MegDesk in Beijing

Observations of Meg's Life in Beijing

Look Both Ways (but not at the signal)

Crossing the Street in Beijing

One of the first things people realize when they arrive in China is that they have absolutely no idea how to cross the street. I remember when I first arrived in Beijing and stared in confusion at a red pedestrian crossing signal as a crowd of people swept me with them across the street. Later, I would stand bewildered as cars quickly swept by between me and a green crossing signal. I assumed I had missed some fundamental pedestrian traffic law. Perhaps here in China, the green walking man somehow symbolized "stop" while the red standing man meant "go?"

As I became more accustomed to the traffic here, I still failed to grasp the pattern of the vehicular traffic lights with their vast collection of green arrows. Even the straight lane gets a green arrow - pointing straight ahead. With a green arrow at every intersection, I still have no idea when a turn is protected from oncoming traffic.

However, I did eventually learn the fundamental law of Beijing pedestrian traffic: Unless a car is traveling with a position and speed that will mow you down as soon as you set foot into the street, it is an appropriate time to cross. While the populace does tend to wait if the cross traffic clearly has a green light, if there's a significant gap, it's time to cross. Furthermore, if the cars are stopped at their green light (often because pedestrians in other areas of the intersection are blocking their way), it's time to cross. And of course, if that little man on the crossing signal is green, it's time to cross (with the exception that some car is about to plow you over by making a right turn, etc.).

Those last few lines look like guidelines, but do not be misguided. Crossing the street in Beijing is simply a matter of circumstances. Throw into those equations non-perpendicular intersections, roadside access lanes, taxi drivers with no regard for traffic laws, and the bane of the Beijing pedestrian - hordes of bicycles, and you really just have chaos. Thus, the only true law as a pedestrian is the one stated above. For anyone planning to visit Beijing, I'll restate it from a self-preservation point of view: If it's going to hit you, don't step out in front of it. That's really all there is to it.

It still amuses me whenever we go to lunch with international visitors at work. They look at the crossing signal, see the red standing man, and stop. Meanwhile, everyone around them has done a quick once-over of the state of the intersection and started to cross. Their disoriented expressions are always the same, and I think fondly of my own initiation into Beijing foot traffic.

I guess the thing that causes the most confusion is the frequency with which traffic becomes backed up. Due to poor road design, too many cars, and... umm... pedestrians who cross against the signal, it's extremely common for cars to be backed up and stopped at a green light. Unwilling to wait for the traffic jam to clear and seeing an immediate opportunity for safe crossing, almost everyone will seize the opportunity to cross the street, winding their way through the stationary vehicles. While resident Beijingers immediately assume that the backup will persist until their signal turns green anyway, newcomers tend to wait on the sidewalk, wondering what's going on. Of course, traffic does occasionally clear, but the swarm of jaywalkers ends up blocking traffic anyway, and the traffic jam just grows in a vicious cycle.

The simplest of walkers should just ignore the signal and wait until it's clear (or until the cars are all at a dead stop as described above). But this isn't enough for everyone. Not surprisingly, Beijing is full of experienced pedestrial commuters who challenge themselves to reach their destination in the shortest time possible. This case requires impeccable timing for crossing multi-lane traffic against the light, Frogger-style, as well as brilliant eye contact to let the oncoming cyclists know just how you plan to skirt around them as they fly past. But this is best left to the experts, and I'm certainly not one of them. I actually have a bad habit of walking into the side of cars as they decelerate during a turn. Following the Frogger constant-speed model, I expect them to be out of the way before I get there, but a quick tap of their brakes and I'm liable to walk right into them.

I've heard that Beijing doesn't hold a candle to India, where waiting until the road is clear would mean never leaving the sidewalk. However, I've become accustomed to my jaywalking, which has gotten bad enough that I might actually earn myself a ticket if I keep it up back in the States. As a result, our trip to Japan was quite a shock! One late night we found ourselves at a crosswalk on a completely deserted street. With not a car in sight, a young woman stopped on the sidewalk, pressed the signal button, and waited. We went ahead and crossed. I actually felt more deviant then than I have making cars wait at a green light as I hurry to cross a busy Beijing street.

We ARE the Hot Pot

Thoughts on Our Hot Spring Visits

This has certainly been hot spring season for us with the chance to visit both a Chinese hot spring park and a Japanese hot spring bath house. A month ago, we signed up for a trip with West China tour group to visit a couple wineries outside of Beijing (a post on which is long overdue), and the daytrip ended with a visit to a courtyard hot spring park near town. Last weekend we took a 5-day trip to Japan, and we spent the last night in a hotel that housed a particularly extensive hot spring bath house.

