Beijing is a city of extremes. When I get off the plane, it is quiet in the airport. 00:00. It's an eerie kind of quiet, the kind when you suddenly become aware that your surrounding is different, even though you never paid attention to your surroundings in the first place. The kind when you're driving down a street and realize that there's a blackout because it's darker than usual even you never paid attention to all the lighting. The kind when I went back to the suburbs in the U.S. having lived in a city and realizing how quiet it was, never noticing how noisy Singapore was. Beijing is the same way. The streets are crowded and there's always something going on, with a residual noise echoing in the background that I am never fully conscious of until it's quiet. Quiet like that night in the airport, where I find a comfortable seat of three to lay down and spend the night until the next morning when I go see my grandma. I wake up to the shuffling feet on the travellator a few meters away from me, the alarm rings and it's already 5 a.m. and time for me to depart. The airport wakes up. That odd silence breaks, and the rush of Beijing starts with a massive immigration line, stacked to the back, to the point of there not being a linear line. I squeeze somewhere in, cutting some people off unintentionally, but everyone is too polite to say anything. And, everyone is too diverse to find some unifying language to do so. I hear Russians, Brazilians, Germans (of course), Chinese, Asian Americans, Asian Australians, to name a few. Everyone is in the same predicament, looking for where the line begins, hoping to reach where the line ends. The final barrier into the great capital city of Beijing.
Beijing is a city of extremes: you don't dwell too much on your emotions . I take the airport shuttle from Terminal three to Sanyuanqiao, 三元桥. I fall in love with the scenery on the way out. Last time on layover the sun had already set and the city was beginning to flourish with lights. This time, it was early morning and the city was beginning to flourish with labor. I wish I had the moment to capture it on film. But, the only optic machinery I have are my eyes. The benefit of the latter is that it is attached to an instantaneous processing unit, my brain, and an instantaneous sentimental processing unit, my heart. I am moved as I watch the farmers get to work, a true testament to the hard work of the last of the Old Beijing farmers, thriving in a city whose pace has outstripped them; almost forgotten them. But here they were, almost as if in a zoo for me to see, but really I was the one being watched on that train shuttling across. There is only a short glimpse of farm life before the pretty position of trees, of the deciduous variety, line the paved roads and signal the first signs of urban planning. The sun is rising through, but there is a dense layer of fog and smog covering the city, scattering the rays of the sun through the holes between the leaves, catching my eyes. I squint for a bit, and then forget about the farmers.
Beijing is a city of extremes: you learn to appreciate the size and grandeur of The City. After I pass the deciduous trees, I start seeing buildings. So many buildings, and not built or arranged in any particular organized fashion like in Singapore. It is built in true Chinese fashion, with large signs hinged on wire poles, the foggy sun also peering through the holes in the strokes of the characters. As the train moves and the angle at which the sun peers through the holes changes, it's almost as if the sun is illuminating the sign during nighttime. The buildings are all different sizes, some flat topped, some pointed, but still all the same color through the yellowish clouds. Everywhere you look there is a car, someone doing something. I get to Sanyuanqiao and head to the metro. The morning commute is absent as it's a Saturday. But, everyone still seems to be busy, working at pace. I get off at Shuangjing, 双井, Station and decide to take a nice stroll through the city in the morning to my grandmother's house, who lives one stop away, at 九龙. This is the story of New Beijing, the size, the vastness of the roads swallow you. The buildings are a-historical; high rises of little decoration and bleeding tiles from the harsh weather conditions. At the bottom, food shops selling various things, buns, vegetables, you name it. There's a certain blandness to the vastness. The 4-lane road, considered small, on each side, has automobiles with little congestion. You would think there was more congestion, but we are out further from the city center. Many "pullover streets" where people move around on bicycles, motor scooters, carrying various things like sticks, bamboo, their girlfriends and boyfriends, or a small backpack. A city of 10,000,000 people, today you wouldn't think that it was that crowded. It is another random Saturday where the 老百姓, common hundred people (such a unique name for common people), come out and do their errands. The grandness swallows them in as well. In a city of 10,000,000, you're just another head. To you, it's either demoralizing, or humbling.
