[sustran] Fwd: IHT Man versus machine on Beijing's streets

Barter, Paul paulbarter at nus.edu.sg
Tue Aug 3 16:55:12 JST 2004


International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/532224.html

Meanwhile: Man versus machine on Beijing's streets  
   Philip J. Cunningham 
IHT  Tuesday, August 3, 2004 

BEIJING The courage of ordinary Beijing citizens never ceases to elicit
wonder. Fifteen years ago, the populace stood in the way of tanks and
soldiers, desperately trying to preserve a civic space they lived in and
loved. Today, pedestrians can still be seen playing chicken with heavy,
groaning vehicles in singular, random acts of defiance. They are
standing up to the onslaught of sport utility vehicles and black-tinted
limousines that herald the arrival of a two-class society in the
People's Republic - those with cars and those without.
.
For every incessant horn honker, speed demon and oil-dripping car
blocking a sidewalk, there's a stubborn pushcart vendor, an overflowing
fruit stand and a floating curbside chess game making right-of-way
claims to the same lanes and public thoroughfares.
.
Tempers, especially in the torrid summer weather, are hot and rising.
It's a David-versus-Goliath struggle in which society's poor and less
advantaged put their humble selves in the way of imperious traffic.
Resistance is risky, perhaps futile, but a compromise may grow out of
the conflict. First-generation drivers, perhaps a bit giddy and
overenthusiastic behind the wheel, are confronted daily with reminders
that the streets do not belong to them alone.
.
A widely reported saga in which a wealthy car owner ran over and killed
a defiant pedestrian with impunity was not an isolated case. And the
explosion of interest in the story on the Internet shows it touched a
raw nerve. China has an appalling accident rate, resulting in more road
deaths than the United States with only a fraction of the cars.
.
Gasoline-burning vehicles not only degrade air quality and pose physical
dangers, but are altering a centuries-old way of life.
.
Reaction to the brave, new motor world is mixed, a combination of
beating it and joining it. The carless sneer with both envy and
resentment at the self-important nouveau car owners, once bare-chested
bicyclists like themselves. But a country with China's population cannot
attain or sustain a one-car-per-family lifestyle.
.
China's standard response in the face of the unknown - building a wall -
has been in evidence, but rendered ineffectual because of state support
for car-owners' claims of right of way.
.
Oddly, parking lots are the one ingredient of car culture that have been
largely overlooked in the rush to imitate the West. As a result, car
chaos is rampant.
.
Crossing streets has been dangerous in Beijing for quite some time,
given the incessant road widening and traffic volume, but only in the
past few years have the generally well-appointed sidewalks become danger
zones - part parking lot, part service road, crowded with impatient cars
and angry cyclists who have been squeezed out of the bicycle lanes by
bigger vehicles.
.
One day, while trying to squeeze past an illegally parked sport utility
vehicle that forced pedestrians to walk in the street, I asked the
driver, as she opened the door of her vehicle with a proud flourish of
the keys, why she had parked on the sidewalk. "Because there's no place
to park." What she meant of course, was that there was no place to park
in front of the hamburger restaurant she had just exited, though there
was ample street parking a short distance away.
.
During the conflict of 1989, Beijing residents frightened by the
humiliation of imminent military occupation erected makeshift roadblocks
of sticks, stones, bricks and branches on major arteries leading into
the city, making a gesture against the inevitable. Even when armored
personnel carriers and tanks reached the perimeter of Tiananmen Square,
makeshift barricades and tank traps were hastily erected with metal
poles, cement chunks and bricks. An echo of this can be seen in the
attempts today to slow the commercial automotive onslaught - a few
bricks or bottles here, a broken paving stone or some rubbish there,
unmenacing enough to be driven over, around, dispersed or pulverized.
.
The Great Wall of China, erected at unimaginable human expense, failed
to slow the historic waves of barbarian advance, but it remains a
testament to the human stubbornness and pride, the desire to protect a
way of life under threat. This time around there is no Great Wall to
keep the hordes of metallic steeds at bay, but notice has been served.
The streets and most especially the back alleys, will not be yielded
without resistance.
.
Philip J. Cunningham is freelance journalist based in Beijing.


[forwarded for education and research purposes]
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