drawingbeijing

We had a great saturday. We saw the Bernardo Bertolucci’s ‘The last emperor’ in the morning, a film we both saw when we were teenagers, back when it was first brought to the big screen. Being in Beijing made us want to see it again, and apart from reveling in the superb photography of the film it was also revealing how much more willing China must have been at those times (the film was shot in 1985) to appear friendly and open, resulting in a film with scenes portraying the cultural revolution in a way that would be sheer impossible to get through censorship now.

Filmed in the forbidden city in 1985.

Seeing that film also showed me the unreliability of human memory: I could have sworn the scene where Pu Yi’s second wife leaves him takes place in front of a palace door in the forbidden city, in the rain, in a yellowish light. And they are standing there the three of them when she decides to ditch the umbrella he has just given her, and walk away, saying; “I don’t need you” The scene is not like that at all. It takes place at their house in Tianjin, a few years after they have been driven from the forbidden city, as she hastily shoves goodbye letters under the doors of Pu yi and his first wife, then walks out of the grand door of the mansion all by herself. It is a servant, who runs after her with the umbrella, that she takes and then drops, saying ‘i dont need it’ The camera follows her as she walks away grinning, in the torrential rain. So either there are several versions of this scene or my memory is severely lacking.

‘By the time I was eleven, flogging an eunuch had become my daily pasttime’

We both suspect that it is the latter as both of us remembered nothing of the storyline after the last emperor has been expelled from the forbidden city. As teenagers we were duly impressed by the emperor’s palace, the strangeness of the chinese grandeur. The scenes portraying Japan conquering China, the puppet state Manchukuo, the former emperor spending ten years in a re educational prison were all lost on us in those days. Even the fleeting lesbian scenes portrayed in the Manchukuo era I just blithely forgot, testimony of how late, and how sudden, sexuality became a factor of importance to me. That, or this is simply a showcase of how dense I was…

Torrential rain this area of China still gets in the summer. There was a nice thunderstorm on the 10th of july that flooded some streets. Some thunderstorms after that had also made their big puddles, a phenomenon I saw during every cloudbreak, and shrugged my shoulders about. Of course Beijing sewage systems are not up to par. I mean, many things here in China are not up to par, why be bothered by one more? That is China for you. Shiny, but broken.
So on came the storm of saturday the 21st of july. We were preparing to go to an exhibition in Songzhuang when it broke loose. It was just around 1 pm, as the sky blackened out. I remember thinking: wow, this looks like it is 7 pm in the evening! This is a biggie coming up!

We drove to Songzhuang, shaking our heads at the chaos on the streets and the highway, which was nothing beyond the normal chaos: a two lane byroad joining the highway was used as a four lane road and where the road narrowed to a single lane, somehow the cars melted to one lane more or less naturally (though far from harmoniously, let alone swiftly and efficiently) as the drivers had a choice between running into each other, or the concrete to either side of the road, or yield to whichever car was more ballsy or just simply bigger. In short, nothing out of the ordinary. It was just raining very hard all the way. Actually, that downpour didn’t stop all day (it was to stop only late at night, around two am) and as we drove over smaller roads towards the outskirts of Songzhuang, the puddles got bigger and bigger. Roads here are ill maintained, so nothing unexpected there either.

I felt sorry for Mr Luo, whom I knew to be washing the car to its meticulous white shine again on monday morning, as he always does.

The exhibition taking place in Songzhuang art centre was a cooperation between Chinese and Dutch artists, most of whom came from Gallery Maurits van de Laar. This was the second time ever I had been to Songzhuang. Last time was in winter, and I had been amazed at the emptiness, the stillness and silence of it, the dust, the derelict buildings sprouting up everywhere, the banner proclaiming creative grandeur in between dusty streets and haphazard housing. Todays rain made it unlikely I would have the chance to explore the town, to see if there is more life here in summer. Through the sheet of rain I did see that there was actually an exhibit at the Renhe gallery. The red carpet was out (was it ever taken away?) the little fence gone and the door was open. I feared there would not be much visitors however, facing this rain to go to an opening. I feared the same for the opening at the Songzhuang art centre. As it turned out, those fears were misplaced. There were a lot of people at the opening of the ‘Living Beijing’ exhibition. The dust had been sweeped from the floors and halls. The sleepy bar had been turned into art book store with a counter made of books. The entrance was over crowded, with people talking, smoking in the little strip of dry sidewalk just next to the building, and a chinese artist was inviting visitors to participate in his performance. Many chinese artists were there, happily chatting, a few members of the dutch embassy made an appearance, the western artists, including the dutch, sought each other out to talk.

