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Friday 5 September 2008

City Life

Clear blue skies and shiny shopping malls, but Mao’s corpulent corpse still presides

Sha lives less than a kilometre from the Olympic Green and like many Chinese he’s mad about the Games, even if he can’t name one of the 28 sports that will be played. ‘I never imagined I’d live to see China hold the Olympics,’ he beams from beneath his Nike cap. Sha’s enthusiasm for the Olympics does not stem from love of sport; rather it is rooted in patriotic fervour. Through the state-run media, the leadership has elevated the Games to a source of immense national pride. Sha wants to attend an Olympic event — after all, the party is right on his doorstep — but he has no clue how to obtain tickets. And even if he did, he couldn’t afford such a luxury. Nor can most people in Beijing, who are increasingly anxious about the rising prices of food staples such as pork and cooking oil. Inflation is running at a 12-year high — it hit 8.7 per cent in February, almost double the official target. If it nudges any higher, there could be unrest.

For many Beijing citizens the Games are a sideshow to the biggest and most important change in their lives: the revolution in the city’s transportation network. Beijing’s public transport had been neglected for years, burdening residents with long, grim commutes. But after the city won the Olympic bid, its subway network was rapidly expanded; more taxis and hybrid public buses were added to the city’s streets, and the airport got a stunning new terminal designed by Lord Foster. Now there are plans to make Beijing’s subway system the world’s biggest by 2015, stretching 560km and surpassing the London Underground (in length, that is; almost every subway in the world already surpasses London’s in reliability and comfort).

The upgrade of Beijing’s public transport system was also meant to improve the city’s noxious air. Officials secretly knew this was not possible, however, as long as they continued to approve the addition of 1,200 new cars to the city’s roads every day — not to mention new factories. Still, they promise, Beijing’s skies will be clean and blue during the Olympics. They have taken extreme measures to ensure this happens by ordering the temporary closure of thousands of polluting factories and dust-creating building sites, and ordering cars and trucks off the roads. It’s a massive logistical exercise but the alternative is one the leadership won’t contemplate: the embarrassment of athletes gasping for breath and visitors complaining of foul air.

More articles from: Anne Hyland | this section

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