On my first day in China Appa asked me in jest over phone “So, have you seen Communism yet?”In little more than two weeks I have fallen in love with the China I have seen for more than one reason. Yifan, friend and my amazing travelling companion for these days, has often let me sidestep the touristic gaze and look beyond what is apparent.
Day 1 in Beijing, we accidently strolled in through the gates of the imperial library from the Ming Dynasty.
(I am almost sure it is the Ming Dynasty. Trained historian that I am, I have managed to muddle up most of the facts and figures on the signboards that Yifan painstakingly translated for me).We had started out towards the Tiananmen Square and realized too late that the Square was cordoned off. The nation was celebrating the 75th year of its victory against the Japanese forces. Simultaneously, the city was hosting the IAAF World Athletics Championship. It meant long vacations and a clear blue sky. Blue sky, I hear is a rare sight in Beijing. But the factory emissions around the city were slashed by 30% in view of the Athletic meet. Thanks to that my memories of Beijing are all set against an azul backdrop to which the shades of the evening and the night would gracefully seep in.
But it also meant large parts of the city were closed to visitors including the Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. Forbidden is a word suffused with longing. We walked around the moat surrounding the city forbidden, its magnificent gates silhouetted against the evening sky.
Anyway, that is how we stumbled upon the imperial library on a side street branching off the East Changán Avenue leading to the Tiananmen Square. Beyond its façade, the building is now a lively working class neighbourhood. The modest houses set on the narrow alleyway lean on to the bright red walls and painted roofs of the library building. Yifan says that quite possibly the area was occupied during the Cultural Revolution. The revolution saw no reason for the proletariat to remain homeless. People were especially encouraged to occupy spaces that were reminders of the bygone era of exploitation.Large sections were torn out even from the Great Wall to find new roles as building material for the workers’ dwellings.Two blocks from the lane is another group of buildings that imitates the imperial architecture. Built in the recent years, the complex appears to be a space designated entirely to the tourism market, with posh restaurants and other amenities in the making. It stands on what were only years before a similar working class neighbourhood.
The meaning of state ownership of land has reversed in China in the last fifteen years. Mass relocations of workers from city centers and agriculturists from the suburbs occur by day as the faces of the cities change. On my second day in Shanghai, we walked out of the Luijazui subway station to the midst of a mass of skyscrapers. Among them are three of the tallest skyscrapers in Shanghai- the Jin Mao tower, The Sanghai World Financial centre and the Shanghai tower- that really seem to touch the skyline. The entire Pudong area prides to be the financial hub of modern China. It also houses a number of luxury malls and some of the most expensive apartment buildings in China. Corporate Financers like the J.P.Morgan own large blocks of these apartments. Fifteen years before the entire Pudong area was filled with agricultural land and much of the vegetables supply to Shanghai came from here.
The dense jungle of tall gray concrete blocks have to quote Yifan have “come out of the green.” The displaced are very often compensated in a much better manner than in India. They relocate to similar apartment jungles that have sprung up everywhere in the suburbs of Shanghai. Yifan tells me that often the farmers are allotted even more land than they used to have. The worst affected are the industrial and other workers from the low income groups, who are forced to leave their homes to locations farther off from their work spaces. However, for Yifan the problem lies in the very logic of this development. The reversal of the state’s target population for development is all too clear, in who is invited into the city space and who is being pushed off to the peripheries. After all, the peripheries cannot be pushed without limits.
(cont...)
Day 1 in Beijing, we accidently strolled in through the gates of the imperial library from the Ming Dynasty.
(I am almost sure it is the Ming Dynasty. Trained historian that I am, I have managed to muddle up most of the facts and figures on the signboards that Yifan painstakingly translated for me).We had started out towards the Tiananmen Square and realized too late that the Square was cordoned off. The nation was celebrating the 75th year of its victory against the Japanese forces. Simultaneously, the city was hosting the IAAF World Athletics Championship. It meant long vacations and a clear blue sky. Blue sky, I hear is a rare sight in Beijing. But the factory emissions around the city were slashed by 30% in view of the Athletic meet. Thanks to that my memories of Beijing are all set against an azul backdrop to which the shades of the evening and the night would gracefully seep in.But it also meant large parts of the city were closed to visitors including the Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. Forbidden is a word suffused with longing. We walked around the moat surrounding the city forbidden, its magnificent gates silhouetted against the evening sky.
Anyway, that is how we stumbled upon the imperial library on a side street branching off the East Changán Avenue leading to the Tiananmen Square. Beyond its façade, the building is now a lively working class neighbourhood. The modest houses set on the narrow alleyway lean on to the bright red walls and painted roofs of the library building. Yifan says that quite possibly the area was occupied during the Cultural Revolution. The revolution saw no reason for the proletariat to remain homeless. People were especially encouraged to occupy spaces that were reminders of the bygone era of exploitation.Large sections were torn out even from the Great Wall to find new roles as building material for the workers’ dwellings.Two blocks from the lane is another group of buildings that imitates the imperial architecture. Built in the recent years, the complex appears to be a space designated entirely to the tourism market, with posh restaurants and other amenities in the making. It stands on what were only years before a similar working class neighbourhood.The meaning of state ownership of land has reversed in China in the last fifteen years. Mass relocations of workers from city centers and agriculturists from the suburbs occur by day as the faces of the cities change. On my second day in Shanghai, we walked out of the Luijazui subway station to the midst of a mass of skyscrapers. Among them are three of the tallest skyscrapers in Shanghai- the Jin Mao tower, The Sanghai World Financial centre and the Shanghai tower- that really seem to touch the skyline. The entire Pudong area prides to be the financial hub of modern China. It also houses a number of luxury malls and some of the most expensive apartment buildings in China. Corporate Financers like the J.P.Morgan own large blocks of these apartments. Fifteen years before the entire Pudong area was filled with agricultural land and much of the vegetables supply to Shanghai came from here.
The dense jungle of tall gray concrete blocks have to quote Yifan have “come out of the green.” The displaced are very often compensated in a much better manner than in India. They relocate to similar apartment jungles that have sprung up everywhere in the suburbs of Shanghai. Yifan tells me that often the farmers are allotted even more land than they used to have. The worst affected are the industrial and other workers from the low income groups, who are forced to leave their homes to locations farther off from their work spaces. However, for Yifan the problem lies in the very logic of this development. The reversal of the state’s target population for development is all too clear, in who is invited into the city space and who is being pushed off to the peripheries. After all, the peripheries cannot be pushed without limits.(cont...)
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