Corona stories: June 2021

A lost world

When we came to Beijing for the first time in 1986 it was the sleepy capital of a third world nation. There were 9.2 million inhabitants but little was going on. There were few restaurants. The main reason to go there were the sights of a spectacular past. The impression of sleepiness was increased by the huge Tiannamen square, the center of the town and the nation, with the entrance to the Forbidden city on one side, the Hall of the people, the Mausoleum of Mao Ze Dong and the National museum lining the others. The square, supposedly the world‘s largest, was basically empty. Some forlorn visitors disappeared in the vastness. Mao’s portrait was looking down on the little traffic on the thoroughfare along the entrance side of the forbidden city. A few buses and the odd truck shared the wide streets of the capital, while the cycle paths, almost as wide as the lanes reserved for motorized traffic, were filled with throngs of bicycles.

The empty streets of Beijing in 1986

Only 12 years later the town had 7 ring roads, which were all chocked with traffic. This was 23 years ago and they had just started to built all these enormous examples of modern show case architecture which seem to determine the skyline today. We were on a business trip then and one of these late additions was the lufthansa hotel, where we had to stay. Every morning a driver came to pick us up and tried to compete with the cyclists in speed. They were faster because the roads were full. And that despite of his reckless way of dealing with his fellow motorists and also the cyclists. He even used the cycling path occasionally to pass the standing mass of metal by constant honking and cursing from his window to shoo away the cyclists. I asked our host whether we not rather could get rental bicycles for the few kilometres of commuting, but this apparently was not appropriate for such important visitors. It usually took more than an hour for 17 km one way.

The traditional housing in the old town of Beijing were in Siheyuan‘s, living quarters built around a central court yard with a gate in a wall facing the street. The houses line narrow alleys called Hu-tong which are laid out in a chess-board pattern, which constitutes neighbourhoods called with the same name. Accessibility with anything bigger than a tricycle is difficult, in particular since a part of the space in the lanes is occupied by parked bicycles, food stalls, tables with old men playing chess and a wide variety of open air businesses.

The narrow lanes of the Hutongs

What seems to be chaotic at first sight is the consequence of meticulous traditional confucian urban planning. Hutongs were first established in the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and then expanded in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. The royal palace was situated in the southern part of the city called the grand capital. The city walls formed a square with 11 gates. The gates opened to streets 25 m wide running from west to east and north to south. Joining the major streets were smaller ones about half of the width. To the sides of this overall pattern alleys 6-7 meters wide gave access to the residences called fire-alleys and passageways. Originally there were 384 fire alleys and 29 passage-ways. Later an additional southern city was added which followed a similar pattern. The number of alleys and lanes kept increasing and a census done in the 1980‘s counted 6100 in the city and the suburbs. In the map of 1985 the original street pattern with the 11 gates is still clearly visible.

When building the grand capital the Yuan dynasty rulers decided that one family was to occupy not more than 0.6 ha of space along the alleys. A small house had two bays of rooms in the north, two on each side to the east and west and two to three in the south. Bigger houses had several courtyards each with similar arrangements.

Hutong taxi

In recent history, as a consequence of population growth and redistribution of property it became uncommon that a house was used by one family only. More and more people were squeezed into the available space and additional, sometimes makeshift buildings were added in the area of the courtyards. The old parts of town became densely populated. The sanitary facilities in the courtyards are poor. Many do not have flowing water or toilets. Public toilets in the alleys serve the residents of the surrounding courtyards.

Open air bicycle repair

For the visitor these public toilets are a benediction. It is never difficult to find one. Usually you only have to check where the wind comes from and follow the smell. Then you have to figure out which entrance is the right one for your sex and you can enter. Inside the dark cavernous space there is little privacy. Flowing water runs along a ditch in the ground along the wall. Bays are separated by one meter high walls. You let down your pants and kneel down above the stream, carefully taking care that none of your properties touch the slimy floor. While you wait until your target is accomplished you can watch the top of the head of the guy upstream of you. If he is successful you can observe his product floating downstream in the ditch below you. The most difficult thing is to not faint.

