北京地铁: Underground in Beijing

Silk Street, 28ºC, thunderstorms

My first Sunday in China brought our first real foray into the city. My destination: the Silk Market. Famous as a hotspot for cheap goods (some more fake than others…), I decided to test my bartering skills with my broken Chinese, although admittedly I did get a little help from my roommate on the programme who had joined me in this expedition. Having been to the Silk Market in 2006, I was aware of what to expect, but this time I had some Chinese under my belt.

I first set out to buy some shirts. Determined not to be dragged into bartering against my own will, I tried my utmost to avoid catching the eyes of any clothes seller, instead doing my best to view products in my periphery. As I expected, the moment I touched a shirt in a stall, the vendor was on to me.

“要多少点吗？” I asked how much one cost. She subtly passed the ball back into my court: “how much do you think?” I wanted a few shirts so I offered 100元 for three shirts (just under $15). She scoffed. “180.” “100,” I replied, still using Chinese. She mumbled something I didn’t understand, and then said in English, “You very handsome. 150 for you.” Determined, I stuck to Chinese. “100”. “120”. Done.

There were two notable things about the journey back to my dorm. First, the underground was unbelievably crowded: there was hardly space to move as though I were at the centre of a shoal of fish. It seemed uncanny that the trains be overflowing at 6pm on a Sunday evening. I later discovered that due to the Dragon Boat Festival holiday this week, China was at work on Sunday, making up for the day’s work lost during the holiday. That really seems to defeat the point, but it seems to be an acceptable way to run the holiday system here.

Second, there was a musician playing a bamboo flute on the underground. Blind, his bamboo flute brushed against the shoulders of the sweaty commuters. His dirt-ridden nails were long, his hair was unkempt. He wore a blue flat cap and was led by a short stern-looking lady. A putrid smell wafted through the car as he edged by.

This was my first sniff of the bottom end of China’s socioeconomic spectrum, the poverty that is often overlooked by China’s booming economy. Of course, many have spent their lifetimes trying to eradicate poverty in China, but this was my first taste of the reality that millions of Chinese people still face. I am sure there is more to come, but it certainly won’t get any better.