Letters from China No 6

24th July 2008

We’re well and truly into the hot part of the year with the day’s highs reaching the high 30’sC or around 100F for my American friends. Two years ago it hit 45C or 113F and that was HOT HOT HOT. With 15 days to go to the Olympic games, I’m getting a bit concerned for the athletes, not to say I wasn’t concerned before now. BUT, when we were in Beijing six years ago it was 47C (116F) in August, very dry and dusty as the winds blow down from the Gobi Desert bringing it nearer and nearer to the city. Dust would settle everywhere and seep into just about everything. So it’s not only the pollution that people should be worried about, think about running a Marathon in that temperature whilst wearing a surgical mask to keep out the dust!

A few days ago three new subway lines were opened in Beijing for the sole use of officials, participants and contestants at the Olympics. The Beijing population has accepted this state of affairs until after the games, as would any people who had been told “it’s for the good of China”. Special “Olympic lanes” have been made in the main roads for the use of “officialdom” and and odd/even system has been introduced for cars. That means that cars with an odd numbered registration plate can drive today, even ones tomorrow etc. The last time I saw that in practice was in Rome many years ago. The rich just went out and bought another car with a number plate with the opposite numerical attributes – no driving problem for them. I can well imagine that the same will apply in Beijing. Now there are about 3.3 million cars in Beijing. The odd/even system now means that the public transport system will have to cope with an added 4 million passengers – we saw the catastrophic results on the news last night.

Talking about the subway lines in Beijing! Six years ago there were three, today there are eight. Not bad in five years, and all the latest technology. How do the build a subway line in Beijing? They do it from the top down. In other words they blast a channel through the city, houses, factories, shops, everything demolished, then they dig a huge hole, put in the subway line, stations etc and finally fill it all in, level it off and plant trees. Simplified version, of course. But what happens to all the people who have been displaced when their homes were demolished? Questions like that do not arise too often here. Totalitarianism has a way for everything…….