The renovated Hutong street close to the Confucius temple

In the mid-20th century many Beijing hutongs were in a deplorable state. This, the growing population and the poor sanitary situation led to the demolition of Hu-tongs to make way for new buildings and wider roads. People were moved to big apartment buildings. It was the biggest change in the city since the 13th century. However, many missed the intimate social structure of the Hu-tongs, the life in the narrow streets and the common gardens. More recently many hutongs have been designated as protected, in an attempt to preserve this aspect of Chinese cultural history.

Demolition of Hutongs

One of the reasons to start a complete makeover of old Beijing was the China’s application for the Olympic Games. Beijing was notorious for its bad air, smog, dust and sand storms blowing in from the desert to the west. To improve the air the year 1986 saw a big tree planting campaign. 1 million trees were planted in one week.

Playing chinese chess in the streets

During our stay in 1986 the tree planting campaign was followed by a anti-spitting campaign. The sound of somebody near you clearing his throat and spitting the contents somewhere on the side-walk close to you was common everywhere in China at the time. Colorful flags now reminded the citizens that this was not done.

To improve the look of the city, building and renovation projects were ongoing everywhere. High rises started mushrooming up in the periphery of the city. Old temples which were neglected or even destroyed during the cultural revolution were renovated or even built new from scratch. And even part of the Hutongs were renovated and modernised.

Letting nightingales sing is anther favorite of old men

Like many chinese cities Beijing had a bell tower and a drum tower from 1420 serving as a public clock and to warn the citizens of war and fire. In 1986 they were busy renovating what had been neglected for a long time. Other famous sites like the Lama or tibetian temple, the temple of heaven and the forbidden city already were full of visitors in 1986.

Renovation and renovated

Already in the 1980’ies when China just opened up for foreign visitors the imperial palace or forbidden city was visited by 10.000 tourists a day. It is the symbol of imperial china. In the 13. century the first Yuan emperors decided to move the capital from Nanjing to Bejing. Between its completion in 1420 and 1911 it served 24 emperors of the Ming and Quing dynasties as residence. It occupies an area of 720.000 sqm, is surrounded by a 50 m wide moat and a wall of more than 10 m high with watchtowers in the corners. When Chiang Kai Chek with his national army fled to Taiwan the palace was plundered and many artefacts were taken along. It is a miracle that the structure survived the iconoclasm of the cultural revolution. Maybe it was protected since the communist leaders had and still have their residences in a part of the walled city like the new, modern emperors.

The forbidden city in 1986 and 1998

The visit in 1998 was in the middle of winter, ...

.... so pictures from both times are easy to distinguish

Another symbol of imperial china which survived the iconoclasm is the summer palace, the garden of harmonic unity. Although it dates back to the 12th century it reached its present size of 290 ha only at the end of the 18th century. First french-british troups devastated the garden in 1860, then again in 1900 western troups crushing the boxer rebellion destroyed the garden and burnt buildings. The 728 m long, covered wooden walkway which is completely painted with scenes from chinese traditional life was also destroyed. That was the time of empress dowager Cixi, who ruled china for 47 years between 1860 and 1908. After each destruction she raised the enormous amount of money necessary to rebuilt the park. Part of the money had been reserved for providing China with a modern navy. Consequently the naval battles in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894 were lost. Aground at the shore of the huge lake in the centre of the summer palace is a 36 m long stone ship. Rumor has it that it was built as a reminder to where the money for rebuilding the park came. With hindsight from the future there is no doubt that the money was better spent on the garden. Park and dowager would be worth a story on its own.

Cixi's stone boat in the lake of the summer palace

1986 was the time before everybody was hypnotised by his mobile phone. To keep contact with friends and family at home you had to resort to difficult and expensive international calls or to letters stored as poste restante in the post office. We went there. The poste restante mail was nicely arranged alphabetically in boxes. We had not received anything. That was not only disappointing but outright alarming because my father at the time was seriously ill and had been hospitalised when we departed. After a deposit of 50 FEC I tried to post a call home but nobody picked up. Eventually we went back to the boxes and upon closer examination we discovered that the chinese knowledge of the western alphabet is not perfect. A part of the letters for addressees with a name starting with S were filed elsewhere. So eventually I discovered a letter from my mother.