Here in China, the park was outdoors, which might be a little surprising since we visited at the end of February, when Beijing was still down-jacket and covered-head weather. I have to admit that the walk from the changing room to the steaming pool was a little chilly in just a swimsuit, robe, and slippers! However, after being in the excruciatingly hot water for a while, it was actually nice to get out and enjoy the crisp air. In some cases we didn't even bother wearing our robes as we switched from one pool to another. This created an interesting pool-side collage of patrons in swimsuits and staff members in thick down coats.

The selection of pools were labelled in minimal English, giving us a general idea of their purposes (although the details were in Chinese only). Among others, we visited a Pool for Alleviating Tiredness, a Pool for Fostering Inner Organs, and our favorite, the Spleen-Fostering Pool. This pool was completely lined on the bottom with river stones, providing a nice foot massage as we stood in the bubbling water.

We tended to stick to the more moderate temperature pools, amazed at the people who could sit for ages in the scalding water. The largest pool in the park was heated by a few small areas at the corners, and just standing nearby was unbearable. When Debasish tried to walk into it (the rest of us weren't even able to approach it), he actually started running and took a flying leap out the other side. Meanwhile, a small Chinese woman sat there calmly, watching us failing to even dip a toe in the boiling water. How do they do it?!

The park was certainly an amusement center, with pool-side televisions and even a snack stand nearby selling roasted meat and other snacks. We joked at the idea of turning the pool into a giant hot pot by throwing in some food and letting it cook in the hot water. Then someone astutely pointed out that we were already cooking in it. "We are the hot pot!"

In Japan, there are some significant differences. As is typical for Japanese baths, everyone is required to wash before soaking in the bath, and swimsuits are not allowed. Of course, the baths are separated, unlike the co-ed Chinese park, but it's still an exercise in overcoming modesty to walk around naked the whole time.

This time the baths weren't labelled in English, so exercising my Japanese and Chinese reading abilities, I was only able to translate the cryptic bath names with no idea of their meaning. New Moon bath. Heaven bath. Foot bath was easy to understand, since it was just a barrel of hot water to rest your feet in.

Ironically, the baths were marked with the Chinese character for soup, prompting us to call them soup for the entire evening ("New Moon Soup," "Heaven Soup," etc). Perhaps we weren't the only ones to think that the baths seemed like human hot pot!

The New Year's War Zone

A Whole New Perspective on Fireworks

This past weekend was Chinese New Year's, and the festivities began on Friday night. Most of the ex-pats still in Beijing (a lot of people took the opportunity to travel) got together to celebrate with a dinner of, oddly enough, primarily Indian food, a lot of alcohol, and in keeping with local tradition, a few fireworks. For twelve years, fireworks have been banned within the 5th ring road of Beijing. However, the government lifted the ban this year, allowing the sale and use of fireworks within the city.

Thinking ourselves the most irresponsible people, we chose to set off our few rather large (in our opinion) fireworks after dinner, and after more than a few alcoholic beverages had been consumed. We detonated the first, smaller "roman candle" style fireworks off on the sidewalk along the main road. Worried about the safety and responsibility of setting off fireworks so close to a busy street, we then moved a block down the side street to set off the larger unit. However, a slow but steady stream of taxis seemed to get in the way, nearly hitting people as they tried to position the fireworks package in the middle of the street. Once the fuse began burning, to our dismay another taxi appeared, heading straight for the imminent explosion. Before it reached, the sparks began to shoot into the air creating their pretty fire flower patterns. Unphased, the taxi driver simply pulled up and drove around the spark emitting display. Clearly a few measly fireworks weren't going to slow him down in looking for his next fare!

We'd been hearing a few firecrackers and other fireworks going off at night for a few days before, but Saturday was New Year's Eve and the night that most of the rest of the city decided to exercise their newly restored right to bear fireworks.

In the early evening, around 6pm, the mass explosions began. There was a big boom, then several higher-pitched bangs as a set of firecrackers went off, and then another big boom would follow as someone else lit off something big. This repeated over and over for hours.

I've often heard the fireworks noise in Beijing compared to a war zone, and I can completely understand that, although I can't vouch for its accuracy given that I've never actually been in a war zone. Oddly enough, for the same reason, I actually found it strangely soothing. I'd spent most of the day curled up on the sofa with a heating pad and a stomachache, and when the din of the fireworks started working up to full intensity, it was slightly calming. Having grown up near an army training base, and having spent recreational time at the adjoining park, the sounds of warfare outside made me feel at home. The rat-a-tat of the firecrackers mimics machine gun practice rounds and the loud booms of the larger explosions mirror the larger-scale shelling and airborne bombing runs! For a moment, I wondered if I would find the same peace in an actual war zone, but quickly decided that I didn't really want to bother with the risk to find out.

