26/7/2006 - I can't stand this any more! |
It keeps raining a lot in Beijing these days. Therefore, I have to take buses to work and home. The No. 43 bus which I have to take on the early morning and after work is always packed with people. Here, I need to clarify a term - waidi ren (waidi means out of town, from a different town, city or province inside China and ren means people). You just try to see as far as you can on the bus, a few Beijingers, heaps of waidi ren. They smell really bad including their BO and breath. (I really don't know why all waidi ren on the bus smell bad but they do.) They are not polite either. We Beijingers are really disciplined - we ask the passengers standing before us whether they are getting off next bus stop. If they are not, we ask for a move and pass between them with frequent "excuse me" and "sorry" being said. However, waidi ren are different. They just squeeze between people without asking others or feeling embarrassed. (I have to be honest here, some 50 something Beijing women are sometimes like this.)
I really can't stand this. Unfortunately, I have to suffer from the same in subway. In May, 2006, Beijing governmemt launched an e-system on buses and trains in subway to facilitate people if they have an e-card (actually there are two kinds of e-cards which make it less convenient). Not speaking of whether the system is efficient or not, the government has limited the number of subway-e-card holders to control the total of people who take subway. But it's still a disaster. So many waidi ren take subway. I feel so happy if I see only one Beijinger in the carriage (Amazingly but luckily, you can tell whether a person is a Beijinger by their BO and look. ) I feel like Beijing is invaded and it's hard to preserve its tradition and temperament.
Last month, one people's representative made a proposal to the State Council for limiting the number of people who come to Beijing from other places in China, namely, waidi ren. Finally, they have realised that Beijing is as packed as the No. 43 bus, which can't take any more people. A full bus is really dangerous - it's hard to brake the bus as well as other problems like disease contagion. So is a city, so is my beloved hometown, Beijing. Yesterday morning, I had a look at someone's newspaper in subway, the heading was Beijing has exceeded its capacity for people! It's dangerous to live in a packed city!
Now I can relatively understand why some developed western countries, or some cities/towns in those countries are reluctant to take immigrants from less developed and civilized countries. They not only rob job chances of you, affect your life's quality, but also worsen a city's image and destroy its good tradition.
I have to say, Beijing, as China's great capital, has to attract a lot of waidi ren and waidi ren have their rights to develop themselves and seek better chances. But would they please consider us Beijingers' feelings? And I beg them not to disturb our life and learn our Beijingers' good living habits and appreciate our pleasant personlities.
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26/7/2006 - Phew! |
| Posted by zhangbohan |
| This is a very controversial topic, so I guess that you're courageous to speak about it with such frankness. Immigrants are needed for developed places to develop further, but they can have a bad effect on the stability of the destination. This topic is certainly very complicated, but I reckon Beijing really is overcrowded. I don't have a degree in macro economics, so I can't explain what the best course of action would be, but I reckon if the government could make other cities more attractive then perhaps that would encourage people to stay home. Recently, we went to Baiyangdian, a small city in Hebei. That city had absolutely nothing, just a couple of roads and bunch of ugly shops. Why would anybody want to live there, especially when Beijing is so close? The Chinese government rakes in millions of dollars per year, so why can't they beautify rural cities and make them more liveable. All it would take would be a few parks and attractive pieces of architecture. Anyway, that's my small suggestion on this complicated topic. |
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