- Well after one week of odd/even traffic restrictions, I stood on the pedestrian overpass on Chao Nei Dajie and looked west. On a good day, you can see Xiang Shan and the Western Hills. Today you could see about 200 meters and then the street dissolved into a smog bank so thick it was positively science fiction.
- On the plus side, the streets have been much more civilized of late with half the cars removed. Traffic flows better and the number of heinous snarls replete with the useless and repetitive blaring of horns has been nicely minimized. While I haven’t seen any noticeable improvement in air quality downtown, taking half the cars off of Beijing’s streets isn’t the worst idea in the world and for what it’s worth I’d be all for making these restrictions permanent.
- On the subject of traffic, and since nobody asked, making Nanluoguxiang and the streets around Qianhai, Houhai, and Xihai pedestrian-only would be a nice step in improving the quality of those neighborhoods and demonstrating the Beijing government’s progressive attitude to planning an urban space not beholden to the internal combustion engine.
- YJ won a lottery for Olympic baseball tickets an Olympic baseball ticket. Not to be ungrateful and I’m glad we won, but who does a ticket giveaway for a single seat? Do only friendless losers buy raffle tickets?
- We’ve moved. YJ and I have set up residence in a small pingfang in Dongcheng. We share our yard with nine other families. More on this later.
- I’ve seen two kinds of “Olympic Volunteers” so far. The youth in the blue uniforms with smiles so bright and placid you want to check the back of their necks for the microchip implant, and the generally* older volunteers in the red uniforms and caps. Thing is…while both are referred to in English as “Olympic Volunteers” the red-capped oldsters are actually 治安志愿者 or “Public Security Volunteers.” Not sure what their mandate is. Perhaps I should ask. Anyway…youth in blue shirts and volunteers with red armbands: nothing like hearkening back to the glory days of China’s recent history for fashion ideas. (*Though I know a “Public Security Volunteer” as young as 16.)
- For the literal minded, the above was a joke. I’m sure there is no ideological connection between the Olympic Volunteers and Chiang Kai-shek’s New Life Movement, the Red Guards, or any other form of public indoctrination in service of public order or state power. Really. None whatsoever.
- You have to love a city where you can do a full-on brunch for about $2.00. Seriously. $2.00 in a breakfast place back home might get you a thimble-sized glass of canned OJ.
- The US Men’s basketball team will win the gold medal this year and it won’t even be close. It’ll be the most dominant performance by the senior men’s team since Barcelona in 1992. Book it.
- My favorite thing to listen to on a Sunday morning? The Gospel Experience with Emmit A. Powell. I love the fact that in hour number two when he lists where all of his online listeners come from, he throws a shout out to Beijing.
- These past few evenings I’ve been alternately watching “Lost” and “Deadwood” and am struck by the similarities between the shows. I see the first seasons of both as being about the evolution of an organized social and leadership structure from past ad hoc arrangements. And yes, being an over analytical grad student does in fact suck all the fun out of ‘mindless’ entertainment. (Not to mention that the plot for the first season of “Deadwood”–with only the slightest of alterations–could be a Wuxia novel set in the Qing Dynasty, complete with unscrupulous merchant, heroic retired warrior, rich widow, corrupt magistrate, and an unsavory yamen runner.)
That’s all for today.
I’m with you on making the odds/evens restrictions permanent. It may not clean the air, but it does make life noticeably more pleasant. Or it will until people start buying a second car and booking themselves the appropriately numbered plate to drive every day.
Re: Lost and Deadwood — wait’ll you see The Wire. It’s going to blow your mind.
Re: Pedestrianizing Nan Luogu Xiang etc. — people have been talking about it for years. I don’t think it’s going to happen. The guanr taking their mistresses from Zhongxi is one explanation; also, there are just too damned many guanr and guanr-affiliates living around there, and you can hardly expect these people to keep their black Audis in the garage! They’re important people and have important things to do! Like karaoke and whoring!
Congrats on moving into the pingfang. There are some really good Shaanxi restaurants around there, if memory serves.
It is really funny that a foreigner asked a young volunteer with blue uniform about the trip route while the volunteer asked other people beside……
Chris,
It’ll never happen, but I would love to see a system similar to the one put in place in Singapore over a decade ago charging drivers a surcharge to drive in certain areas of the city, especially downtown.
Another issue, which doesn’t usually get mentioned with air quality and traffic is parking. Try strolling the ‘sidewalk’ on Guijie/Dongzhimen Nei any given Friday night and you’ll see what I mean.
Brendan,
Yeah, I’ve heard that too. The more things change…so on and so forth.
Franklin,
I had a similar experience recently, a lost tourist couple was trying to get directions from a volunteer who kept repeating the classic Beijing direction “it’s over there.” I politely injected myself into the conversation and helped out because I suspected that while the volunteer was friendly, well-spoken, and trained in deflecting sensitive subjects, he really didn’t know the layout of the area very well and was afraid to admit it.
Could happen to anyone.
Thanks for stopping by,
oh, being overanalytical is half the fun of both lost and deadwood. two extremely philosophical/political shows.
Sooooo- what about these philosophical and political elements in Lost?? I am thinking pergatory– all in limbo awaiting some kind of judgement. Mind you, I’m still only in season2…
I just finished season one and I have really no idea. I tend be interested more in the “Lord of the Flies” possibilties of the show rather than the science fiction/mythological aspects.
We also have season two here on DVD, after I finish I’ll report back.
look at it as a sort of runnign experiment of gut-level political philosophy: faced with a crisis, out of society, how do people (or should people) organize themselves? should people reconstruct their native polity/society to keep up appearances, or should they embrace the wild and go feral? how are decisions made, and who makes them? what matters most? how are differences resolved? and WTF is up with that polar bear?
the warring states 100 schools guys would have had a field day with lost. granted, they’d all have had opinions on lord of the flies, too, had it been around for them to critique it.