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Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
A fond farewell to the Northern Capital
Sometime on Thursday morning, I will step off of a train in Southwest China, and my life in Beijing will be 750 miles behind me. This means no more underground rock scene, no more full days at the National Library, and no more English speaking company. And being all too aware of this, I've come down with a serious case of the lasts. A nagging compulsion to finally eat at that weird restaurant on the corner. To play a show at a bar. Finish my heavier books. Actually check out the Military Museum on the 1-line.
A few days after my largely failed hutong expedition, I walked into an underpass by the Xizhimen subway and was stopped cold by some of the most haunting music I'd ever heard in Beijing. Half way down the tunnel, a sickly looking man sat on the ground, covered in thick, filthy blankets, playing a suona for change. I put five yuan in his box, stopped, and listened.
The feeling this man gave me was different from that of the violin player who I wrote about in November. He seemed as if he'd somehow fallen through the cracks -- instead of eerily blending in with the surrounding hustle, he was a counterpoint. A genuine trace of genuine sadness, shining through the din of forward motion. A photo-negative of the Qianmen hutongs, their silence turned to noise.
In the end, I realize that I have mixed feelings about leaving Beijing. But I also realize that they probably pale in comparison to the mixed feelings Beijing must have about leaving itself.
* "A dream we share – a dream of establishing an everlasting retail chain that Chinese people love patronizing, and that mingles with their daily lives – Wumart."
(shot down U2 American (KMT) spy plane, courtesy of Flickr)
***
Although I often feel that the Western news coverage of China is exasperatingly full of politically motivated sources, questionable details and rash overgeneralizations, this past October, Andrew Jacobs of the NY Times knocked one out of the park. Like many journalists before him, he wrote about the demolition of traditional neighborhoods to clear up space for apartment blocks and ridiculous Walmart knockoffs*. Jacobs found a delicious spin, however. Hawkers, he wrote, pushcart merchants that have haunted Old Beijing for centuries, “sing” one-line jingles to draw out customers, and these quirky, comforting melodies are vanishing along with their ecosystem. Like a Chinese analogue to “popcorn, get your popcorn!” or “extra, extra, read all about it!” Hawker songs have been replaced by tinny storefront speakers blaring short and unintelligible soundbites on loop, the volume set to max to out-obnoxious equally savage neighbors. The whole street ends up sounding like "CHEAPSCARVES STEAMEDBUNS CHEAP SCARS TEABUN SCSTECB RN," and the "get your popcorn" guy is forced into early retirement.
Naturally, I decided to add a hawker song-hunt to my last-days-in-Beijing itinerary, and last weekend, an American friend and I settled on a time and made the trip. After some deliberation, we decided on the most death-rattle hutongs of them all, those lying in the shadow of Qianmen, an ancient guard tower at the southern end of Tiananmen Square. During the Qing Dynasty, when Beijing's city walls were still intact, Qianmen was used as a gate to separate the aristocratic, predominantly Manchu "Inner City" from the sprawling Han slums outside. And then fifty yeas ago, Mao Zedong, in his tireless (and frighteningly successful) quest to de-beautify, demolished the old Inner City, expanded Tiananmen Square to four times its original size, and covered it in cement. Thus the burden of guardianship has shifted. Tiananmen is now blocked on all sides by high white fences, and the only entry points are underground tunnels fitted with giant security cameras that, if you're not careful, might hit you in the face on your way up the stairs.
But the old Outer City -- at least pieces of it -- are just as they've always been. The winding streets are grey and dirty, lined with crumbling homes, and bare concrete walls marked for impending demolition. The quiet there is its own presence. The day we went, it was cold and windy, and the inhabitants fleeted by like ghosts. An older, Mao-Suited hawker rode past on a corrugated flatbed tricycle, towing a load of something that looked like canvas, his voice resplendent. But by the time I'd taken out my recorder, he had turned a corner. We took off in pursuit, but to no avail -- within a hundred meters, he had disappeared into in the modernized ether. The filthy cement ground turned into newly lain brick. Sketchy little "hair salons" turned into phony antique stores. Phony antique stores turned into upscale Western restaurants. A couple of steps further and we were on the highway.
