How can anybody comprehend one of the largest and most ancient cities in the world? With its origins dating back three millennia, Beijing has been China’s capital for over 1,200 years. Keith Lyons tries to get to the heart of China’s megacity in just three days.
Day Two*
As the strong sun beat down on my pale jet-lagged wintered skin, I tried to guess the temperature of the warm Beijing air enveloping me. Over 30 degrees Celsius, my mind computed. Over 30 was possibly outside my body’s operating range. It was certainly outside my comfort zone.
I concluded that it was unseasonably hot and humid for early autumn, drawing on my vast experience of being in Beijing for just over 24 hours. A bead of sweat formed under my right armpit and started to trickle slowly down my side, the perspiration a futile attempt to cool down. My daypack stuck resolutely to a sweat imprint patch it had made on the back of my freshly laundered shirt. I’d just finished my second can of complimentary hotel soda water, and already the back of my throat felt as dry as the trampled brown grass that lay unloved between the uneven paving stone pavement and the stain-weathered concrete housing estate sweltering in the September mid-morning.
I looked down the wide 4-lane road I’d just walked along in the hope of spotting – like a mirage shimmering in the distance – a bus to rescue me from this situation. But all I could see was another batch of oncoming shiny new electric SUVs, unmarked white delivery vans, and angry-faced FAW trucks overloaded with gravel. The noise of their tyres on the asphalt increased to a roar and then faded away, as if to serve to remind me I was going nowhere fast. The buzz of cicadas hidden in a willow tree on the opposite side of the road taunted my already addled brain. Not only was I hot and flustered, but I was also completely lost. So much for my exceptional navigational skills, my Beijing map pre-loaded on my iPhone, and my ability to read a few Chinese characters.
I had set off early that morning with my detailed trip notes, a plan including the day’s itinerary and lists of vital bus numbers, and the intention of getting into the heart and soul of China’s capital: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I was so chirpy that I whistled to myself the catchy song from the 2008 Beijing Olympics ‘Bei jing huan ying ni’ (Beijing welcomes you). However, instead of catching a couple of buses the 15km from outside the 4th Ring Road into the downtown, I had mistakenly taken a bus that deposited me on the outskirts of Beijing. To make matters worse, rather than cross the road and hop on a bus going back to where I started, I decided to walk around the corner in the hope of getting a bus that would somehow bring me closer to the Forbidden City.
Not wanting this wrong turn to ruin my day’s plans, I decided first to address the essentials in life: shelter and food. The only shade I could find lay behind the bus shelter, so I leant in close to escape the sun’s harsh rays, every so often checking the road for any signs of salvation. I rummaged around my daypack to locate my emergency stash of muesli bars, and ate one, oblivious to the wrapper information which I understood to mean I’d just consumed 2 teaspoons of refined sugar. Today was not going to be my day to give up sugar.
The insulin spike also fuelled my optimism. As if I had manifested it into being, I saw a bus in the distance coming this way. Not caring about the sun or the heat, I strode out across the pavement to be sure to alert the driver to my desire to get on his bus. But as I waited on the curb, I noticed that the bus didn’t switch lanes to execute a passenger pick up or drop off. No, instead, the bus just kept going, onto the roundabout that joined a busy ring road half a kilometre away. I retreated to the shade again.
The same process repeated itself. Another Beijing bus approaching. Another exit, the shade to stand by the roadside by the broken yellow lines. Another speeding past. It was like Groundhog Day, or The Truman Show. I started to wonder if I was invisible, or just trapped in some time warp. Is this how it ends, I pondered.
With no one around, and no one to ask, I figured eventually a bus might stop. I had read in a travel guide that there were 30,000 buses in Beijing, plying over 1,600 bus lines and routes. And, after all, it was a bus stop. And on the other side of the road, the red, green, yellow city buses were stopping.
A rather podgy man in his 30s appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to wait for a bus on the opposite side. I was about to go over to ask if he could help me, but then he crossed over to try to catch another bus heading along the road on my side. The bus zoomed past. Shading his phone from the sun’s glare, he peered into the device. I realised, that just like me, he was equally lost, like another soul you meet in a labyrinth limbo dream.
With the morning slipping away, and me getting more and more frustrated at being stuck, I resign myself to the day being a complete write-off. I lower my aspirations to just find my way back to my hotel before dark. So, when the next bus neared, I was less invested in it being my rescue. And, you guessed right, that bus slowed down and stopped, and two relieved passengers got on, grateful just for being transported away from there.
I stayed on that bus as it sped around roundabouts, raced on ring roads, stopped at major intersections and turned onto more crowded streets. Even though I still clutched my lucky list of bus numbers, 1-999, I was less inclined to get off it when I saw one of the route buses I was seeking. Given that there was always the chance I take the right bus line (1-140) the wrong way, I figured it was best to locate a subway station, and then make my way to the centre in a more exact way.
When I did finally spy a subway station and get off the bus, I realised that I’d travelled from the north-east of the city to the south-west in a clockwise direction, albeit in a very random fashion. When I started hours before I was 15km from the centre. Now, after quite a lot of travel and much travail, I had reduced the road distance to the centre to a mere 14km. But at least I was somewhere. Even if from a nearby China Telecom store I heard blaring from the speakers that overplayed tune, ‘Take me to your heart, take me to your soul . . . It’s easy, take me to your heart.’
