An ever-changing view of China from the Changping Metro Line
There's a video making the rounds on Twitter among folks living in China or intensely interested in China. It is of rush-hour at the Xi'ErQi station, a terrifying time of day at the exchange between the Changping Line and Line 13 (also seen in this picture, the passengers from the Changping Line pouring down the escalator to the Xizhimen-bound side of Line 13). This is where commuters arriving from Changping can change to trains going into Beijing's commercial center. This mess is why at least one of my Changping friends who teaches at a school around the Xi'ErQi station switched to taking the bus just after the school year started. It is also why I still hire a driver to take us into Beijing if I want to arrive in Sanlitun before 10 am.
On the Beijing Cream website, the blogger notes that this video illuminates some of what is wrong with China--too many people to get anywhere, too many people for manners, too many people for the government to allow freedoms. When I read that, I remembered that only two years ago that the Changping Line was also highlighted on the website of The Atlantic as an example of what was wrong with China, except then it was based on how empty the subway cars were, rather than on how inhumanely full they were. I took issue with the picture that emerged in that post, partly because I was hoping for a more positive, hopeful portrayal of Changping and the series of urban planning experiments that have shaped the satellite city (if for no other reason, honestly, than we live there). Instead of asking the people on the train what they were doing there, the blogger called around to experts from Tsinghua and U Mass to figure out what iPhone-toting passengers were doing there, getting feedback that supported the blogger's first impression that the Changping Line lead into the middle of nowhere. There was already a "there" out there when he rode the train, I contended, and it was rapidly going to be more of a "there," maybe even with a Starbucks (I'm still waiting).
The Atlantic post ends with this line: "My bet, though, is that while Beijing won't be competing with New York anytime soon, it will build enough underground subways in the countryside to keep things working. But just barely." The video posted on the Beijing Cream website shows how in only two years (less, actually) we've gone from empty cars to and from a vast borderland to a state of "just barely."
On the Beijing Cream website, the blogger notes that this video illuminates some of what is wrong with China--too many people to get anywhere, too many people for manners, too many people for the government to allow freedoms. When I read that, I remembered that only two years ago that the Changping Line was also highlighted on the website of The Atlantic as an example of what was wrong with China, except then it was based on how empty the subway cars were, rather than on how inhumanely full they were. I took issue with the picture that emerged in that post, partly because I was hoping for a more positive, hopeful portrayal of Changping and the series of urban planning experiments that have shaped the satellite city (if for no other reason, honestly, than we live there). Instead of asking the people on the train what they were doing there, the blogger called around to experts from Tsinghua and U Mass to figure out what iPhone-toting passengers were doing there, getting feedback that supported the blogger's first impression that the Changping Line lead into the middle of nowhere. There was already a "there" out there when he rode the train, I contended, and it was rapidly going to be more of a "there," maybe even with a Starbucks (I'm still waiting).
The Atlantic post ends with this line: "My bet, though, is that while Beijing won't be competing with New York anytime soon, it will build enough underground subways in the countryside to keep things working. But just barely." The video posted on the Beijing Cream website shows how in only two years (less, actually) we've gone from empty cars to and from a vast borderland to a state of "just barely."
Comments