‘Living Beijing’ art exhibit, overview of the first floor

I talked a lot, this opening, something I rarely do, as the words ‘artscene’ and ‘networking’ usually make my hair stand on end. I am too shy in general, to go out there and just blithely run into a conversation with strangers. But this time, I knew the gallery owner Maurits van de Laar, who kindly introduced me to Zeger reyers, who kindly introduced me to a belgian artist living in Songzhuang, who introduced me to.. and time flew by. So much so, I didnt even take enough time to properly photograph the exhibit, which will warrant another reconnaissance mission to Songzhuang for more pictures and more info. Something I’ll be delighted to do, as Song Zhang remains to be  a mystery.
I tried to make a soundclip of the torrential rain on the roof of the building. My lady shot a few pictures of the empty derelict galleries and building sites around us, their emptiness made more jarring by the rain.

Poster for the exhibit

Dirk van Lieshout. Nobody dared the rain for it..

Ed Pien

After much talk and two hideous wines we decided to drive home. It was still pouring. As we took a byroad to the highway towards Beijing that runs on a long concrete bridge over Tongzhou, I had to swerve around some very real waterfalls tumbling down from the highwaybridge. Every so often, we had to slow to a crawl as part of the road simply dissapeared under water and we waded through in slowmotion, in first gear with the engine running high. The rain was so thick we were giddy with it. We crossed a bridge, at some point, and I asked: “Hey, how does that river look?” S simply answered: “Big” Close to home S volunteered to go to the grocery shop on foot, just to experiene the warm water pouring down. I dropped her off on a small T crossing just in front of our house. The puddles there reached till halfway the road, but the sidewalk remained above water. It was shortly after 6 pm.

She came home drenched to the bone and laughing. She showered, we made dinner, and then we looked outside to the road below us. It had turned into a river. The sidewalks were still more or less clear of water, and we could still see the arrows on the road shining white under the water. Cars were plowing through, causing true bowwaves to ripple over the street. Pedestrians were screaming, giggling and laughing, sloshing through the water on their way to a higher sidewalk. It was still pouring relentlessly.
Around 8 pm, when the arrows painted on the road could no longer be seen and the sidewalks had been swallowed up as well, the first cars stopped dead in the middle of the road, having gotten water in the engine. Not everyone was aware that one had to keep the engine running high, to prevent water running up the exhaust pipe. And some others, thinking themselves safe either going just fast or in big burly SUV’s, found out that water can also come in through the airinlet and the hood, when one goes so fast as to make a big bowwave. Or, more cynically, when a big burly SUV’s bowwave rolls over the road and hits the hood of the car just trying to pass in the other direction, stopping that car dead while the big SUV plows on unheedingly. Moreover, modern cars have a lot of electronics under that hood. PAF! And that was the end of the heroic watercrossing.

The river in front of our house just before 9 pm, when the rain had lessened (but not yet stopped)

It didnt take long for a grand total of twelve cars to be stranded in the road in front of our house. We hadnt seen a single policeman during the whole evening, to cordon off the street, preventing cars from turning into the river. Not one. We heard no sirens, there was no firedepartment out to drag the broken cars out of the water, toinstall emergency pumps, nothing. We shook our heads and commented to each other; jeez, in an european country, the place would be alight with flashlights and sirens now, and traffic would have been diverted long ago. That is China for ya. Shiny, but broken. At the beginning of the street the big crossing was in disarray, with all the cars that wanted to turn into our street and only then saw the river stretching out in front of them, making many a car try to turn back and wiggle its way out of the street against the flow of traffic. Or, what most did, divert and drive over the bikepath to avoid the deep in the middle of the road. It was also around that time, 8 pm, that we first saw pedestrians stepping off the sidewalk and talking to the drivers of the broken cars, that were just standing there in the middle of the river. And call out to other people passing by. And staring to push some of the cars to the side of the road. That, unseemingly as it sounds, is the first time I saw strangers helping strangers in Beijing.

