, grimy, and sprawling with uniform cinderblock housing. The enclaves of old and architecturally interesting buildings usually found in big national capitals are nowhere to be seen, thanks to Mao's Cultural Revolution (seriously, dude, could you have picked a worse time to tear everything down and rebuild? The 1960s had to have been the most craptacular decade in architectural history). The newest buildings are uninteresting mirrored skyscrapers of no particular merit other than pushing the gargantuan population into higher elevations, and the absolute newest buildings, built for the 2008 Olympic Games, range from pedestrian to nightmarish (the main arena is this enormous construct of freakish twisted metal that looks like something out of a Giger painting or Tetsuo II: Body Hammer.) Y'all know my feelings on Olympics--suffice it to say that if the Games bring similar buildings to the architecturally delightful Chicago landscape, I will utter many a tear. The Chinese, however, are all about 'em. Indeed, one person told me that his elderly mother is now learning English, just so she can be an Olympic volunteer. Just wants a piece of the action! (She was turned down once already because of a heart condition and general age-related debilitation, but darnit, she just wants it so much!) The Beijing Olympic mascots, a quintet (each one a color of the Olympic rings) of impish Chinese mythological beasts, are on signs (and merch!) absolutely frigging everywhere. And already, they've apparently added such amenities as an English translation to the bus stop announcements on public transit.
So I whine about the atmosphere: pshaw! Don't let that fool you, so far, I am seriously digging Beijing. My hotel is nice and cheap as all get-out (like everything here), the people are friendly, and thanks to a bone-scouring icy wind coming down from the mountains, the legendary Beijing smog is nowhere to be seen. (Living in Chicago, I have no problem with bone-scouring winds, but as my trip to Moscow proved, extreme air pollution is just not my cup of tea.) I got a number of warnings before I came here about the probability of intestinal duress, and I was taking precautions water and food-wise (meaning I was not going to eat in dingy little places), but already that has been thrown to the winds, as for my first lunch here the scientists at the institute took me to this ramshackle metal shed that had a few bowls of food in it that serves as the institute comissary. It was delicious food, don't get me wrong, but I have some concerns, especially given that the curator I was with instructed me to take an apple, but don't eat it yet for the love of God, put it in your pocket, take it back to the institute, wash it thoroughly, cut off all the skin, and then cut the rot out of the core. So far my tumbly has not gotten all wumbly, however, so good on that.
Yes, things are looking good here in the mystic Orient. As overcrowded, polluted Communist metropolises go, I've got to say that Beijing has Moscow beat in every way imaginable. For my sanity, that's a good thing.
LONG AGO, during Skull Tour '05, a shrill harridan of a woman running a Chinese restaurant in the sleepy backwater burg of Bloemfontein, South Africa asked me if I was ever planning on going to China. I replied that I would probably have to go to Beijing at some point, to which she responded, "Beijing ugly! You go to Shanghai!" I said that though that may be the case, Beijing is awash in precious skulls in need of my attention, while Shanghai is barren and boneless. She refused to hear my pleas, and kept shouting, "You go to Shanghai!"
Now, here in Manhattan, I mean, Beijing, I can kind of see what she was talking about. Beijing is indeed, by most anyone's standards, an ugly city. Grey, grimy, and sprawling with uniform cinderblock housing. The enclaves of old and architecturally interesting buildings usually found in big national capitals are nowhere to be seen, thanks to Mao's Cultural Revolution (seriously, dude, could you have picked a worse time to tear everything down and rebuild? The 1960s had to have been the most craptacular decade in architectural history). The newest buildings are uninteresting mirrored skyscrapers of no particular merit other than pushing the gargantuan population into higher elevations, and the absolute newest buildings, built for the 2008 Olympic Games, range from pedestrian to nightmarish (the main arena is this enormous construct of freakish twisted metal that looks like something out of a Giger painting or Tetsuo II: Body Hammer.) Y'all know my feelings on Olympics--suffice it to say that if the Games bring similar buildings to the architecturally delightful Chicago landscape, I will utter many a tear. The Chinese, however, are all about 'em. Indeed, one person told me that his elderly mother is now learning English, just so she can be an Olympic volunteer. Just wants a piece of the action! (She was turned down once already because of a heart condition and general age-related debilitation, but darnit, she just wants it so much!) The Beijing Olympic mascots, a quintet (each one a color of the Olympic rings) of impish Chinese mythological beasts, are on signs (and merch!) absolutely frigging everywhere. And already, they've apparently added such amenities as an English translation to the bus stop announcements on public transit.
So I whine about the atmosphere: pshaw! Don't let that fool you, so far, I am seriously digging Beijing. My hotel is nice and cheap as all get-out (like everything here), the people are friendly, and thanks to a bone-scouring icy wind coming down from the mountains, the legendary Beijing smog is nowhere to be seen. (Living in Chicago, I have no problem with bone-scouring winds, but as my trip to Moscow proved, extreme air pollution is just not my cup of tea.) I got a number of warnings before I came here about the probability of intestinal duress, and I was taking precautions water and food-wise (meaning I was not going to eat in dingy little places), but already that has been thrown to the winds, as for my first lunch here the scientists at the institute took me to this ramshackle metal shed that had a few bowls of food in it that serves as the institute comissary. It was delicious food, don't get me wrong, but I have some concerns, especially given that the curator I was with instructed me to take an apple, but don't eat it yet for the love of God, put it in your pocket, take it back to the institute, wash it thoroughly, cut off all the skin, and then cut the rot out of the core. So far my tumbly has not gotten all wumbly, however, so good on that.
Yes, things are looking good here in the mystic Orient. As overcrowded, polluted Communist metropolises go, I've got to say that Beijing has Moscow beat in every way imaginable. For my sanity, that's a good thing.
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