Beijing is a city of extremes, but among it, you find small pockets of family, small pockets of friendship, of communion. I arrive to my grandmother's place. My grandmother answers the door, I haven't seen her in three years. She has lived in Beijing, Taiwan, the U.S., Hong Kong, Shanghai, to name a few. It's not an uncommon story for people her age, moving through China's transformations of government, being displaced from home, and constantly almost in search of home, finding it not in the physical space but the spiritual, the friendship, the emotional realm. She is a small woman, but a hard woman, fierce and stern, firm in her belief, poised in her grace, carrying with her all the tenacity of Old Beijing, but all of the culture and elegance of China. She's aged to a meek person with a humble outward appearance, and her eyes meet mine with love. I notice a small curl on the outward corner of her eyes when she smiles, as the epicanthic folds hover over her irises. A large curl of her outer lip corners as she reveals her teeth and gentle wrinkles, greeting me. It's hard to believe that we are reunited in Beijing, but life keeps you surprised in that way. Her house is just as I remember it in 2005, with more tarnish on the walls, faded squares surrounded by gray dusty marks where pictures used to hang. But, otherwise, most of it is the same. The furniture is still in the same place. She still has her bedroom placed similarly, this time with an extra bed for her helper in the night. The guest bedroom which I slept in is as I remember it.
In Beijing what is common is living in a 小区. These are large apartment communities that have most things that people need below it, shops for food, sundry shops, barber shops, everything. They're usually guarded by security and have a small park below it that serves as a track for people to walk or run around. Usually, you will see a mixture of old and young here, almost like the HDB -- government houses -- in Singapore. It's a cross-generational housing unit catered to each residents' needs. In the front outside are 八匹大马, ba pi da ma, eight large horses, all built in a coated gold. It's the same as I remember it except this time the fountain feature is turned off. I remember that the outside used to be dirt. The road had barely been built, the infrastructure had barely been built, and in short it was pretty 土, tu, the literal word for dirt in Chinese, which means undeveloped and bland. Really just 土. Now, standing at the bay window jutout of my grandmother's house, also still containing the dining table how I remember it, and looking out, I see how it has changed. While everything in this house and living area had aged, the outside had grown and flourished. There was an elementary school nearby across the street, the metro station built just at the nearest intersection. At that same intersection, they were planning on building some large company building, whereas in the past it was just dirt, and a couple of small shops and restaurants. I remember a seafood restaurant that used to be at this corner, but this time it's totally gone, replaced instead by another restaurant with a fancier sign. At that time in 2005, I remember it being extremely crowded and dirty, particulates of air matter contributing to the pollution, cars being driven chaotically (the introduction of cars hadn't been too long ago then). But this time, Beijing had morphed into a modern city, all within the span of 11 years. Standing at the bay window vantage point of my grandmother's house, you would have guessed it was a completely different city. But, Beijing is a city of extremes -- did I mention the pace of development?
Beijing is a diverse city. Most of my time was spent with my grandmother in her house, spending time with her, occasionally going out for a walk in the garden/track area down below. She doesn't have much energy now but has such a deep quality to her. In Chinese, we would call this 深, shen, meaning deep, profound. Since she is older and living by herself, she needs to employ a full time helper to assist with her needs: cooking, cleaning, washing up, and tidying the house. The helper is also older, probably mid fifties. This is in contrast with most of the helpers in Singapore, who are usually 20 something year olds from Indonesia or the Philippines. When you come from a country that houses a seventh of the world's population, and manages most of the production of many products in the world, I guess you would expect that they also supply their own labor. And so, here I am in a house, separated 20 years from the next oldest person, who is another 20 years away from the next oldest person. It was like a three generation household, and we all have very different backgrounds. Auntie Liu, whom I will henceforth call, has a hard exterior, but a gentle presence to her. My grandmother cannot hear as well so Auntie Liu will occasionally shout very loudly so that my grandmother can hear, and she has a voice that carries far for a woman of her stature. And, instantly by the accent, you can tell that she's not from Beijing. She's from Gansu province in China, one of the poorest regions that was left behind in Deng's Reform and Opening. I'm not sure about her life history as I didn't have time to ask, but she was good company. I talked to her about Gansu, and about her home, what was Gansu known for, etc. Somehow, we got to talking about their peppers as a main export. She said there wasn't much in Gansu, but everyone there loved the peppers from the region. I took her word for it. Her son had also moved to Beijing to find work, like many internal migrants during the big Chinese flooding of the Eastern cities. So, it was the two of them living in Sanyuanqiao, a family reunited in another city, far from their ancestral home. They had come to make their lives and give their children opportunities in the East, opportunities that weren't available to them in the western regions. With all the pressure of One Child and the backdrop of an emerging China, your family was the only thing that you could count on out here, everything else was transitory. And so, I met my first ever bona fide Gansu person of Han descent, in a 小区 in Beijing.
