Watching CNN at a hotel in Beijing, I noticed an advertisement for an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Beijing. This was unthinkable a couple of decades ago, when the Cold War still raged. Today, the Nokia cellphone’s ringtone in Urumqi, Xigatse and New Delhi is the same. There’s Kentucky Fried Chicken in Xinin, Motorola and Sony Ericsson jostle for space in Lhasa, and Buick LaCrosse is advertised on the barely-used highway outside the Kumbum Monastery. Urumqi, in faraway Xingiang, shows off its 35-storeyed buildings, which house Carrefour supermarkets and L’Oreal stores. Globalisation thrives.
Beijing has to be visited to be believed, even if one has read all that there is to read and imagined the rest. From the moment one lands at the huge, gleaming airport and takes the smooth drive along the highway into the city, one senses the feeling of economic power and assurance. From the window of Jianguo Garden Hotel, not far from the Forbidden City, one can see at least 15 giant construction cranes operating as new high-rises soar. There is no evidence of anguished debates on preserving the old. All bleeding hearts have been silenced/co-opted/satisfied.
Beijing’s five ring roads with their intricate interchanges make New Delhi’s pride, the Dhaula Kuan flyover, look puny and crowded. Changan Avenue, in the heart of the city, with its eight-lane traffic, two side lanes and designer shops and chrome and glass structures, says it all. The country’s infrastructure — roads, highways, airports, train stations, telephone systems, housing estates and schools — all built for the future, seem empty or underused. It shows China’s ability to think big.
Our infrastructure is built for the past — overcrowded and inadequate from day one. Beijing has no damaged cars, no dirty buses and no blowing horns. Honda Accords, BMWs and Audis cruise past with hardly any traffic police in sight. Officialdom favours black limousines.
There was an old lady cycling down Changan Avenue. She would stop every 50 metres, pick up cigarette stubs and plastic wrappers with her tongs from the pavement and ride on. But while dust has been banished in Beijing and the streets are washed, pollution is still a problem — by afternoon, a haze settles over the city.
The Chinese have a wonderful way of adapting to circumstances. The local girls at the hotel front office answered to Yvonne or June, and not to their Chinese names. It was more convenient for the visitor. At the bookstore, Harry Potter was Hali Bota, since it was more convenient for the locals. There was no moral police checking on young couples in parks, but perhaps somewhere, there must have been the thought police.
Beijing is readying for the Olympics next year. The Olympic Games City will be China’s pride, for which, we are told, people willingly gave their land. For the present, the worry is about possible terrorist threats and not whether the facilities will be in place by the time of opening — 8 p.m., August 8, 2008.
Beijing may be the centre of power for China, but it is no longer a centre for Communist ideals. There is only one portrait of Mao in the city — at Tiananmen Square. Mao badges are now available in Silk Street’s curio shops, along with portraits of Lenin and Marx. During the fortnight I was there, I saw only two persons wearing Mao suits — at the Kumbum Monastery in Qinghai Province. The rise of the hemline is now directly proportional to prosperity.
It is ironic that there are more policemen on duty defending democracies than on the streets of China, protecting a totalitarian regime. In fact, in China, there is no longer any need to defend the proletariat. People now pursue capitalism with greater zeal than they pursued communism. The Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolutions were horrible mistakes and embarrassments that few talk about and fewer try to justify. Today, everybody is a capitalist roader.
Source : The Hindustan Times , 1st August 2007
0 comments:
Post a Comment