Describing Changping
Shortly after moving to Changping town from Shenzhen, I tried to describe this part of Beijing to some friends who were still living in South China. I used two places in and around Shenzhen as points of reference: It's like a dirtier Longgang or a cleaned-up Humen. At that time I thought this double-barrelled metaphor captured the appearance and feel of Changping to people who already have some Chinese experience.
There are yet many, many foreigners in Beijing who are unfamiliar with Changping, so I often first describe it geographically, being outside the Sixth Ring or near the Ming Tombs. Still, many expats haven't been there, and so when they ask what it is like, I sometimes say something like "more like Hebei than Beijing." I wonder, though, how accurate that is. I've blogged it before, but I still wonder if Changping is the Real Beijing (few Western foreigners) or Not Really Beijing (while urban, not cosmopolitan). When I use Hebei Province, in which Changping was before it was incorporated into an expanded Beijing City, to categorize our town, I am trying to make it clear how unlike their part of Beijing is. However, Changping is definitely more developed, industrial or otherwise, than much of Hebei, so calling it Hebei-like captures only the feel of Changping to a certain type of Beijing resident.
Now that I am home for a few weeks, I am truly at a loss for words to help people understand Changping as a part of Beijing. There are so many ways that I can describe it, ways that are commonly used to describe it, that conjure up different images in many American's minds. For instance, Changping is called a suburb of Beijing, though it resembles little any American suburb. By the pure definiton of suburban, certainly Changping is, but so is Shunyi, and these two town bear no resemblance to one another. An American visitor to Shunyi would definitely recognize it is a lovely suburb. Arriving in Changping town they would not.
Changping town is the home of several colleges and universities, including China University of Petroleum and a campus of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law. However, most Americans would probably not recognize Changping as a college town. There's no movie theater, though like everywhere else in China there are pirated DVD shops. There are a few small bookstores, one of which is a drab and uninviting Xinhua. The others are nice but tiny and almost always when I am in them, pretty empty. I have yet to ascertain if there really is a public library. We do have at least one coffee shop that I adore (except for the smoking). What we do have that is less common in American university towns but typical of Chinese ones are hundreds of tiny, greasy two-kuai noodle shops and streets of endless cheap and poorly made knock-offs. For the students that come from less affluent areas, going to school and living in Changping is probably great. For those with different experiences, though, it is less than ideal. At the beginning of last fall's school term I met this one young woman who was from Siberia(!!) and attended a year of high school in the US and Peking University for her undergrad. She was looking at apartments in our complex, amazed at how much lower the rents were than other parts of the city. A few weeks later I ran into her on the street again. She was miserable; Changping was nothing like the Beijing she loved the four previous years. Her plan then was to get out of Chanping and bus from the city for classes as soon as she could find someone to sublet. I have not seen her since.
Changping is surrounded by farmland. If I made this statement about an American town, the images it would conjure probably look much like Lancaster County, or parts of Iowa---thousands of acres of neatly groomed fields or pasture, sometimes outlined with fences, an d that landscape occasionally dotted with large old farmhouses and Mail Pouch Tobacco barns. Of course, the farms outside of Changping are nothing like tis. The farmers tend to live not in isolated farm houses, but in small dense villages. There are some expanses of fruit orchards and fields, but generally we see people truly carving out a living on what little they produce, living in tiny brick or mud-walled houses.
It looks so little like an American farmer's market, with chic, latte-drinking customers looking over lovingly grown produce. Between the dogs, the babies, the discarded animal parts, and whatever else have you, I really had to watch where I stepped.
There are yet many, many foreigners in Beijing who are unfamiliar with Changping, so I often first describe it geographically, being outside the Sixth Ring or near the Ming Tombs. Still, many expats haven't been there, and so when they ask what it is like, I sometimes say something like "more like Hebei than Beijing." I wonder, though, how accurate that is. I've blogged it before, but I still wonder if Changping is the Real Beijing (few Western foreigners) or Not Really Beijing (while urban, not cosmopolitan). When I use Hebei Province, in which Changping was before it was incorporated into an expanded Beijing City, to categorize our town, I am trying to make it clear how unlike their part of Beijing is. However, Changping is definitely more developed, industrial or otherwise, than much of Hebei, so calling it Hebei-like captures only the feel of Changping to a certain type of Beijing resident.