In the era of mobile phones it is hard to understand that there were times when it was difficult in Beijing to make an ordinary phone call. In 1986 the first telephone cells had started to appear in the streets but the telephone network was far from perfect. It also was the time when you had to reconfirm a return flight with the airline 3 days in advance and when flight bookings had to be made in an office in person, and not online. Organising these practical things cost a big deal of the available travel time. And transport with the old city buses was slow and it was not easy at all to find the right office. Eventually we were able to book an ongoing flight to Nanjing and do the reconfirmation of our flight back home after we had spent hours walking and on buses to find the right office.

The beginning of modern construction

Another uncommon thing at the time were credit cards, let alone the now popular electronic ways of payment. There were the ordinary Yuan banknotes and the special money for foreigners called Remmimbi, FEC (foreign exchange certificate). There was a lively black market for money exchange in Yuan. However, many places only accepted FEC, the money designated for foreigners. Some of the black market money change thugs also had another goodie on offer, habblibabbli, the local name for Marihuana.

We have dinner in a decent looking restaurant where we order what the others eat since we do not understand anything written on the menu. A young chinese couple is helpful. The man, 22 years old, is studying medicine. Afterwards they want to go to Tibet. They are aware that as Chinese they are not popular in Tibet, but they see their task with a kind of missionary zeal: it is their destiny to bring the superior chinese culture.

The Beijing hotel

The place to be as a Veigoran, a long nosed foreign expat, is the Beijing Hotel. Colonial flair surrounds pretty girls accompanying foreigners in pinstripe suites. According to Angus, an irish teacher at the british school in Beijing, the hotel houses the most expensive whores in town. However, coffee or Coca Cola go at a price acceptable for such an institution.

Pouring tea in a restaurant

While Angus showed us around town in 1986, in 1998, as business travelers, we had a girl who’s task it was to take care of us. Each day at lunch time she brought us to a different restaurant and she was very eager to impress us with the great variety the chinese cuisine had to offer. After some days she told us how impressed she was that we were ready to eat almost anything and asked whether we had a wish for something special. At the same time we both came up with dog. It was in december and she said that the cold season was the ideal time for that, since it would warm the body from inside. A couple of days later she ordered dog stew. It was excellent, like veal, and I still ask myself why such excellent meat is running around in the streets without being used.

Meat for sale in the street

Chicken in the pot

Small and big sweeties

While we walk around in the quiet evening streets of Beijing in 1986 we pass the Beijing concert hall. At the entrance somebody offers me a ticket. It turns out that I have a privileged seat in the middle of the first row of the balcony. But the building is well planned and even the back rows have a good view. I am a bit embarrassed because of my shabby outfit in a green Mao jacket and blue jeans. The people are very well dressed here. However, everybody is friendly and my neighbors explain the program to me, which I cannot read since it is in Chinese. They play Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak.

Restaurants and food stalls in the Hutongs

Many people come late but they are very enthusiastic. Applause is given at every occasion, also in the middle of a set. At the end the orchestra has to play two encore’s. The overture of Strauss’ Fledermaus does not really fit to the rest of the program but the auditorium is enthusiastic. When it is followed by the Radetzy March they become frenetic. I would not had expected such an enthusiasm from a people regarded as egalitarian, indifferent and apathetic. The other night life on offer was chinese opera and acrobatics. The year before austrian artist Andre Heller had made chinese acrobats famous in Europe for the first time with the “begnadete Körper” tour. The opera plays Shakespeare's Othello. It is clear that the chinese director only has a vague idea of the medieval times in Europe.

