Eric's Beijing Diary

Melissa quit. She took a job at the Pass By bar down by Houhai Park. Before she left, she made me promise to come down there sometime and visit her. Well, I ride down to Houhai every once in awhile on my bike, so I told her I would drop by sometime. Today, though, I had some work to do on my laptop, so I took the subway to Guloudajie, and looked around for a bicycle rickshaw to take me down to the park. I was immediately approached by a broker for a rickshaw tour company. Probably looking for tourists. He wanted to charge me 20 RMB. That is about twice the going rate for normal rickshaws in other parts of the city. I protested adamantly that I was Chinese, not a foreigner, but he didn't believe me. But I think he could tell that I knew a little more about what those things actually cost than the average tourist. Truthfully, I really don't know that much, because I have never ridden one of those things with another Chinese person. They usually charge me 10 kuai, but they could be charging local people even less. Anyway, he lost his chance when a motorcycle cab driver came up to me and offered to take me there for the same price. Probably a good deal for him; I doubt if he would get more than five from a local person for that trip. But twenty is definitely too much. I could get a taxi for less. Generally, if the rickshaw driver doesn't charge more than a taxi, and the distance is not too long, I will take the rickshaw. It's more interesting. Taxi's always take the main roads. Rickshaws and motorcycle cabs wander among the hutongs. There's just more to see. And somehow, you know they will not be there forever. There used to be 17 million meters of hutongs in Beijing. Now there three million and counting. Down, unfortunately. What can you do? The people who live in these hutongs, with the poor plumbing and all the other problems that come with living in ancient, old-world quarters are dreaming of the day they can move to a nice high-rise. Some of them would like to stay, I am sure, but many of them want to move into something a little more modern. And the companies building the high rises are slightly more interested in making money than in preserving history. Beijing is a fascinating place. It has so much history. But slowly, slowly it is slipping away.