The Roof
You can see a good part of our district from up here. At whatever hour of the early morning it is, the hammering construction still kicks up dust, ringing clear over the honking taxis, squeaking buses and the shouting people. A few of the innumerable cranes still swing over the hazy pink horizon. By the estimates of one European organization, as cited in the New York Times, 1.5 million peoples’ homes will be raised in preparation for the Olympics to make way for new stadiums, roads, hotels, subway lines, or marathon route beautification projects. That’s the one and a half Cincinnatis being picked up and moved somewhere else in the span of a couple years.
Being in Beijing is like watching a living thing molt before your eyes—change colors, reshape, reconstitute itself into a new and improved beast. Nearly every description of modern Beijing mentions the byproduct of this molting; the dust, the construction, the noise, the re-education of the populace, the insanely rapid change, so I’m not adding anything new here. But up in the construction site on top of our apartment, cranes visible above the skyline in every direction, we get a pretty good view of it.
It’s a city of absurd and often dubious statistics. . . Every day breathing the Beijing air is equivalent to smoking 7 cigarettes; six months in Beijing is equal to two years of second-hand smoke; there are only 240 days a year of visible sky; it goes on and on. But some things are true: and often these facts are hard to reconcile. For example, here are two facts that don’t sit too well next to each other: by 2020, Beijing will have the world’s largest subway system. Also, by 2020, its water supply will be completely unsustainable.It’s the capital of a communist government that’s unsure of what about itself, exactly, is communist. Unemployment is up and the Iron Rice Bowl, which used to guarantee everyone a livable wage, is disappearing. To get ahead in the economy you often have to be connected to the party, or know someone who is. Dissent and unrest are on the rise. The government is frantically preparing for an Olympics where international attention and pressure is going to want some answers besides “are there enough hotels?” Every Olympics has a political undercurrent, but China’s record with regard to journalistic freedom, human rights, working conditions, product quality, food safety, political expression, Tibet, Taiwan , as well as a host of other issues, ensures that the government will be held closely under the microscope. Some predict a repeat of Seoul 1988, when those Olympics created a wave of international pressure which eventually toppled the dictatorial regime in South Korea and ushered in democracy. I’m skeptical. That kind of change is a long way off.
But we’re not thinking about all that now. We're thinking about how we're going to get down off this roof, and if there's any way to make it so we don't have to. Niu Bi!
