Fuwa

So, the Olympics are coming to Beijing. Those li'l cuties up there are the mascots for the Games. The logic for having five is that there is one for each ring. Also, the mascot is usually a native animal of the country, and since China is so big if you just pick one animal there are regions that will feel left out. And of course, the joke around China is that by having five that means that everyone has to buy five times as much Olympic-themed souvenirs and merchandise. Personally, I am completely infatuated with these guys, and I love the little background stories that the Chinese have whipped up for them.

Chinese culture is so different from the US. Sometimes it's hard to imagine how are two countries can become close and work together, because it seems impossible for us to agree with each other. What I hope is possible is that Americans and Chinese can learn to understand each other well enough to communicate and form working relationships where each side knows what to expect from the other side. We don't have to want to be like each other, if we can comprehend, accept, and respect each other. Maybe the Olympics really can embody the spirit of this kind of cooperation.

Why so good?

I don't want to be all down on China. I love this country, and this trip has been great. My last post was a little negative, in part because I'm ronery now that all the students are gone and I'm in Beijing alone, but at the same time I have no privacy thanks to the curious sleep habits of my Singaporean roommate. It's a tough combo. So let me take a moment to share a couple of the wonderful things about daily life in China.

For breakfast this morning I ate dan bing, my favorite Chinese street food. It's a crepe/pancake. You break an egg up all over one side, and sprinkle with scallions. Then, you flip it over, and paint the other side with tasty bean sauce and hot sauce, sprinkle a little fresh ginger, maybe a crushed peanut or two. Add a weird fried crispy thin dough thing and then fold it all up and feast. I first ate this in Xi'an, and it rocked my world. At left, the woman who changed my life.

For lunch I ate a fresh Asian pear. They cost $2 each in the U.S. Here, I paid the equivalent of about 20 cents. Thus, it's not just that Chinese food is really tasty, really fresh, and skillfully made. You can also taste the affordability! I've been chowing down since I crossed the border into Shenzhen. While we were there, we made friends with a bunch of the university students. Whenever they ate something they liked, they would always exclaim, "Why so good?!?" The Chinese in general eat with a great deal of zest, and it's fun to join in.

The Tangled Web We Weave

We've all heard about how personal auto ownership is on the rise in China. There's a graph everyone likes to show of China's GDP and auto ownership that shows them both rocketing up in the last 20 years. One version of it is at right, from K. Riley, "Motor vehicles in China: the impact of demographic and economic changes," Population and Environment, 23(5), p. 479 - 494. So, personal incomes are rising in China and people can afford the cars that they want for status and convenience. Not exactly rocket science.

The interesting part of all of this is the policy that lies behind the graphs. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all Chinese cities have the same kind of transportation policies. In fact, there is a remarkable diversity of policies on everything from electric bikes to auto permits to jaywalking that reflect the varying cultures of different places in the country. In Shanghai, were I noted previously that cars are nothing novel, an ownership permit costs a whopping 50,000 RMB (about $6,250), and that's in addition to buying the car, insurance, fuel (heavily taxed), etc. Now that's some transportation demand management! In Beijing, however, as of 2000 the permit to own a car is basically free. Additionally, all quotas on permits have been lifted. There are 3,000,000 cars on the road in Beijing and 1,000 more hit the road every day. Suffice to say, infrastructure supply is lagging behind and that means major congestion.

This is a paradox. Beijing is trying with all its might to clean up the air in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics. Why have this policy that undermines that effort? The answer is that the Beijing government has a lot of fish to fry, and sometimes they overlap. Here are the other agenda items:

1) Shanghai charges for permits. Beijing is better than Shanghai, so forget that!
2) Also in 2000, a new Hyundai factory opened in Beijing, providing much-wanted jobs, and keeping Hyundai happy is an important economic development strategy
3) The government gets a lot of tax income from car sales

In short, car manufacturing is a "pillar industry" in China now, and the domestic market is a way to double-dip on that economically. I am honestly in doubt about what is going to happen when foreign athletes arrive to compete in the Games and find that they can't do their best because they have throat infections from the dizzying, smothering haze of smog that hangs over Beijing basically every day. I'm not exaggerating - I have one right now, my snot has turned a truly insane color, my lymph nodes are swollen, and I spend maybe a total of 60 minutes outside on any given day. There's been a lot of hype about Beijing's success with improving air quality, but that says more about what it was like before than what it's like now. Check out the picture at left. Still no direct sunlight in the 'after' image!

The bigwigs in Beijing have always been pros at ignoring or rationalizing inconvenient contradictions. What will they do with this one?

Historic Preservation

One topic I've mentioned a few times here is the Cultural Revolution that happened in the '70s in China, and the destruction of "The Four Olds." In the post-Mao era, a reassessment of that policy has occurred. The official party line is now that Mao was 70% right, 30% wrong, and that the destruction of all old cultural artifacts was not the greatest policy. This has led to decent preservation of stuff like the terra cotta warriors, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, etc.

There's a growing interest in preserving the more prosaic spaces of Chinese urban life, however, especially this new fad in Beijing for weeping over the impending doom of the city's hutong neighborhoods as the Olympics approach. I couldn't agree more about preserving the hutongs, but the will to do that has to come from native Chinese, not expats drunk on exotic Old Beijing. I mean, I'm sure expats can help, given the huge role that foreign direct investment plays in China. I just see a lot more talking than doing, which always annoys me.

In Shanghai, the architecture firm of Ben Woods created Xintiandi, similar to 'festival marketplaces' like Fanueil Hall in Boston and Pike Place in Seattle. In fact, Ben Woods was trained by the architects that did those projects. However, since this is China, it's got to be 'festival marketplaces with Chinese characteristics.' So Xintiandi takes the old buildings and narrow alleys of a Shanghai neighborhood and converts them into premium, top-of-the-line luxury retail and dining. Current tenants include DR Bar (part owned by Ben Woods), an unbelievably cool martinis-and-low-light establishment concealed within Xintiandi's alleys (the entrance is pictured at left). Kind of reminds me of some of the cooler spaces of downtown Providence.

We visited the architects' office, and the first thing they emphasized was that this was not historic preservation, simply an urban development with a historic influence. The architect had a very simple definition of what it means to be urban - connected and related to what is around you, in space and time. I love that definition. It's very simple and very clear. However, a historic preservationist would have saved as much of the old neighborhood as possible, while Ben Woods saved only those buildings and spaces that could be profitable in the final development, and gutted all of the interiors. It would be so cool if projects like Xintiandi could be done for areas other than the most wealthy spaces in Shanghai, and if more could be preserved. It's not really reasonable to expect the private sector to do that, so maybe the growing community of Chinese NGOs will spawn historic preservation groups that want to work with the government to do that kind of project.