Reflections of Beijing

*I started this entry almost a year ago while sulking in the courtyard of Far East Youth Hostel after a traumatizing trip to the train station to buy tickets. It started off as a rant against Beijing but turned into something else. I finally started penning it last October and just got around to finishing it this morning

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Whenever people ask me where I am from in China, the first thing I tell them is Beijing. Never mind that I only resided there for ~1.5 years of my existence, none of which is still intact in my memory. Never mind that I had actually lived in the southern capital of China when I was there. Never mind that I have really spent the majority of my life in America, and never mind that it is Shanghai, not Beijing that I go to when i return. I was born in Beijing, and I saw myself as Beijingren.

So what was it about Beijing that made me so proud to be from there? It could be that Beijing is the capital of China, automatically setting it apart from the hundreds of impersonal, interchangeable industrial wastelands of China. It could be the vast and glorious history of China preserved in structures as magnificent as the Great Wall or the Forbidden City, frozen in time. It could be that my father, whom I deeply respect and greatly admire, hails from Beijing and loves the city as much as I respect and admire him. Or it could be that the Beijing accent, with its rounded, rolling edges, is much more pleasant than the accent or dialect of any other region. no matter, I was proud of being from Beijing and feared greatly that I would hate the city, coming back after almost 20 years.

Yet half a week into my stay, I did hate the city. On Tuesday morning, I woke up with a monstrous throatful of phlegm as a result of the thickest pollution cloud over any city in the world. By Wednesday afternoon, my cell phone had gotten pulled right from my purse at the Pearl Market by an anonymous pickpocket. On Thursday, I got shoved around by vulgar men who refused to wait in line to by train tickets at the train station. In exchange for a swift, unsolicited kick in the back as I left, I learned the Chinese words for "fuck", "bitch", and "cunt" from these mean, midget men in their volleys of catapulted insults.

Perhaps it was not all the fault of Beijing. My throat was more likely a result of a cold, itself a result of travel fatigue, which was finally starting to catch up with me. My cell phone could have gotten stolen anywhere (its precursor was held for ransom in a taxi cab from Dalian). Even the train station fiasco was probably not particular to Beijing. It was the first time that I had actually gone to a train station as opposed to a smaller vendor for tickets, and a "varied" crowd at a train station was somewhat to be expected. Besides, judging from their accents, those mean, midget men were probably workers from elsewhere.

But the damage was done. The string of unfortunate events was enough to completely disillusion me about Beijing. Thursday afternoon, I returned to my hostel almost in tears, clutching my hard-bought way out on Saturday night.

As I sat in the courtyard sulking at my disappointing half-week in Beijing, my luck began to turn. First, I met Henry, a South African English guy with whom I spent the afternoon at the Temple of Heaven. Later, I met Chris, an American studying Kung Fu in Beijing, with whom I strolled around Beihai Garden. I met Micha, a dutch DJ who starred as a security guard in a Chinese sit-com. And I met Olivier, a half French half English boy who played the piano beautifully (Salut Olivier. Franchement, tu me manques terriblement. Envoye-moi un email et dis-moi comment tu vas).

On Friday night, a bunch of us decided to go clubbing together at a joint in the Korean district called Propaganda. Afterwards, I went to back to Houhai with one of my new friends, and we sat by the lake conversing in 3 languages until morning, while the weeping willows stirred small ripples in the neon patterned reflections in the lake.

That night, while dancing feverishly amid the flashing lights and crimson-tinted revolutionary murals, while watching the the sun slowly seep into day behind the pollution clouds, I finally saw something in Beijing. Despite the pollution, despite the rude people, despite my string of bad luck, I found a sort of rare beauty in Beijing that I found nowhere else in China. Perhaps the contrast between the grungy industrial wasteland and my brief moments made them more vivid, but I like to think that in Beijing I felt at home.