By the time 10pm rolled around, the noise was incessant. No longer the "peaceful" war zone outside, the racket increased to the point where there were no longer short gaps between rounds. Instead, a constant stream of explosions, pops, bangs, and booms resounded through the surrounding city non-stop for hours. When I finally found my way into bed around midnight, the roar continued, and I chose to sleep with the earplugs I bought for the long Chicago-Beijing airplane flight (and which also came in handy when the neighboring birth on our Harbin train got a little too noisy).

On Sunday morning we got up fairly early to head to the New Year's temple fairs, and when we left our building, one of the cleaning staff was out with her straw broom. There was red firecracker paper everywhere! The pile she'd already swept up was the size of a pile of autumn leaves from a very large, very tree-lined suburban yard. Part of me wanted to run and jump into it, and I'm sure it was deep enough to cushion my fall against the sidewalk bricks underneath!

The nights since have been less spectacular, but since I've been feeling better, I've been able to enjoy them more. Every so often when the popping starts, I'll go to the window and look down at the exploding firecrackers or look up at the fire flowers blooming only a floor or two above our 7th- (really 6th, since there's no 4th) floor window.

Here we thought we were deviant and irresponsible for setting off huge fireworks near a busy street or in the middle of a rarely-used side street. Par for the course is apparently to set off fireworks twice as large in half the space and around twice the people. As we returned to work today, we shared stories about the foolish things we'd witnessed over the holiday... Lighting fireworks no more than 5 feet from the stand selling (and storing) many more; Setting them off between high-rise apartment buildings in a space so small that the sparks actually ricochet off the sides of the buildings; Launching them from within a large crowd of people. And all of this while possibly smoking a pack of cigarettes and drinking a bottle of numbingly-strong Chinese liquor!

I guess with this kind of activity it's not surprising that the regulations limit people to only 30kg of fireworks per person! *

*(said completely tongue-in-cheek, because really, who needs 30 kilograms of fireworks?!)

Thanks to Michael, here are a few photos from our Friday night fireworks experience:
The smaller of our fireworks An arial display from the 'big' firework Anuj tries to light the 'big' firework

Updated Later: Okay, when people are setting off mortars of fireworks the size of trashcans, I guess 30kg starts to make more sense. Yes, families here set off the same kind of fireworks that you need a dozen permits and a firetruck on standby for in the US. Also, I happened on this video clip (on Beijing blog brezhnev.net) the other day, and it gives a pretty good idea of the noise in Beijing on Chinese New Year's Eve. It was shot just before midnight, so it was certainly the most extreme moments, but for the most part, this was how all of Beijing sounded that night from about 9:00 onward (forgive the large file size of the video clip, and be wary of your speaker volume).

The Chinese Snowplow

The Materials vs. Labor Cost Ratio in China

The materials vs. labor cost ratio is one of the biggest differences between the US and China, and seeing how this plays out in daily life is one of the interesting experiences as an ex-pat. In the US, materials are relatively inexpensive, but labor costs a fortune. Anyone who has ever visited an auto mechanic and made the mistake of looking at the itemized bill knows this all too well! However, in China, things are reversed. Once you have the raw materials, you can find someone to do the work for almost nothing (hence the attractiveness of the "Made in China" moniker to large American businesses).

We see this difference play out every day in Beijing. A meal at a restaurant costs only a few yuan more than if you bought the food and cooked it yourself. Anything can be tailor-made, from suits and dresses to shoes, and it still costs less than buying something off-the-rack in the US and having it altered. Anything can be hand-delivered by courier, usually at no extra charge, assuming that you can adequately describe in Chinese where you live. In fact, Stacy has a wonderfully characteristic story about how she couldn't order take-away food one day, because the restaurant absolutely insisted on delivering it to her apartment (even though she was standing in the restaurant at the time).

And finally, any job that could be done by a machine is done instead by a person (or a team of people). In the subway, you buy your tickets from the women at the window, and then turn around and hand them to the women at the stairs to the platform. Clearly, employing half a dozen ticket-takers is more cost-effective than installing turnstiles. The endless digging up and repairing of city sidewalks utilizes a team of construction workers with shovels. Considering every sidewalk around our building has been excavated and rebuilt in the three months we've been here, you'd think that a backhoe might be in order, but the City of Beijing continues to employ an endless force of manual labor to do the job. At one time, I've even mused that there's a city policy to rebuild every sidewalk in the city once every twelve months, just to provide employment opportunities.

We saw the latest example of this when we were in Harbin just after a heavy snowfall. As our bus carefully managed the frozen streets of the city, we noticed out the windows the Chinese snowplow at work clearing the streets...

American Snowplow:
American Snowplow: Dump truck with plow attachment