Beijing’s Accent, Pollution, and Subway…Welcomes Me

I thought Beijing would look like this...

So the hard sleeper train ride on my way here was just fine…

Beijing’s Accent, Pollution, and Subway Welcomes Me

At a farmer-friendly 7:00am, the announcer declared day and soon the flat-screen television in our cabin turned on and video entertainment programming began, none of which I paid any attention to as I hoped to catch a few more winks before arriving in Beijing. It wasn’t until later that I realized there were two switches in each cabin that could turn the lights and speaker (which, again, was right by my head in the top bunk) off and on.

Argh.

We pulled into Beijing…without me really knowing it was Beijing. Other than the time telling me we should be arriving, I couldn’t see shit out the window. Visibility was awful, as fog obscured the Beijing cityscape leading up to the Beijing Railway Station. Coming from Shanghai, I had the expectation that Beijing, like other Chinese mega-metropolises, would greet me with plenty of high-rises. Where were they? Or was the fog simply hiding them all away from me? Frankly, I thought I was still in the countryside.

...but it looked more like this, except with 2x more smog and 2x less visibility. What's that? That's Tiananmen Square in the distance? You sure its not a field of crops or something?

So this is Beijing, eh?

The temperature for Beijing during my brief stay was forecasted to range from an ass-freezing 6 degrees down to a nut-shriveling -3 degrees Celsius. Oh sure, this is nothing compared to many places in the world, usually places where vodka or baijiu is the normal source of hydration, but I’m someone who thinks Southern California winters are damn cold. Being on the top bunk, I reasoned I had to let everyone get off the train first before I could hop down and reattach my winter body-armor. A conductor, in his quaint Beijing accent was already telling people to get ready to disembark before the train had even stopped, so imagine his bemused impatience when he came around finding me alone in the train car hurriedly bundling myself up: “哥们儿，你怎么儿还没儿下儿车儿啊儿儿儿？” (Bro, how come you haven’t gotten off yet?). There were probably a lot more retroflex “Rs” than that, but wow, a real Beijing accent!

How cute!

As veritably the last passenger to get off the train, I made my way through the Beijing Railway Station and out to the Line 2 Metro Subway, which I opted to take instead of a taxi to meet up with Elliott. First thing I noticed as I walked out of the station was that, sure enough, Beijing has much fewer tall building density than Shanghai. Whereas towering structures with small footprints squeeze themselves into downtown Shanghai to block out the sky, Beijing greeted me with large tracts of low-rises and hutongs. Of course, to be an ass about it, one of the first things I would utter would be: “Hm, quaint place. Needs more skyscrapers and Shanghainese though.”

Not me, do you see any winter body armor on this guy?

But speaking of quaint, Beijing’s subway is flat-rate. That means going anywhere on the subway, no matter how close or how far, will only cost 2 RMB. While this is much more than what it used to be even just recently, compared to the 3-7 RMB fares in Shanghai, this is a freaking bargain.

I love Beijing!

Continuing comparing everything to Shanghai (hoping to annoy some Beijingers or so), the subway reminds me of a mix between the Shanghai Metro and the Hong Kong MTR. I suppose this isn’t unexpected, given that this is all “China”, but I do think Beijing’s subway hardware might be a bit better than Shanghai’s at this point. At first glance, the older Line 2 stations in Beijing are a bit more run-down compared to the World Expo renovated stations in Shanghai and the unpainted brushed aluminum subway cars simply look older (like Hong Kong or New York) than the glossy-white subway cars of Shanghai. But, Beijing has cheaper flat-rate fares, upholstered subway seating, native English speaking announcers (for the American English announcements), and horribly nifty advertising in the subway tunnels that (I’m trying to figure out how to explain this) “follow” the train as it moves. They’re essentially flashing LEDs that are coordinated with the train. It’s probably a clear sign that our daily lives are indeed being bombarded and intruded upon by advertising but it was hella nifty nonetheless…and not seen in Shanghai, which is obviously and indisputably the benchmark of mainland China cities, right?

Right, so Beijing, so far, doesn’t have as many tall buildings as Shanghai, has a better subway, and I can’t see shit because of the fog. That fog, of course, isn’t just low-hanging water vapor, but a nice low-hanging mixture of polluted water-vapor and carcinogenic particulates. You can tell, because it doesn’t smell like normal fog, and it’s worrisome when you can even “taste” it. That said, I was already familiar with Beijing’s reputation for air pollution, so it wasn’t too shocking. A day of this wouldn’t kill me. It was just a stark contrast to the stunningly beautiful blue-skies days we recently had in Shanghai.

And then Elliott said I “need” to get a cab because where we’d be staying is “a bit ghetto”…

Next: Nanluoguxiang, Sanlitun Village, Johnny Cash Hot Pot, and Spicy Scotch