Beijing Subway Graffiti Shock

I guess this is a tag, but it’s something I didn’t expect to see on the Beijing Subway. Don’t know whether this is Made in China or a personal import.

On Foot in Beijing: Food for Thought

Spotted whilst walking around a food court near the Bird's Nest stadium in the Olympic park. Not sure whether it's the name of the establishment, the signature dish, or the result of eating here. I wasn't brave enough to find out.

Beijing On Foot: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good

• Most of the city is laid out on a grid pattern, making for easy navigation
• Many streets are tree- lined
• The risk of crime is pretty low, if you exclude the risk of being scammed, in any number of imaginative ways
• Some streets are pedestrianised, although many of the more recent ones are just outdoor linear malls
• Wandering around what's left of the old hutongs, where traffic is restricted by the architecture and the often winding lanes
• Plenty of free public toilets, a legacy of the time when many of the old hutong houses had no plumbing
• The extensive subway network, for when the walking gets too much
• The few Blue Sky Days, when the white haze gives way to sunshine and clear air

The Bad

• The sheer physical scale - it's a huge, sprawling city, the Los Angeles of Asia (complete with smog), so distances for walkers can be daunting
• The quantity of motor traffic, and the speed, pollution and noise it produces
• A series of humongous ring roads and expressways, with torrents of traffic which can require annoying and sometimes hazardous detours
• In summer it’s hot, humid and  hazy. In winter it's cold, windy....and hazy
• Sudden lack of access due to closure of footways, seemingly for 'security' reasons
• Pavements not always in a good state of repair, and there are many hazards to watch out for, such as impromptu mechanic's workshops on the footway
• Pavement parking - drivers seem to see the footway as an extension of the road, only with fewer restrictions
• The destruction of much of historical Beijing, which has taken with it much of the sense of place
• Hard- to-fathom bus system, with distance-related fares

The Ugly

• Constant need to avoid prodigious amount of spitting - either ground level results, or airborne expectorations
• Some gross smells emanating from side alleys

Bikes in Beijing, Brighton and Hove

According to songstress Katie Melua “There Are Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing.” Or there were, in 2005. Based on my observations last week, not any more. Katie would have to change the title to “There Were Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing, But Now There Seem To Be Just As Many Cars,” which sadly does not scan too well. I grew up with images of pedestrians braving battalions of bikes and streams of cycles in order to cross the road in Beijing. Now it's torrents of traffic. While other countries are embracing bike hire schemes and trying to tame the car, Beijing has gone in the opposite direction, and unleashed the car. Crossing the street is a risk to life and limb - signalled intersections have a countdown for pedestrians while the green man is lit up, but drivers seem to think that giving way to pedestrians is optional - they are likely to weave around you, often at speed, whilst you're crossing. Which is alarming. And the pollution caused by all these cars is something else. Meanwhile, in Brighton, hoping not to go down the Beijing road, the council is consulting on plans to introduce bike lanes onto the Old Shoreham Road. You can have your say via the consultation portal.

Outside The Box in Beijing

During the last couple of years I have been contracted as a consultant to a UN agency, the International Telecommunication Union, for whom I have written studies on climate change and the ICT sector.  The ITU recently asked me to give a presentation as an expert on such matters at a seminar on green ICTs in Beijing, co-hosted by the ITU and China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It would have been rude to refuse, so I duly turned up in Beijing last week, having decided to tack on a couple of extra days – my first visit to Beijing being a chance to check out the capital of the next global superpower (ironically, videoconferencing did not seem to be an option).  Beijing catapulted into public prominence during the 2008 Olympic Games, which saw a boom in construction with iconic structures like the Bird’s Nest stadium. Less visible, but more useful was the expansion to the Beijing Subway, which is still ongoing. The subway is fast, frequent, clean, air-conditioned, extensive, inexpensive (2 CNY or about 20 pence, to go anywhere) and seems efficient. Many of the stations have public toilets, and the trains have illuminated maps to show progress, plus announcements in English. It's also the only subway system I've encountered where bags are x-rayed in a security check before you descend to the platform - presumably a bit more of the Olympic legacy (although the operators seemed pretty bored, and I never saw anyone stopped for a closer inspection). If you don’t mind sharing the train with what sometimes feels like a large part of Beijing’s 22 million population, the subway is definitely the best way to stay cool and beat the sprawl in this global megacity.