|
BEIJING--After
living in New York, the world capital
of capitalism, for 16 years, I returned
to my homeland this summer to observe
a country in transition from communism
to capitalism, of a sort. Instead
of feeling alienated, I was surprisingly
at home in Shanghai, China's most
heavily populated city. Like an imitation
of Times Square, the streets are
aglow with neon lights and billboards
advertising sneakers and soft drinks.
Basketball stars like Kobe Bryant
and Allen Iverson are larger than
life on billboards as they market
their sneakers intercontinentally.
Despite
these Western fashion influences, people are
largely homogenous in their attire, wearing
starched white short-sleeved shirts and dark
polyester pants. Also ubiquitous is a square
horizontal pouch worn on the right hip, where
cell phones are kept.
On the street, jaywalking is even more rampant
than in New York, if that is possible. Most
men seem to smoke everywhere, as restrictions
are lax, but it is hard to find women who do.
Personal space
is a lost concept in this heavily populated
city, as people push and pull through
traffic. Haggling is a way of life in the new
market economy. No one is shy about soliciting
you--to stay in their hotels, ride their buses
and cabs or buy their "mai mai" or
small foods.
I was struck by how many fundamental precepts
of capitalism were being practiced on the personal
level. On the bus that I took me to my hometown,
Wuhu City, the driver and a middle-aged woman
begin arguing over the fare for her son. They
argued over his height and whether he was more
than one meter tall. The women wanted to pay
only half price, but the driver argued that
the boy would occupy a full seat.
Eventually, the woman and her son gave up
the fight and left the bus while others crowded
on, eager to make the four-hour journey sitting
or standing. When the bus ran out of seats
as it prepared to leave, many were forced to
sit on small plastic chairs in the aisle. Profit,
apparently, overrides any concerns for safety.
While the cities of China have undergone modernization
evident in the rising towers and bright lights
that have awakened the sleeping country, the
countryside remains largely unchanged.
Rectangular rows of rice fields dominate the
landscape, separated by long lanes of water
that provide constant irrigation. The experience
is not unlike driving through the American
Midwest, only it's rice, not corn, that fills
the landscape.
Four years ago, when I last took this trip,
the roads were dust and no telephone wires
ran parallel to them. Bare roads have been
replaced by sleek, newly paved highways running
from Shanghai to Nanking, then to the smaller
Wuhu, which proved to be an even bigger surprise.
I discovered that the small city where I was
born, had grown up. There are high-rise steel-and-concrete
buildings, each ringed with smaller buildings
around it, many of these apartment complexes.
Little seemed familiar to me and I wondered
what had become of my grandparents' flat, built
of brick and mortar.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised to
find that their home had been demolished and
rebuilt as an six-story apartment complex as
well. Walking up to the second floor, I saw
my grandfather's face peering out of the screen
door. He began to smile as he saw me, and so
did I. Time's changes had not altered the way
his face crinkles up or the way my grandmother
grasped my hand lovingly, however seldom it
is that she sees me.
Their home was now no different from a Western
apartment. Equipped with the modern amenities
of a gas stove, a toilet, a shower--this was
indeed different from four years ago. Gone
were the large, public bathrooms and one-story
homes where families would cook their meals
with coal. Instead of living next to each other,
families now lived on top of each other in
low-rise buildings.
Old traditions
clashed with the new; my grandmother liked
to keep the front door open so neighbors
could drop by and chat as they walked up and
down, to or from their own homes. My grandfather,
however, fearful of burglars, liked to keep
the door closed at all times. Before I set
off for Beijing, concerned family members warned
me about the "big city." Those warnings
were probably not unlike those that people
traveling to New York City receive.
"Beware of Beijing natives--they'll try
to take advantage of you because you're not
from the city," cautioned my grandmother.
Although I'm from New York, I felt strangely
like a country bumpkin when traveling to the
capital of China.
The atmosphere
of Beijing was clearly different from Shanghai
and Wuhu. The streets are cleaner
and fewer people travel by foot. The city is
largely made up of a network of roads and bridges
that form concentric circles radiating from
the center of the city, Tiananmen Square. Preparations
for the 2008 Olympics had already began with
signs that read: "Beijing's people are
friends to the world."
Beijing's subway
system is extremely clean but limited, as
there are only two major lines.
One line runs horizontally across the city
and the other "loop" line travels
around the inner circle of the city. Tiananmen
Square, the center of so much political controversy
in China's contemporary history, was expansive
and surprisingly peaceful. On the flight home
I thought of all the hopeful Chinese lining
the street opposite the US Embassy every day
in hopes of obtaining a visa to travel to the "mei-guo," the
beautiful land. Down the street, clothing and
handbags with fake designer labels are being
sold to foreign tourists who have traveled
to the area to visit various embassies. On
my feet I wear the grey imitation Nike mocassins
that I bought for five dollars at the market.
They remind me all of the Chinese who are trying
their best to emulate capitalism and the American
dream.
|
