Eric's Beijing Diary

I traveled to the east side today to have dinner with some of my friends who are living in Sihui. Living here in the University (Haidian) district as I do, I am accustomed to a significantly different lifestyle from the one I had in America. I live in an apartment in the Foreign Teachers' Dormitory. I ride a bicycle. I don't have a car. I don't want a car. Viola picked me up outside the North Gate this evening, and we drove to the apartment they have recently purchased. She usually drives more than an hour each way. But she told me that she prefers this to riding the subway.

What I am describing here, is the difference between the urban, professional culture, and the university culture. I often tell people in China that in America you really don't have a choice; you have to have a car. The Phoenix (Arizona) area, where I lived for seven years, had no subways and no light rail. You can't live in that huge, spread out area without a car. In Beijing, a car is a nuisance. I say that, of course, because I live in University housing and ride my bike to the office across campus. But if you work in the University district as my friend does, and live way out on the east side, then a car suddenly seems necessary. There is a problem, though, with this growing American style life. Approximately 1000 new cars are being added to the highways of Beijing every day. That comes to about a million new cars over the next three years. The highways are already choked now. What will life be like for drivers three years from now? In one sense, I certainly would not begrudge new drivers in China their chance to have the kind of life they have seen in the movies and always dreamed of having for themselves. But if things continue as they are without some restraint, the dream will become a nightmare. For me, it already would be. The traffic conditions people in China take for granted, I find intolerable. But I don't want to overstate the case, so I will try to give you a comparison so that you can judge for yourself. I was a truck driver for seven years, traveling the highways of North America. In America, there are cities, big cities, and megapoli. The easiest megapolis to drive in is Los Angeles. Every state highway is a six lane freeway, and all are clearly marked. The worst is New York City. Actually, it's a tie between New York and Boston. They're both pretty bad. When I say "New York," perhaps I should exclude Staten Island, because it doesn't really seem to be part of the city proper that one generally associates with New York, although it is one of the five burroughs. Beijing is definitely worse to drive in than L.A., but not as bad as New York or Boston. But it is getting worse every day.