Now that I am home for a few weeks, I am truly at a loss for words to help people understand Changping as a part of Beijing. There are so many ways that I can describe it, ways that are commonly used to describe it, that conjure up different images in many American's minds. For instance, Changping is called a suburb of Beijing, though it resembles little any American suburb. By the pure definiton of suburban, certainly Changping is, but so is Shunyi, and these two town bear no resemblance to one another. An American visitor to Shunyi would definitely recognize it is a lovely suburb. Arriving in Changping town they would not.
Changping town is the home of several colleges and universities, including China University of Petroleum and a campus of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law. However, most Americans would probably not recognize Changping as a college town. There's no movie theater, though like everywhere else in China there are pirated DVD shops. There are a few small bookstores, one of which is a drab and uninviting Xinhua. The others are nice but tiny and almost always when I am in them, pretty empty. I have yet to ascertain if there really is a public library. We do have at least one coffee shop that I adore (except for the smoking). What we do have that is less common in American university towns but typical of Chinese ones are hundreds of tiny, greasy two-kuai noodle shops and streets of endless cheap and poorly made knock-offs. For the students that come from less affluent areas, going to school and living in Changping is probably great. For those with different experiences, though, it is less than ideal. At the beginning of last fall's school term I met this one young woman who was from Siberia(!!) and attended a year of high school in the US and Peking University for her undergrad. She was looking at apartments in our complex, amazed at how much lower the rents were than other parts of the city. A few weeks later I ran into her on the street again. She was miserable; Changping was nothing like the Beijing she loved the four previous years. Her plan then was to get out of Chanping and bus from the city for classes as soon as she could find someone to sublet. I have not seen her since.
Changping is surrounded by farmland. If I made this statement about an American town, the images it would conjure probably look much like Lancaster County, or parts of Iowa---thousands of acres of neatly groomed fields or pasture, sometimes outlined with fences, an d that landscape occasionally dotted with large old farmhouses and Mail Pouch Tobacco barns. Of course, the farms outside of Changping are nothing like tis. The farmers tend to live not in isolated farm houses, but in small dense villages. There are some expanses of fruit orchards and fields, but generally we see people truly carving out a living on what little they produce, living in tiny brick or mud-walled houses.
Groups of farmers often come into Changping to set up impromptu markets on our streets. There are a few that park trucks right outside our building's door, selling in-season produce, fruit from other parts of China, and reportedly fresh tofu. On weekend mornings, there are a few intersections in Changping that are given over to what an American could call a farmer's market, though it would bear little resemblance to its American counterparts. A few weeks ago I had to buy eggs early in the morning, before any of the stores were open, so I had to go to the farmer's market. Loud, chaotic, and unorganized. Next to the man selling eggs off his motorcycle was someone selling feather dusters and another who was selling freshly butchered chicken. No, of course there was no refrigeration on this hot summer-like morning. As I sorted the eggs, trying to find six of similar size (they were sold by weight) that weren't broken, another woman in her pajamas was screaming at the egg farmer at the top of his lungs about his being a cheat and his scales being off.
It looks so little like an American farmer's market, with chic, latte-drinking customers looking over lovingly grown produce. Between the dogs, the babies, the discarded animal parts, and whatever else have you, I really had to watch where I stepped.Of course, the danger in trying to describe Changping as not being at all like its more charming American counterparts is that I could leave an even worse impression than I intended. There is a lot we actually do like about Changping, such as the extremely low rents and the proximity to some awesome parts of the Great Wall that thread the countryside. When we get back to China in August, it will be time for fall fruits and vegetables, and being able to buy the most amazing peaches ever right outside our door is nice. Accessing Beijing City isn't impossible, though it is time-consuming and expensive enough that we do have to limit ourselves, and most activities of interest at night are pretty much out of the question.
I am still grasping for accuracy in describing Changping.
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