Before I could take the subway train, there was a cursory security check with my daybag put on an X-ray conveyor belt, a security gate to walk through, and a bored officer barely out of high school waving his handheld detector wand over me like he was bestowing a lazy blessing rather than seeking out concealed weapons. A row of ticket machines was my next challenge. Even with the option of English, my money was repeated spat out, and then the monitor said unless you have a Chinese ID card go to the help desk to buy your ticket. There was no one staffing the office, but the most alert of the security kids told me to wait, and the clerk duly returned, changed the window sign, confirmed my destination on the electronic route map, took my money, and issued the ticket.
I went up to the ticket gate and eventually worked out which scanner I had to use for my printed ticket. Locals were negotiating the subway with much more ease. Some whipped out mobile phones to use apps, WeChat or e-cards. Others placed their hands on an electronic palm reader, and there was a poster on the wall which seem to suggest that soon, facial recognition could provide express entry and exit to frequent (and trusted) commuters.
When I finally emerged at Tiananmen West Station, I joined a throng of people also intent on venturing into the great square. We marched along the wide barricaded footpath to a security station, me still humming to myself ‘It’s easy, take me to your heart’. As we reached the gate, and I saw a sign in Chinese with a translated version in English, I realised today was not my day. You needed a ticket to enter the square and its attractions. What’s more, the ticket had to be purchased at least a day in advance. There’s a limit of 80,000 tickets available each day. I retraced my steps back to the subway station, but then decided while I was in the neighbourhood, I might as well look around. And even if I couldn’t get into Tiananmen Square itself, or the Forbidden City, National Museum, Zhongshan Park or the quirky Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, I could at least check out the sights that were accessible.
First, there was the Great Hall of the People, built in the imposing Soviet neoclassical style, and then its opposite, the shiny egg-like National Centre for Performing Arts. Further along, there was the anomaly of a church, still in use, which I later learnt was the Methodist Zhushikou church. And in a modern Japanese hotel, featuring bamboo, recycled bricks and lounge walls lined with shelves of books. The hotel has been designed to reflect ‘an anti-gorgeous, anti-cheap concept’ says the website. Rooms are US$110-500 a night.
At the south entrance to Tiananmen Square, I tried again to slip through a gap in the barricades with some other ticketless visitors, but we were turned back by a guard. At the official entrance, I saw a woman was China’s southwest holding her baby sobbing after she too was refused entry.
Having abandoned my pursuit of getting anywhere near the Gate of Heavenly Peace, I took heart from the incursions by others around the periphery of Tiananmen square. The several Starbucks dotted around, including one guarding the entry to Qianmen, the foreboding gate in the Imperial City’s wall, and equally impressive, the first KFC in China which opened in 1987, with over 2,200 buckets of chicken sold from the red and white striped building sporting the Colonel’s smiling face within the first 24 hours. Queues stretched into Tiananmen Square. Mao had died 11 years earlier. He would have turned in his grave . . . however, he’s not buried, but embalmed and on display in a glass case not too far from the smell of Kentucky fast food’s 11 secret herbs and spices, and the burnt, nutty scent of Seattle coffee. A photo I’d taken by the southern entrance, on closer inspection after I’d departed China, included the mausoleum housing Mao Zedong.
Turning my back on Tiananmen, I wandered along the 850m of Qianmen Street, a pedestrian ‘shopping’ street newly restored in the architectural style of old Peking. The Dashilan area has been a place of commerce for nearly six centuries, with medicine, shoes, silk, tea and hats China-famous, but I reckon, most of the buildings date back to 2007, with many away from the main thoroughfare appearing to be under construction.
Content with small pleasures and moments, I enjoyed finding a stream running through a neighborhood, with flower gardens, pagodas, and a couple of women taking photos dressed in traditional clothing. I bookmarked it on my map. A reference point was ‘Defeng East Alley No.65 toilet’. I saw an old woman taking a dog and a ginger cat for a walk and was delighted when the cat came up to me, and I chatted with the woman. “Yes, every day the cat goes for a walk with me. The cat and the dog get on. The cat probably thinks it is a dog.”
I finished my day in Beijing’s heart by heading up to the highest point of the central city, with a 10-minute hike up Jingshan Park north of Tiananmen Square for panoramic views of the Forbidden City. The views were expansive, though the visibility wasn’t great due to the air pollution and haze. What was I supposed to be looking at, I wondered. The red walled buildings of the Forbidden City, or the immense void beyond, of Tiananmen Square. So close to the symbolic centre of the Chinese universe, I peered at the scene before me. The dull tones contrasted with the display panel with its brilliant blue skies and landmark buildings. I was thirsty and hungry. The 6pm sun was making for the exit door. It was time to make my way back home to my hotel.
On my way down, gratitude came through in the last song of my day in my head, “Oh, it’s such a perfect day. I’m glad I spent it with you. Oh, such a perfect day. You just keep me hanging on. You just keep me hanging on.”
*Read the Day One of Keith Lyon’s China trip by clicking here
Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’sEditorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.
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