Of Signs and Change

ATMs in Beijing dispense philosophy with cash. "Please take your advice", said the one I used earlier today. I assumed this was some kind of message to look deep inside myself and reject consumer culture and materialism, but I will need to find a spiritual teacher to unlock the full meaning.

Without speaking any Mandarin, I'm relying on these small translated tidbits to understand the Chinese mindstate. Two adjacent rubbish bins were labelled "recycling" and "unrecycling". I put it down as something to do with feng shui. And next to a parking lot gate, a James Brown-inspired sign read "get down please". Again, it all seems to be about balance in life. You've just spent an hour in slow-moving Beijing traffic, the lot owners are saying, so unwind, do a little breakdancing, and then we'll open the gate so you can park your car. Don't argue, it's for your greater good. You'll see.

Actually, maybe that last part isn't so far from the truth. China is developing at an insane pace. I remember my father telling me about his visit to Beijing 20 years ago, when the streets were so packed with bicycles that crossing to the other side was a challenge. This couldn't be further from the city of today, paved with highways and filled with cars. There are so many cranes building skyscrapers that from a plane you would probably mistake it for one huge construction site.

How can a place change so astonishingly quickly? Part of the answer lies in a neighbourhood I walked through two nights ago covering an area equivalent to a sizeable number of New York city blocks. It had narrow streets of cracked pavement and dirt, and the one- and two-storey houses were old and run down. Located just south of Tiananmen Square, it was very central. It was also eerily deserted.

The last vestiges of communism still give the government an unusual amount of power, like ownership of all land. This neighbourhood, like all the others that used to cover Beijing, had been cleared out by the government, its residents moved to the outskirts of the city to make way for demolition trucks and profitable new developments. When hundreds of thousands descend on Beijing for next year's Olympics, they will see a modern, thriving metropolis. The only remaining parts of the Beijing my father saw 20 years ago will be historical sites like the Forbidden City.

Were this type of development possible in the west, it would probably be very unpopular. After all, it gives no say to those whose entire lives were based in the neighbourhoods they were relocated from. Some are now faced with the dilemma of having to spend more on the commute to and from work than they actually earn in their jobs.

But maybe it's a different operating principle, focussed less on the individual than on the whole. The fact is, a huge and growing number of people are much better off than they were 20 years ago. They reason the growth here is so astonishing is because it's simply not possible under the governments of western societies. Trying to judge which way of running things is better reaches all the way down to fundamental questions of what you value in life, and how you view the importance of self versus the group.

So is China developing for the greater good? I don't know enough to argue. We'll see.