I am trying to weigh up whether I should stay here much longer. Here, a window into my ruminations...
Reasons to live in Beijing
1) I'm here already.
Ah, inertia - always an insidiously powerful argument, but also a rather shaming one!
2) I used to like it.
Gosh, yes, I used to like it a lot. But the shine has definitely been rubbing off the place since about a year before the Olympics. I'm feeling rather jaded with it now.
3) It's cheap.
Well, it used to be. And it sometimes still can be. But in the last few years, it's been closing the gap with Shanghai terrifyingly fast (indeed, according to Mercer, it has overtaken her!!).
4) It's got a fantastic music scene.
Except that there hasn't been that much worthwhile new blood emerging in recent years, while old stagers have disbanded or started to grow a little stale. And the authorities - equating music, especially open air music, with potential mass subversion - have recently been stepping up their harassment of music bars, and making it next to impossible to stage festivals within the city limits. The 'scene' at present is a sorry shadow of what it was four or five years ago.
5) There's a fantastic modern art scene here.
Except that - unlike most rock music - modern art genuinely is 'subversive'. And so, artists are feeling the impact of the government's current anxieties especially keenly. My friend Wu Yuren spent the best part of a year in prison for nothing. Ai Weiwei has been 'disappeared' indefinitely. Many of their peers are recognising the imperative for self-preservation, and keeping out of sight while conditions here remain so oppressive.
6) I've got some amazing friends here.
Well, I have had over the years. The majority of them - both Chinese and foreign - have left now. And a number of the longest-standing fixtures in my social set are threatening to leave within the next few months. I don't have many people to go out with in the evenings any more...
7) I earn good money here.
Or... I used to. Unfortunately, one of my main sources of income (voice recording) has almost entirely dried up in the past couple of years. And most of the other stuff I do (editing, training) is paying no more than it was when I came here 9 years ago (while the cost of living has nearly doubled in the same time). In fact, with the increasing insistence of Chinese employers on "paying tax" for me (they don't, of course; in most cases, they're probably just keeping the deductions for themselves), I'm often earning less per hour than I was back in my early days here.
8) There aren't any truly inspiring alternatives.
Well, I've toyed with the idea of St Petersburg and Montevideo and Buenos Aires and Cartagena and Amman and Herat and Penang and Vientiane, but.... I haven't been able to make a convincing case to myself for any of them just yet. The dread inertia in another guise.
Oh, dear, things are not looking very promising, are they? Perhaps we should all revisit one of my most positive posts on life in China
- 10 Things To Love About Beijing.
7 comments:
Try another city in China! Chengdu is a lot like Beijing was ten years ago, except fewer foreigners. And it's cheaper (though getting less cheap day by day). It's a laid-back, friendly place with vibrant music and art scenes, and incredible travel on the doorstep. And did I mention the food? Hmmm, maybe I'm trying to convince myself there are good reasons to stay.....
Glad you're having a good time there, Cat. I'll say hi if I visit again.
I've been a couple of times and was underwhelmed: but they were business trips, so I didn't have a lot of time to get out and about. I thought Chongqing had more character - but the climate and the pollution are AWFUL.
I think the problem with the 2nd tier cities is that, though they may now be like Beijing 5 or 10 years ago, they're on the same track, and you'll see most of what you love about them disappear over the next few years.
The only place I've been in China that I found attractive enough and quirky enough to tempt me to give it a try as a place to live was.... Kaifeng. Although I suspect the social and cultural life there is rather limited.
Xiamen, I believe, makes a very tempting case for itself. One of the few places here I've not yet been and really want to try.
Or Kashqar - but that's not really "China".
Beijing always seems to do this to me. Just when I am most fed up with it, something happens. An upturn in the weather, usually; and a spontaneous outbreak of vivacity, playfulness, joy engendered by that.
As I mentioned yesterday over on The Barstool, there's been some gorgeous weather here lately - the kind of unnaturally blue skies that make you think Kim Jong-il must be paying another of his clandestine visits here (and the powers-that-be are shutting down all the factories to try to make the environment more like what he's used to back home).
The moon was out on Saturday afternoon, brighter and crisper than I think I've ever seen it in the daytime before, and hiding coyly behind wisps of high, pink cloud. Heart-stoppingly beautiful.
Returning to my apartment block around 9pm yesterday, I found the compound full of people - far more than I've ever seen here before. Tiny kids still out playing, long after what should have been their bedtime; and their grandparents looking on indulgently. There was more happiness in the air than I've felt here for a long, long time.
Early summer can be a blissful time here. But the bliss usually gives way to insufferable swelter through most of July and August.
Kaifeng....did go there once, no twice, a long time ago and it was quirky and attractive, although the street of dog's arse restaurants was a little off-putting.
Xiamen I have also heard great things about.
I don't think Chengdu will ever be quite like Beijing, it has a distinctive vibe all its own, plus it will take many many years for the ex-pat population to catch up. Hopefully. Beijing was my first love, the first place I landed in China, and I'll never shake off the nostalgia of my student year there. But in those days you had to drive a good half hour through green fields from the airport to the first buildings along the 3rd ring road.
These days I think Chengdu is much more liveable. One of the things I love about the place is how you can't keep the street life down. Every time an old section of town is bulldozed to make way for a new high-rise, a street market pops up on the corner, or the old guy who used to sell plants shows up at the gate on a three-wheeler. OK maybe Í'm romanticising now. But if you don't get the 'du, you have never wandered round Yulin on a summer night with the smell of chilli oil burning the back of your throat. We've even had some blue sky days recently.
Really - dogs' arses? It wasn't otters' noses?
I missed that bit. I was impressed by how many 'steak houses' they had. Maybe I was just being naive about what they meant by "steak"...
My mistake. I meant Kaili. Street of dog restaurants advertised as such by dog's hindquarters in the window. Never actually been to Kaifeng in my life.
This Kaili sounds worth a visit for that alone. I wonder if this is mentioned in the Lonely Planet?
Do you have pictures?
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