About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

It’s with us already — you’re seeing less and less cars (zero cars in the Olympic lanes, unless you’re an Olympian yourself) on the streets. The sheer prowess of 3 million+ cars in the Chinese capital is — being, well, halved “thanks” to car limits.

And all this, in the name of the Olympics.

The Olympics was designed to break through limits — more sports-wise than transit-wise — but even with the artificial transport limits, here’s a quick guide on how you can still get from A to B in Beijing.

  First Limit: No “Yellow Label Cars” or Non-Beijing Trucks

If you’ve a car in Beijing with a yellow “eco sticker” on it, you can pretty much leave the thing at home. First to fall victim to restricted traffic is the innocent-yet-environmentally-guilty “yellow label cars”, whose emissions are not up to standard — or at least up to Games standard.

Most cars sold today are of National Level IV — those with a yellow sticker are not even close to meeting National Level I. It’s therefore little to no wonder that The Transit Powers That Be started cracking down on yellow label cars way ahead of the Games — already on July 1, 2008.

Also hard hit are non-Beijing trucks. These guys get sent back outside of Beijing — trucks not from Beijing must be off Beijing roads until the Games are done. (Most of us travel in cars, not trucks, but it’s good knowing this anyway.)

Second Limit: No Cars That Can Blow Up

That’s right: Beginning mid-July 2008, if you carry anything that could potentially pose a safety hazard into Beijing — let’s just say No Way Jose.

The reason: all around Beijing, even on remote county highways, police checkpoints are in full force. Cars with dangerous goods will simply get dealt with — whether it’s confiscation or sending the vehicle back.

Don’t try storming these checkpoints, by the way: these guys are supplemented by armed police. They’ll also need to check your ID to make sure you’re “OK” for entry into the nation’s capital.

Third Limit: No Cars in the Olympic Lane

This is easily the most visible, and to many extents, the most painful limit ever. Whole through lanes of ring roads and even freeways (!) are being done away with in the name of the Five Rings — to serve more Olympian vehicles. As a result, the leftmost lane of many a through route is yawning empty — a massive waste of city transit space.

And these lanes have teeth. If you’re caught slipping into one of these thingies by mistake, you’re either warned by the police or get a RMB 200 fine — straightaway, just like that. Stay in the lane for too long — and that’s RMB 1,800 plus a possible visit to the detention center. (Ow.)

These lanes are present on quite a fair bit of Beijing’s 2nd, 4th and 5th Ring Roads as well as the Badaling, Jingcheng and Airport Freeways, just to name quite a few. And while you’re free to use the bus lane on roads that have such a lane (on, say, Chang’an Avenue, which also sports an Olympic Lane), you’re likely to encounter long queues on freeways, which don’t come with built-in bus lanes.

Thankfully, some of these Olympic Lanes are timed: the shortest ones are in force from 06:00 through to 16:00.

Fourth Limit: No Cars on Alternate Days

Further reducing motorized four-wheelers is this odd policy called odd/even license plate road rights (), which may have you scrambling to find the last numeral of your car’s license plate.

That’s right — if it’s odd, you can only drive on days which themselves are odd, such as July 29 or July 31. If you have a license plate ending in an even number, such as 2, you’re on the road August 2, 4, and 6 instead.

Playing foul’s not going to help… The old adage To every exception there is a rule (or the wrong way around) works here, too. If you have a 2002 License Plate (which sports six numbers instead of five and looks a white-cyan background), you’re an even license plater even if your plate reads 111-111. (This is when the maths start not making sense.)

Who’s exempt from this numerical nut-ness? Diplomats, police cars, as well as taxis, just to name quite a few.By the way, these restrictions do not apply from 00:00 to 03:00 every day. (That’s most likely a response to Karaoke people who drive odd-numbered cars on the 21st, only to return at 1 AM on the 22nd. What a downer — a fine if you’re caught after a night of all-out crooning!)

So What Does This Leave You?

With all these excruciating and at times infuriating limits in force, just how do you get from A to B — quick — and whenever you want to? We’ve a few options…

• Take the Subway. Now 198 km in length with 8 lines, the Beijing Subway is a serious contender for surface road traffic. No jams — guaranteed — underground, especially during rush hour!

Escape the chaos — go underground!

• Nab a taxi. These guys are all over the place, and it gets you from A to B in relative privacy — but at a price. (Flag fall already sets you back a handsome RMB 10 — good enough for five Subway rides (OK — an extra RMB 15 if you want to do the Airport Express...)
• Take a bus. Buses in the capital are just about everywhere — there’s something like about a thousand bus routes all over the place. Services end early in the evening, however (the odd night bus route excepted), and you’re often likely to be sardinized in one of these things.
• Bike or walk. It may not exactly be getting from A to B at laser speed, but here you go: the old, traditional way of getting mileage without having to wait in long queues. How neat it must be to zip by the average Beijing jam on two wheels instead of four!

An interesting conversation unfolded on Meg’s blog post about China Visa problems. Commenter CnInDC offered a well-argued explanation of the root cause of work visa limitations in both countries.

But one thing he (or she) shared helped me understand the feelings that some Chinese people must have:

I agree that the current visa “crackdown” was caused by security concerns about the Olympics. If you watch news in China you’ve probably already noticed that the China’s domestic Olympic propaganda has been dramatically toned down from wanting a most successful Olympic to a merely safe one. The reality is there, that a most successful Olympic is already beyond our reach. The people they wanted to impress the most, the western media and the general public from the western countries, are impossible to please. So they go for the next best one, that at least it’s safe, no ugly scenes (or at least not a major one), and the Chinese can enjoy the party all by themselves. I’ve heard this before from the Chinese people around me and think it may have a point: “大不了办成全运会”, or, “At least we can turn this into a national sports event”.

Photos from my visit to see the Good Luck Games in May:

It reminded me of this poem entitled “My Friends, What Do You Want From Us” I saw earlier in April on China Digital Times (also on China Herald) from cbc forums via C’est la vie blog:

What do you want from us?

When we were called “sick man of Asia”, we were called peril.
When we billed to be the next superpower, we’re called the threat

When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
when we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.

when we’re falling apart, you marched in your troops and wanted your fair share.
when we’re putting the broken pieces together, “Free Tibet” you screamed! “it was invasion.”

So we tried communism, you hated us for being communist.
So we embraced capitalism, you hate us for being capitalist,

Then we have a billion people, you said we’re destroying the planet.
Then we limit our numbers, you said it was human rights abuses.

When we were poor, you think we’re dogs,
When we loan you cash, you blamed us for your debts.

When we build our industries, you called us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blamed us for global warming,
When we buy oil, you called that exploitation and genocide.

When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted rule s of laws for us.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you called that violation of human rights.

When we were silent, you said you want us to have free speech.
When we were silent no more, you say we were brainwashed.

Why do you hate us so much? We asked. “No”. You answered, “we don’t hate you”.
We don’t hate you either Bud, do you understand us?? “of course we do”, you said, “We have CNN, BBC, and CBC”.

But why, we still feel, your western people are not happy with us.

What do you really want from us??

My friend, What do you really want from us??

There is plenty of angry rhetoric from people who take extremist political positions on China on the China Digital Times post. There is also some extremely thoughtful points there too. Please read that comment thread first before posting some extreme rant (either highly critical of China or highly defensive against perceived criticism of China) that has already been said over there.

I propose we just take the time to try to understand the feeling expressed in the poem above and figure out how we can all take this feeling into account in our behavior with each other.

(Why am I posting this? I figured this poem would be hard to find in the future and wanted to just capture it on the blog where I know I could find it)