Naturally, I decided to add a hawker song-hunt to my last-days-in-Beijing itinerary, and last weekend, an American friend and I settled on a time and made the trip. After some deliberation, we decided on the most death-rattle hutongs of them all, those lying in the shadow of Qianmen, an ancient guard tower at the southern end of Tiananmen Square. During the Qing Dynasty, when Beijing's city walls were still intact, Qianmen was used as a gate to separate the aristocratic, predominantly Manchu "Inner City" from the sprawling Han slums outside. And then fifty yeas ago, Mao Zedong, in his tireless (and frighteningly successful) quest to de-beautify, demolished the old Inner City, expanded Tiananmen Square to four times its original size, and covered it in cement. Thus the burden of guardianship has shifted. Tiananmen is now blocked on all sides by high white fences, and the only entry points are underground tunnels fitted with giant security cameras that, if you're not careful, might hit you in the face on your way up the stairs.
But the old Outer City -- at least pieces of it -- are just as they've always been. The winding streets are grey and dirty, lined with crumbling homes, and bare concrete walls marked for impending demolition. The quiet there is its own presence. The day we went, it was cold and windy, and the inhabitants fleeted by like ghosts. An older, Mao-Suited hawker rode past on a corrugated flatbed tricycle, towing a load of something that looked like canvas, his voice resplendent. But by the time I'd taken out my recorder, he had turned a corner. We took off in pursuit, but to no avail -- within a hundred meters, he had disappeared into in the modernized ether. The filthy cement ground turned into newly lain brick. Sketchy little "hair salons" turned into phony antique stores. Phony antique stores turned into upscale Western restaurants. A couple of steps further and we were on the highway.
This
Turns into this
Turns into this
And there's your Old Beijing.
Because of its sprawl and its constant traffic, Beijing's soundscape is heavy with a deep, underlying hum, so that being on the street here sounds a lot like being on an airplane. Passing by a couple of pedestrians, I can never make out what they're saying to each other until they're a few steps away -- vague murmurs snap suddenly into "...should give him a..." or "...the dog ate..." and then disappear completely. Fittingly, what Jacobs points to as "traditional" sounds are the only ones that put up a fight against the traffic. For example, at 9:30 every morning, I'm woken by the sad refrains of a lonely shoe-sole repairman outside of my 16th story apartment. My recorder isn't sensitive enough to pick it up, but it looks like this:
Unfortunately, not all sounds can escape the noise pollution. For example, only in the quietest of neighborhoods can you hear the pigeons. For the past 1,000 years, locals have recreationally affixed polyphonic whistles to their tail-feathers, so that once they're out of the cage, they scream by overhead like a flock of 16th century Vortex Howlers.
(lyrics unintelligible)
A few days after my largely failed hutong expedition, I walked into an underpass by the Xizhimen subway and was stopped cold by some of the most haunting music I'd ever heard in Beijing. Half way down the tunnel, a sickly looking man sat on the ground, covered in thick, filthy blankets, playing a suona for change. I put five yuan in his box, stopped, and listened.
The feeling this man gave me was different from that of the violin player who I wrote about in November. He seemed as if he'd somehow fallen through the cracks -- instead of eerily blending in with the surrounding hustle, he was a counterpoint. A genuine trace of genuine sadness, shining through the din of forward motion. A photo-negative of the Qianmen hutongs, their silence turned to noise.
In the end, I realize that I have mixed feelings about leaving Beijing. But I also realize that they probably pale in comparison to the mixed feelings Beijing must have about leaving itself.
***
* "A dream we share – a dream of establishing an everlasting retail chain that Chinese people love patronizing, and that mingles with their daily lives – Wumart."
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