TRAVEL
Changing face of Beijing 
There is nothing Communist about Beijing any more when you look around. The city is comparable to any modern city in the western world
Dinesh Kumar

‘You like lady bar?” asks the slim neatly dressed woman in broken English. “You like massage?” she persists when she gets a negative response. Both her usage of English words and the confidence with which she solicits makes it obvious that she has been doing this for some time and that there is a thriving ‘market’. It is close to 11.30 pm and many people are still out in an inner market street in downtown Beijing, not far from the famous Tiananmen Square where 25 years ago the People’s Liberation Army brutally put down an uprising in June 1989.

This is not some non-English-speaking country in Europe or South America. This is Beijing, capital of Communist China. Communist, did I say? No way. There is nothing Communist about Beijing any more when you look around.

Flash back 32 years. It is November 1982. A bustling New Delhi is playing host to the Asiad Games for the first time. In distant Beijing, thousands of Chinese men and women dressed in shabby blue or green Mao suits (comprising trousers and jackets), with many of them in blue-coloured Mao caps with a Red star stitched to it, cycle their way to work in sub-zero temperature. It is not yet December and the wind chill has reduced the day-time temperature well into the minus.

With dour expressions on their faces, cyclists are laboriously peddling long distances on a fairly wide side-road that runs parallel to a near-empty six-lane road that goes past Tiananmen Square. Old model vestibule buses, some trucks and a few cars, mostly belonging to either foreigners (mainly diplomats or employees of the few foreign companies at that time) or the Chinese government punctuate the road at intervals. For much of the time during the day, the road is boringly empty.

A view of Tiananmen Square in Beijing with the National Museum in the background

The city then was largely flat. The buildings were depressingly dull in design, architecture and colour. Beijing, although otherwise very neat, was almost semi-rural in appearance. As a result, the many historical buildings and the magnificently designed and painted pagodas dating back hundreds of years stood out more prominently. In the countryside, many people still lived in communes. The ghost of late Mao Zedong, who led the communists to victory in 1949, was still very much present.

But some changes had begun in limited measure. Japanese companies had built a fairly modern airport at that time in Beijing, which was better than the new Palam International Airport (later renamed after Indira Gandhi) in New Delhi built on the eve of the Asiad Games. Some other changes were seemingly underway with a few buildings under construction.

There were then two types of Yuan currency notes — one for the locals and the other for foreigners. The foreigners were given differently printed Yuan valued against foreign exchange with the words ‘Foreign Exchange Certificate’ (FEC) written on it. Yet the value of the Yuan was the same in the market. For the locals, however, it was a possession to aspire for because only the fancy FEC permitted them to buy foreign-made goods from the local Friendship Store, a large convenience store with a mix of local and foreign brands under one roof meant for the convenience of the small community of foreigners, mostly diplomatic staff, located next to the diplomatic enclave.

A bronze statue on a street in downtown Beijing

Not surprisingly, some unscrupulous foreigners, including diplomatic staff of some developing countries, would sometimes sell these FEC Yuan to some ‘enterprising’ locals hissing the word “exchange?” in an asking tone, while standing in quiet corners on a footpath. It was an arrangement of mutual benefit — foreigners who sold the FEC in black got more Yuan to spend in the local markets while the locals could shop at the coveted Friendship Store with the FECs.

A short distance from the 600-year-old Forbidden City, located opposite the Tiananmen Square, stands the state-owned Beijing Hotel, which three decades ago was the only prominent hotel that for many years earlier had been the hosting venue for visiting foreign dignitaries, including Jawaharlal Nehru. Beijing Hotel had the same iconic standing as that of the ITDC-owned Hotel Ashoka in New Delhi. However, today the hotel is a relic of the old communist era. Hundreds of modern hotels, many of them belonging to the best international chains, have sprouted all over the city.

Today there is little evidence of the Beijing of the past. Tiananmen Square on which is located Mao Zedong’s mausoleum with his body still on display, the Forbidden City with Mao’s giant-sized picture at the entrance and the imposing Great Hall of the People built with Soviet assistance in 1959 and the historical church with its clock tower located next to it are some of the formidable buildings of the past that serve as a reminder of the old China.

Otherwise, the city is comparable to any modern city in the western world. A far more affluent and well-dressed younger generation resides and works in the hundreds of modern high-rise buildings and throng the wide boulevards and bustling marketplaces at night. A spanking new and economically priced metro, along with hundreds of thousands of cars, many of them high-end models belonging to the world’s best brands, ply bumper to bumper and have replaced vintage bicycles, which are now a novelty. The FEC is long gone and the currency is much stronger. But yes, communicating in the absence of knowledge of the Chinese language is still a problem. Welcome to Capitalist China!

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