First impressions all over again

Waking up on my first morning in China after 3 years, things looked gray and murky. I thought it must cloudy – there were some sprinkles when we arrived the previous night after all. However, it occurred to me that more likely Beijing has not yet cured its pollution problem. And that’s not the only thing still ailing. Right out the window of our friend’s apartment are large hutongs branded “cai” – the mark of demolition - and already in some state of disrepair, but still a long way from being demolished and cleaned up. Still, this hasn’t stopped the lifelong residents from continuing to live in the rubble for as long as possible – so much for them being thrilled by offers of compensation and relocation. Though for many, that is a way of making a living. Our friend in a southern suberb recently had her home demolished and is living comfortably off the compensation. In fact, she had a new home built, ready to be torn down again later for more money.

Looking over several yards to the right of the deconstruction, new construction is going on, and also still a long way from completion. And yet, signs everywhere count down the less than 3 months to the major event of the century.

I fear also for those arriving for the Olympics. Planners had the foresight to build a new international terminal a 10 minute drive from the old one. Does this mean the old one is now defunct? Nope. We arrived at said old one looking everywhere for the friend we knew was meeting us. An hour and several confused phone calls later (wondering why we were both at Starbucks but couldn’t see each other), we discovered she was at the new one. I certainly hope those meeting the Olympic hopefuls and watchers know they’d better look carefully at the arrival terminal.

The taxis have all been cleaned up and increased in price from 1.6 to 2.0 yuan a kilometer. The improvements include white seat covers, but non-functional seat belts in the back. This makes life difficult when traveling with young children. For one thing, it’s hard to keep their feet off the covers so we are constantly facing the ire of cab drivers for sullying their covers, and for another thing, we can’t strap in. I swore if we couldn’t use car seats here, we’d at least better have seat belts. So much for that…

On the plus side, I saw the most shocking thing of my life – people forming a line to wait for the bus. The new and improved ticket-ladyless electric buses, stopping at the designated line and people getting off and on at the designated doors in an orderly manner - I couldn’t believe my eyes. People have also been much more civil and helpful than I recall – helping us get in a faster line at the airport, giving up seats on the bus for the kids… That’s a major improvement. Still, the one thing working well - buses - are probably the one thing that Olympic visitors won’t even have contact with.