Everyone has a story, and in China, I admire their quality to engage in a bit of 聊聊, liao liao, a quick chat. Let me explain. One day when my grandmother had enough energy to go out for a bit, she suggested that we go out for a stroll. Being cooped up in the house all day, I was surprised to see this motivation and so we we decided to hail a cab old school and hit up Dong An shopping street. It was a bit awkward, since my grandma moves at a slower pace. So, the rest of the city outpaces her, but, there seems to be a slight reverence for older people, so they don't really mind it. We walk for 30 minutes, sit for another 20, and keep that pattern for most of it. We end up in a shopping mall as well as a long street shopping market. After pacing around, we decide to sit down for a small drink to watch the people go by. I am amazed at this moment of this shopping street on Sunday, it's just all kinds of people from all walks shopping. I wish again I had a camera to capture it all. And so I watch, while I am drinking a Beijing style yogurt, my grandma is drinking a warm milk tea, and Auntie Liu is also sharing with me a Beijing style yogurt. We are the only group that has an age range of about 50, with everyone else maybe being only within 10 years apart. In that moment, we watch the passerbys and I just soak in the atmosphere. The shop has a regular turnover, with a slightly impatient young Beijing girl working the till, a no-nonsense sort of person. She doesn't mind us, but attends to her customers (does her job?) in the meantime. When the small cafe is about half empty, a woman with a jolly disposition and her hair tied up, mid 40s, smiles at us and asks us if anyone is sitting at the lone seat, since we were sat at a 4 person table. We say no, and she sits down, then orders a drink. She smiles, that's it. Looks at her phone. Decidedly, she puts it down and then looks at me. Where are you from? I tell her my complicated ish story. So then she thinks that my grandmother and Auntie Liu are also from that background. They share their stories. And then I ask her, where is she from? Xinjiang.
Xinjiang is the western most province in China. It's known to be quite ethnic with the Uyghurs having a viable presence there. But, this lady was Han Chinese. She sat and then started chatting with us just about our experiences, and about what she was doing in Beijing. Apparently she was here on some course and just taking a break while her colleagues were buying toys for their kids. She shared of her journeys to different places, she talked about her fammily. My grandmother engaged as well, and so did Auntie Liu, who is from the neighboring province. We sat there chatting for probably an hour of our time, and as quickly as she sat down, she got in touch with her friends who had finished shopping and left. She smiled and thanked us for letting her sit down. And just like that, I met my first ever bona fide Han Chinese person from Xinjiang. When you're in a city where thousands of people have migrated to, you can't help but feel that this city is really deep, or, 深. You can't avoid the diversity of backgrounds of people. Everyone has their story.
