Our first morning stop was to visit some old hutongs. In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Once upon a time there were many of these. Now they are mostly demolished in the cause of progress. A few remain and are designated as protected.
We arrived in a large, open square where the locals were playing with shuttlecocks and banners. The shuttlecock game involves kicking a large shuttlecock between people. The banners were whirled around to make bright and colourful patterns. I am not really sure why the people were doing this. It seemed to make them very happy.
We were marched to a particular siheyuan where a friendly woman welcomed us and served tea. All 25 of us were packed into the tiny courtyard. Squished up on little stools while our guide explained to us about life in the hutongs. One of the things that got mentioned several times was how expensive a siheyuan was. Apparently, they are mostly privately owned and passed down the generations. I was puzzled at why a small accommodation in a rather scruffy area could be worth so much. Communist economics – what has happened to collective ownership? Much later, I got to thinking that the answer is that this is one of the very few opportunities to actually own a piece of land.
The woman played a tune on guzheng, a traditional Chinese plucked zither musical instrument. We all got the chance to look at an old door and some ornaments in a small side room. Then we were off and walking down the hutongs again. I imagine the woman was paid well for showing us the siheyuan. She had a bit smile as she waved us goodbye. The hutongs are incredibly narrow in places. I read the smallest is a mere 40cm. Unfortunately, we were not introduced to this one but even so, we discovered that trying to fit our group and car down the little streets was a bit tricky. Eventually we emerged by a Macdonalds burger place. I am reluctant to echo their claim to be a restaurant so I will just call it a place. This was slightly interesting however in the way that it had absorbed the local culture so as to fit in with the look and feel of the street.
That was it for Beijing culture. The next part of our journey was a bullet train to Xian. The Chinese bullet train network is remarkable. In the space of about 15 years, China has constructed the largest high speed train network in the world. 50,000 km of track with trains running at up to 300 km/h. For several reasons, this could probably only happen in China.
The technology has its origins in Japan and some other countries. In classic China fashion, this was initially bought in and then copied. An approach known as technology transfer whereby China uses its raw buying power to adopt foreign engineering, copy it and then bring it in house. The Japanese company, Kawasaki experience with CSR (China’s national rail company) is a typical example. Initially there was a contract to provide 60 complete locomotive and coach sets. Three were delivered from Japan. Six more were delivered as kits to be built in China with help from Kawasaki. The contract was then cancelled and China went on to fulfil its requirement for hundreds of trains without any external help. Kawasaki sued for breach of patent but failed because in China copyright is not really understood or recognised in law.
The second big advantage is that the state owns most of the land. The route of a high-speed rail track becomes essentially an engineering problem. Social, political or environmental issues can be virtually ignored. People may need to be moved and the government claim that they are fairly compensated for this. However, the investigations, planning and permissions needed in many other countries are superfluous. This is a powerful reduction is cost and time.
Finally, in such a large country, the manpower and funding are readily available. This is how, in the time that the UK has mostly talked about a single, short, high-speed trainline, China has built an entire network. The Chinese approach has not been without its problems though. The system currently has an accumulated debt of around $800 billion. It struggles to reduce this because tickets, although cheap by world standards, are prohibitively expensive compared to what locals can afford. The rapid expansion means that some areas are over-served and uneconomic. Widespread corruption during the construction phase has caused delays and safety concerns. Several senior officials have been dismissed over charges of bribery amounting to millions of dollars. In July 2011 two trains collided with serious loss of life. The collision exposed poor management by the railway company. This fatal accident, which happened in the midst of corruption investigations into railway officials, led to greater scrutiny in the Chinese press and the populace.
We arrived at Beijing train station with over an hour to spare. The station is immense and packed with people. We needed to queue to get in through the security scanners. They confiscated Diane’s hair cutting scissors which were 4 mm over the regulation 60 mm. After a long time waiting, we got into the queue to get to the platform. We needed our passports for this. Then we had to queue to get on the train and finally we had to find somewhere for our luggage on the packed train. Although Diane and I had reserved seats, we did not get to sit next to each other. The trains are fast and smooth but people are squashed in there like sardines. My seat was defiantly designed for someone much smaller than me. After six hours it was getting extremely uncomfortable.
But we made it and next day we were going to see the Terracotta Warriors.