In Depth

As the English literary eccentric Osbert Sitwell remarked during a visit to Beijing in the 1930s, "Restoration is often the favourite weapon of Siva the Destroyer, and can achieve more in a few weeks than can whole centuries of decay."

Some vengeful deity certainly seems to walk the streets of China's capital today, and he carries a brush with which he daubs on doors and walls the character chai -- "demolish." Within weeks, entire city blocks of historic housing vanish as the result of his attentions, their occupants driven away with compensation inadequate to replace their lost homes. Gossip among foreign journalists has it that by the time of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, only 20 or so of the ancient hutong (alleyways) will be left, and these will have been carefully refashioned in a dismaying Disneyfication to make them more appealing to visitors.

Once the ancient buildings come down to be replaced by shiny shops, the chai character seems to reappear. But one little brush stroke is missing from the new version in shop windows -- a dian, the smallest of all strokes, and little more than a dot. This tiny difference is enough to change the character's sound to zhe, and its meaning to something more constructive. Preceded by a number, zhe represents the number of tenths of its original price for which merchandise is now on sale. Qi zhe, seven-tenths, would appear in Western shop windows as 30% off.

You may be impressed at first by all the shiny new buildings -- but look closely and you'll spot incomplete projects and shuttered stores. And despite the supposedly explosive expansion of the Chinese economy, reported in unverifiable figures even the government doesn't believe, shops are always advertising sales.

Lazy Western journalism produces excitable reports of Cartier showrooms and shops with imported Italian designer baby clothes, and uncritically repeats impressive but unverifiable claims about growth. But the vast majority of the young and trendy are out in the suburbs buying fake versions or discovering real goods that somehow got separated from the rest of their consignment, going for a tenth of the price or less. In the temples to consumerism on the showcase shopping streets, you'll see that window-shoppers vastly outnumber those making purchases. In supermarkets, older people can be found puzzling over imported items whose prices they can't afford anyway. The reality is that however many glitzy new shopping malls open, the disposable income to support them is not there.

Western journalists aren't the only ones falling for the spin. A recent survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that nearly half of the Chinese population believed they were middle class, even though less than 3% earned enough to qualify. A cup of Starbucks coffee is still a luxury, and those seen sipping a latte are in no way typical of Beijing.

The Political Life of Beijing -- Sitting at the heart of power, Beijingers are supposedly the nation's most sensitive to subtle changes in the political winds, but these days there is ever-decreasing interest. Officials are almost universally deemed corrupt, and the leadership's gyrations in trying to demonstrate that the capitalism red in tooth and claw to which it now subjects its citizens is actually socialism "with Chinese characteristics" make the supposedly heroic leaders increasingly ridiculous. This is a pensionless "socialism," with no job security, no free medicine or free schooling, massive and growing unemployment (at least double the official figures), and bribes necessary at every turn to get things done. To most young people who missed the vast political movements of the second half of the 20th century, the Communist Party is an irrelevance -- something that merely gets in the way on the road to a better life.

You'll find no free discussion of such issues in the government-controlled press, of which it is sometimes joked that the only true piece of information is the date. Constant announcements that production is up, that the minorities are happy, and that standards of one kind or another have been improved are usually fair indications that the opposite is true.

Television and print media, largely under government control, are stuck in a time warp. Instructions to study the latest political "theory," such as ex-president Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents," an attempt to pass off the Party's U-turn to capitalism as a development of Marxism, is headline news. It's hardly surprising that the best-selling publication in China is a magazine dealing with soccer.

Even five-star-hotel access to the BBC or other foreign news channels (forbidden to ordinary domestic viewers) may suddenly "break down" around important political anniversaries, June 4 in particular. Once the anniversary is safely past, access is mysteriously restored. No view other than that sanctioned by the Party may be broadcast.

Not all foreign visitors to Beijing are unhappy about this. International Olympic Committee Vice President Kevan Gosper, in a chilling interview on China Central Sports, told his shocked interviewer that the Australian press would just "make up stories." China, by contrast, was praised for its skill in "the management of information."

The loudest political voices are those of Beijing's taxi drivers, at least within the confines of their vehicles. Theirs are the easiest opinions to canvass, and they are quoted with embarrassing frequency in Western newspaper articles as spokesmen for the ordinary Beijinger. In 2002 the government issued specific instructions forbidding the taxi drivers to talk about politics to foreigners, but because they are never named in articles, this injunction has been ignored, and they continue in their Western-appointed role of Everyman.

In the months leading up to the Olympic committee's decision in 2002, every foreign passenger who could understand enough Mandarin had to listen to bitter complaints that in support of Beijing's bid the drivers were being forced to learn 100 simple English sentences. Examinations were pending. But as soon as Beijing had won, the books and tapes they'd been forced to buy all quietly disappeared. Questions were greeted with laughter. "They've won the Games now. They're not bothered."

A Consumer Society -- Until the 1980s it seemed that everyone was in uniform. The very rare young man wearing a pair of jeans might as well have been carrying a big banner saying "counterrevolutionary." Blue or green "Mao" suits (Zhongshan fu) or uniforms provided by work units (employers) were the norm for both sexes.

But as soon as she was permitted to do so, Miss Beijing gradually removed her peaked cap, shook down her tresses, and went wild. From the sighting of the first pair of high heels and the return of the skirt, hemlines crept up from calf to nearly waist level and stayed there. Colors went from khaki to clashing neons, simply because they could. Bus conductresses, now able to own more than just their uniforms, could be found selling tickets in spangled Lycra more suitable for the primitive discos that were sprouting up.