Beijing is a political city. Every day at night Auntie Liu and my grandmother would turn on the television, 19:30 to be precise, to watch a conservative Chinese channel discuss Tsai Ing-Wen, the new Taiwan president. The channel talked about 两岸新闻, liang an xin wen, news about the two shores, or, China and Taiwan cross-straits relationships. I couldn't follow the entire thing, but mostly it was them bashing Tsai Ing-Wen about her foreign policy and how she undid everything that Ma Ying Jeo, the former Taiwan president, who had stronger Chinese ties, did. That day too, before we went to the mall, we were stuck in a traffic jam on an 8-lane wide road because the president of South Africa had flown in. Being the capital, it's an incredibly political city. This is where a lot of rough politics gets played out. This is the place that decisions are made. It's all about power in this city, about who you know. There's a street smart roughness to its people that I absolutely love. It's also a masculine city as a result. Compared to its Shanghai counterpart which is slightly more refined and elegant, Beijing is rough. And I like the roughness, the coarseness to it.
Beijing is a deep city. On my last day I went with a colleague to 后海, Houhai, and the surrounding area. The smog that was there on the first day had cleared, and today we were blessed with a nice blue sky, the kind I haven't really seen in a while. It was autumn in Beijing, and so the temperature was just right. Not too hot, cold, windy. There was a stillness and tranquility that day. We took a small bicycle ride from an Old Beijinger who rode us around on a rickshaw bike explaining to us the old Hutong (housing quarters) in Beijing. As he explained and as I rode through, I felt the rich imperial history. Like I was majestry rolling around on a cart, admiring the years of history that have passed by this place. I was sitting in the cart with a girl and an old guy telling me about the history from the naming of the place, to the small decorations in houses and their significance, to the history of the people that have passed through these walkways. Afterwards, we strolled in the old 4-court houses, and looped around the small lakes. That feeling of hundreds of years of history as you strolled by breezes through. You feel it in the air here, it's profound. The history is so dense that it breathes out from the lakes, the houses, the food. It's absolutely breathtaking - I was taken in by the depth of the city. I was at peace on that day at 前海, qian hai, just nearby. For a city that had modernized so quickly and erased a lot of its history, there was still a story there that withstood the physical destruction. On this day too, I would have never guessed it was a megacity. There was a timelessness to it, resisting the passage of time, with a strong tinge of Chinese essence. I saw it in the people. I was at a loss for words that day. I was swallowed by the city, just like the 老百姓.
The day I left, Auntie Liu told me that she had some peppers left at her house from Gansu and that her son was going to stop by my grandmother's house on the way home from work and pass them over to me. I was so touched, that small gesture that someone was paying attention to a conversation, and made an extra effort out of their way for me to taste a bit of their culture, their home. She even kept the oil out as I wouldn't make it pass immigration. So, before I left, I met Auntie Liu's son, a man of 25 years, of short stature, but a bright ambition, just like I saw in the migrants of the city. He was very easy to talk to and I thanked him profusely for taking time after work to deliver the peppers over, a small unsuspecting tub of red, Gansu chili peppers stuffed into a Nutella container. I hugged my grandma and Auntie Liu and then, with Liu's son, walked and continued talking. 聊聊, chatting, like in true Chinese fashion. He took a taxi with me and paid for it all the way to Sanyuanqiao where he lived, and walked me to the rail train that connected to the airport. Again, the small gestures that count. He smiled, and then waved goodbye. I thanked him again for the peppers. He was the second guy I met from Gansu ever. At the airport, for a flight taking off at 01:25, there was an old group of Chinese uncles and aunties. Most of the other passengers had already begun sleeping while waiting for the flight to board, but these older folk were cracking open their thermoses containing tea, and they began to chat again. 聊聊. They kept chatting and chatting until it was time to board. I still admire the eagerness to chat in Chinese people. It may be about mundane things, but it's a sign that they're enjoying themselves, enjoying each others' company. There's an old camaraderie there. Like I said, in a vast city, you find your pockets of peace and connection. I definitely found mine while chatting to my grandmother about her life history, getting to know Auntie Liu, and sharing that brief hour or so with her son. I found it through the nutella bottle filled with exported Gansu peppers. I found it while walking in Hou Hai and Qian Hai, admiring the history breathing through the place and down my neck, chilling my spine; in the uncles and aunties who took time out of their day to chat, to sit and share a drink with us.
Beijing is a wonderful city. It feels like home.