Beijing gridlock

Greetings from Beijing!  I should have written sooner but we’ve kept up a pretty hectic schedule of visits to assorted tourist attractions.  The new bird’s nest Olympic stadium is indeed gorgeous, and Chengde, the Xanadu of Kublai Khan fame, is full of Orientalist wonders, including a 1:2 copy of Dalai Lama’s tempel in Llasa.  At the Great Wall we were accompanied by no fewer than two high-school marching bands from Ohio, U.S.A., complete with cheer-leaders doing splits and waving pompoms. All very bizarre.

Travelling with Taiwanese people — two of whom born on the mainland — gives the trip a distinct flavor.  Every conversation with locals soon turns to topics of cross-straight relations.  Everyone wants to know what salaries people make in Taiwan and what’s happening with the new KMT government.  We met old relatives lost for 60 years — an occasion for mixing tears, laughter, and plenty of the local fiery brew.  The present Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, is OK we all agree, but Mao Zedong was a disaster.

Yes, China is developing and things look very different even from when I last visited four years ago.  Prices are now not that different from Taiwan and there are cars everywhere.  So far we’ve spent just as much time in traffic jams as in tourist spots.  This country better watch it: with only a fraction of the population owning cars there is already a next to total gridlock. Things aren’t helped by the constant police checks — on every highway they are looking for Olympic related bombs.

It seems a certain Olympic fatigue already has set in.  The people I talk to — cab drivers mainly — all agree that the Olympics are over-hyped.  But no doubt that sentiment will change to euphoria once the Chinese volleyball girls start winning their games.