Things have now settled down, but anything goes, including dresses diaphanous enough to reveal more than a glimpse of stocking. The male, on the other hand, has remained dowdy, and seems to have swapped one uniform for another. Typically jacketless, Mr. Beijing wears a short-sleeve shirt with a collar but no tie, and gray slacks. He parades his status through his shoes, watch, and belt, with the buckle, mobile phone, and of course, his manbag.

The genie of consumerism is permanently out of the bottle, and to stay in power by any means but brute force, the Party must feed an insatiable desire not just for the bare necessities of life, but for disposable goods with designer logos. Fakes will do, of course, and fakes are what most buy in back-street markets, but that tiny portion of the population who can buy a Mercedes will certainly do so, and will thank the Party for the opportunity rather than complain that it has held them back for so many decades.

As late as the early 1990s foreign residents would coo with delight at the sight of milk and butter in the Friendship Stores, which only accepted hard-currency vouchers and which Chinese were not permitted to enter. Now most Western fashion labels have Beijing outlets, as do supermarkets, fast-food chains, and luxury-car suppliers. Numerous foreign companies sucked in by the promise of fast growth are making a loss or a far from respectable return on their investment. But they comfort each other in their far-sightedness, and wait for the economic miracle repeatedly promised in the press.

Every Man For Himself -- "What's the difference between your country and mine?" is a popular question from taxi drivers, and one that leaves the Mandarin-speaking foreign visitor floundering as to where to begin: An independent judiciary? Rule of law? Freedom to have as many children as you like? Freedom to live where you like? Freedom of the press? Fewer manbags?

Once, tired from a long flight, I was asked this question as we passed a crowd gathering around a bloody collision between a car and a cyclist, and I glumly answered, "When we see an accident, we run to help. When you see an accident, you run to look."

The driver nodded in agreement. "Yes," he said, "that's right. But there are so many of us." He drove on without stopping.

Beijingers expect to be cheated both by their rulers and by each other. They complain bitterly, but they have no hesitation in cheating others when they can wangle a university place for an academically unsuccessful child because of a favor owed, when they can get access to rail tickets at peak periods because an uncle works at the station, or when they barter their own access to some privilege for something else they want. When they need something, their first question is not "Where do I line up?" but "Who do I know?" The Chinese expression xian lai, xian chi, means "first to come, first to eat." This suggests not the idea of forming a fair lineup, but the necessity of barging to the front.

Complaints about government corruption and the privileges reserved for cadres are not usually based on a general moral principle, but on not getting a slice of the pie. Sympathy for others tends to extend no further than immediate family members, close friends, and those with whom the Chinese have guanxi -- people who owe them or to whom they owe favors. Everyone else is just in the way and is often simply pushed out of it, as you will discover when you try to board a bus, line up to buy a ticket, or stand at any junction and observe the driving.

Beijing may only represent Beijing, but Beijingers, like everyone else in China, think themselves superior to Chinese from other regions. Finding themselves in difficulties away from home, they will appeal to other Beijingers for help. Faced with problems when overseas, they'll appeal for solidarity to anyone of Chinese descent -- "We're Chinese: We should help each other." Back in Beijing they'll use "peasant" as a term of abuse, and they are convinced that the several million migrant workers who now call the capital home are responsible for the rise in crime. But they'll complain loudly when street food stalls vanish, smaller restaurants close, and garbage services slow to a halt because those who do the menial labor they themselves despise have been temporarily driven out of town for some Party celebration or committee meeting.

Locals aren't unaware of these problems, and in recent years the neo-Confucian notion of suzhi (roughly translated as "quality") has been popularized. Primary schools now teach suzhi education, your taxi driver will tell you with a straight face, "my quality is very low," but the concept is mainly a handy way to gloss over the huge gap between rich and poor in this nominally socialist country. She earns $1 a day because her quality is low.

Round Eyes And Yellow Hair -- Foreigners are not relatives and do not understand guanxi. To some Beijingers they are figures of fun. To the few directly involved in commercial relationships with foreigners, they are strikingly naive and their extraordinarily deep pockets are to be dipped into as much as possible (the more apparently sweet-natured your tour guide, the more careful you should be). Foreigners have an amazing tendency to smile and give away extra money even after being thoroughly fleeced. To stallholders, shopkeepers, and representatives of the tourism industry, they are therefore thoroughly welcome -- in any society where most transactions involve bargaining, the ignorant outsider always will be. Shanghainese, Cantonese, and other outsiders will be taken for a ride whenever possible, but foreigners can be taken much more easily, and much further.

While central Beijing is used to the sight of enormous people with big round eyes and yellow or red hair, many Chinese visitors to Beijing are often catching their first sight of the rare and exotic foreign species. Most foreigners restrict themselves to the bigger attractions, the hotel complexes, the joint-venture office towers, and the bar areas, so a foreigner entering an ordinary department store elsewhere in the city can still have a traffic-stopping effect.

"Lao wai," (Foreigner) the Chinese will observe without lowering their voices. They'll nudge each other and point you out, "Look! Lao wai." And sometimes they'll shout at you, "Lao wai!," with complete indifference to any offense taken.

The presence of everything foreign from McDonald's to Mercedes doesn't indicate the presence of a larger world picture, but rather an increasingly long checklist of which possessions indicate a degree of Westernization. Heaven, according to one recently popular Beijing joke, is a German house, a Japanese wife, and an American salary. Heaven's only Chinese element is the cook. At the same time, it is taken as axiomatic that Chinese culture is superior.

The West is a place to live neither for democratic ideals nor to avoid the one-child policy (which anyone with cash or the right guanxi can get around), but largely for the chance to earn more money and gain a higher standard of living.

You'll likely pass through Beijing completely unaware of all these undercurrents. Beijing will open up just enough for you to pass through and close up again behind you, and you'll leave no more trace, in Pearl Buck's memorable phrase, "than a finger drawn through water."