Eric's Beijing Diary

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This is the view from my balcony window on the 14th floor. Only one crane. There were eight or ten of them when I first came. But I live in the university district on the north side of Beijing. My window faces south. The cranes are behind me now, inching northward. Progress. Development. What will Beijing be like 10 years from now? Part of it, of course is due to the upcoming Olympics. But a lot of it is the inevitable consequence of China's roaring economy. I shouldn't bemoan progress, because I am a beneficiary of it. But you know, this part of Beijing still has a bit of a rural feel to it. It's not as though this area was nothing but countryside before the progress came. After all, Peking University and Qinghua are both north of here, and they have been around for some time. But somehow, when I ride my bike between here and Wudaokou, I don't feel like I am peddling through a big city. I have ridden my bike down into old town, too, and it's different. The old hutongs are a nice break from the modern city, but they aren't exactly countryside. But out here, it is not unusual at all to be sharing the road with a mule cart. This place is going to change, there's no question about it.

You know, it already has. Back in the summer of 1999, I took a short trip to Japan. It was the first time I had been back since I left as a 13 year-old kid in 1967. I was struck by the things that had changed, and by the things that hadn't. I didn't even recognize the train station in Akita, where I went to school for six years. But the old train station in Honjo was exactly the same. It hadn't changed a bit in 32 years. And in Akita, there was a big new mall. As in many cities in America, large shopping malls are death to traditional department stores. One might expect that they would be meeting their sad fate. But believe it or not, the department store I was familiar with as a child (Kinouchi) was exactly the way I had remembered it. Except that it looked old. And it was on the verge of closing.

I haven't been in China that long. Here in Beijing, when I look back at the "good old days," I am not talking about thirty years, I'm talking about three. So what has changed in the past three years?

I really miss the old 1.20 Xiali's. They weren't much for comfort, but they were cheap, and they got you there. And, of course, I miss all the restaurants on the West side. But progress has also been positive. All the coffee bars have high speed wireless now. And it is free. It's not free over in the Chaoyang district where all the foreign business people are, because they don't know any better. But here in Haidian, the university district, the primary coffee bar clientele are students. And the new Walmart super store makes life a little more convenient. And podcasting. Podcasting saves a lot of trouble, but it depends on high speed access. I have high speed access in my office, in my apartment, and at the coffee bar. It's a given, now. And, believe it or not, my blog, which has been blocked for three years, is now wide open.

What will another three years bring? Don't know, but by that time, the Olympics will be over. Will that produce a boom for China? Or will it help to create a "bubble" in the real estate business? This is really the third time I have followed the boom and bust cycle. I must be careful how I say that, because I don't want to predict a bust for China, but I do believe that all economies have their ups and downs. China's economy is going up. But what goes up must, eventually, come down. Hopefully, it will not come crashing down. I moved to the Williston Basin in the summer of 1981 to take advantage of the oil boom. That began to decline in a year or so, but by that time I was entrenched in a job. I moved to Phoenix, Arizona in December of 1996. In January of 1997, Phoenix had the number one job growth in the United States. I rode the technology boom to a career as a technical trainer, fortunately, again, establishing myself solidly by the time it began to turn. So what about China? Past experience has taught me that you can't expect the prosperity to continue unabated. Moral of the story, take advantage of the good times to prepare for the bad. The seven lean cows will eventually eat the seven fat cows. But if you are prudent, you can be prepared for a pretty good life during the hard times, if you don't squander prosperity during the time that you have it.