Acrobatics show

In 1998 we discovered that Beijing had developed some kind of Night-life in the years that had passed. In one of the older neighborhoods was a variety of restaurants and bars. One had life music and we were led to a table. After a couple of beers we even dare to dance. Our jackets we left hanging across the backrest of the chairs. When we come back the wallet of my colleague is gone, a thing which had been inconceivable 12 years before. With the money, the credit cards in the wallet were lost. Fortunately they had already scanned it for the hotel bill and therefore he had paid for his stay.

Entrance and the cable car at the great wall in 1998

Our stay in Beijing comes with a touristic program and our lovely guide takes us to all those sites again which I had seen 12 years before. If there is no war, a cultural revolution or a natural disaster, touristic attractions do not change very much. The change is in the number of visitors. To accommodate the masses they have adapted the great wall at Badaling, the part of the wall most people visit from Beijing on a guided tour. A cable car brings visitors to the highest point of the snaking monument. Walking down-hill is much less exhausting. At the entrance a digital clock counts down the time left until the lost colony of Hongkong returns into the heaven of the motherland.

Taking pictures is one of the favorite pastimes of the chinese. Every pose is carefully arranged and then it takes even longer until the settings of the camera is right. For those few without there are professionals which also supply the fitting entourage. Photos can be taken in historic dress, while riding on a camel or while shooting arrows at an imaginary mongolian enemy. You can visit different mongolian yurts, which all charge an entrance fee.

Although much has been renovated, the wall becomes much more original the farther you go from the entrance. The main attraction is the landscape and how it was built regardless of the grade of the slopes. Here the noise of the tourists gives way to the rustle of the wind in the branches, the sound of birds and the exhausted puffing sound of several engines which pull and push the train up the slopes of the railway close by.

The 1986 guided tour came with a visit to the 13 tombs of different Ming emperors. Also empress dowager Cixi is buried here. Alleys of stone statues lead to the tombs. By then only one was excavated. When we visited 12 years later they had removed the red metal fences around the statues. That made taking a decent photo much easier, but also the climbing of the statues to get a more impressive shot.

The tombs of the Ming emperors

The last sight the tour has to offer is a dam without a reservoir. It is a monument of revolutionary importance. Mao and Zhu En Lai personally have helped 400.000 others to built the dam. Unfortunately they had overlooked that there are cracks in the rocks under the future reservoir. The water never assembled but disappeared in the mountains. They charge a little fee to access the viewpoint but some chinese tourists refuse to pay and there is an angry discussion.

On the way back even the bus driver runs into problems. The bus is stopped by the traffic police because he had passed a white line. In the chaos on the roads 12 years later nobody would have bothered any more.

The last night of our visit in Beijing in 1986 we have dinner with our Irish friend Angus, his wife Carol and one of their chinese friends. The friend, Fang, is happy. He is 30 and is allowed to become a father soon. Every woman has a card where she enters her menstruation. Her employer checks the card. Above a certain age the couple can apply for the procreation of a child. The method seems to work, we saw very few little children in Beijing. When they finally have got one the parents adore their sole child.Changing the job was even more complicated. A special permit was needed and almost never given.

Many of these strict regulations have been loosened or have disappeared today. And in the time of pandemic the possibility of reduced civic rights led to a quick resolution of the problem. While after more than a year the western world moves from one wave to the next and the virus gets time to create its mutations, the chinese have gone back to their restricted normality after a few months.

Chinese bamboo stroller

From above the gate to the imperial palace the portrait of Mao still overlooks the vast square today. The big expanse is only interrupted by the monument to the people’s heroes and the mast with the huge red flag. Every evening at sunset the flag is hauled down. A crowd has assembled to watch the event. It is surprisingly informal and unspectacular. Under Mao’s watchful eyes a group of green clad policemen or soldiers walks out of the gate. They look more like farm boys than the representatives of a power to reckon with. After a bit of chatting and joking with the crowd they press a button. While the flag comes down automatically they greet Mao’s portrait. Then they fold up the flag and walk back through the gate. Without a sign the traffic stops to let them pass.