I made several films that evening, which can be watched here: First two films are taken from the balcony. The first one is taken around 6 pm, just after we returned home. The puddles are just beginning to form in our street, and the main reason for taking this vid is the sound of the unrelenting rain. It had been rainin g like that ever since 1 pm. The second one is a round 8:45 pm. The third film is after we gave up trying to help push cars, just after 9 pm.

Crowd watching the rescue efforts at flooded Guangqumen bridge, where several cars were completely submerged and some of their drivers died. (many bystanders jumped in and helped)

Picture grabbed from Chinasmack. Beijing turning into watercity.

And THIS is what the havoc looks like in the outskirts of Beijing, which do not warrant the name ‘suburbs’ but are poor farmers villages within the province of Beijing. Fanshan, a mountainous area to the southwest of Beijing was hardest hit. Conditions here are thirdworldly, rather then ‘urban’ or even ‘suburban’

Many more pictures can be found on Chinasmack A comprehensive article about the flood and it’s aftermath in the chinese mind and blogosphere is to be found on Tealeaf Nation

Later, when another storm, but this one on the internet, reared up concerning the aftermath of this rainstorm, the public of Beijing jumping in all over town to help  complete strangers was heralded as a step forward in the civic development of China. You know, it is not that common, to help strangers in Beijing, or in China as a whole. This is for a big part caused by the fact most people have no insurance, and the only way to get compensation for the costs of mishaps is suing. I, as a westerner, was vehemently advised not, not ever, to try to help if I saw an accident happen, or was involved in an accident myself. You’re white, they told me, therefore you are rich, and therefore they’ll put the blame on you and try to sue you for every last cent you have. This is the reason why many westerners in Beijing hire a driver and refuse to drive a car themselves. That way they can never be hold liable for an accident. This unfortunately doesnt concern westerners only, as the sad case of Yueyue last year has shown, or the case of the conservatorium student who ran over a woman farmer.

But that saturday night, in the relentless downpour, things shifted. Ever since Yueyue died, suing laws have been under scrutiny, prompting their change in many cases. And when the emergency is big enough, humanity kicks in.
People helped towing flooded cars from out under the bridge at Guang(name?) where the water rose to three meters above the asphalt, killing some very unfortunate peopple trapped there in their cars. Others drove people that were stranded towhere they needed to go, picked up stranded passengers from the airport, offered their homes, showers and towels. Weibo was widely used as a platform to ask and offer help. For as far as I can discern reading through the many stories and articles I find about the rainstorm on the internet, this was a first.

We didnt know at that moment the situation was so dire elsewhere. We were just shaking our heads and giggling. We went down to the street, to view the river from groundlevel, and we offered several cars still standing around our help. The first one, a metallic mercedes, shook her head when I made pushing signs and pointed to the shore. She put up her handbrake when I tried to push her car. Okay, that is a clear enough ‘no’. Next was a Jeep askew in the middle of the T crossing. He laughed and thanked us, speaking english. “No need, I am waiting for some friends who will pull me out” Third there was a car already being pushed by two chinese. I went over to help pushing but they looked at me strangely, then waved me away.
So we walked around the borders of the streetriver, stamping the water, jumping the bowwaves of passing cars, laughing and getting drenched. The water, when I stepped down from the sidewalk, reached to just under my knee.

37 people died that day. Or so the official numbers say. It was the Beijing suburbs and outer villages that were hit hardest, there where the land already rises up into mountains. Whole villages turned into pools, cars were swept up in the small hutongs and crashed into each other. Roofs caved in. There were mudslides. Rumour on the internet has it the real deathtoll is higher. The local government to date hasnt said a word about the whole case, only firing up those rumours. By now, as the new weekend is here, the official numbers have been upped to 77. That there is a strange thing happening with the number 37, is something a chinese netizen pointed out as he discovered most official newsreels mention that in this-or-that disaster, the number of casualities were… 37. Over and over again. It is apparenlty a Chinese censor’s staple, to pull out the number 37. But maybe, just maybe, things are slowly changing in the heads of the officials, indoctrinated since ancient times to withhold information (the Mao era is just a continuation of imperial times in -not only- that aspect) as can be read in this article on tealeaf.

It was the worst rainstorm in 61 years. So effectively, this means that this was the first time the modern city got tested for this kind of rain, as 61 years ago, the second ring road was only being built and the city stopped at the remnants of the old ming dynasty citywall (the last parts of which would in 1952 be totally demolished to give way for that second ringroad, and the city now sprawls far beyond the fifth ringroad) Also noteworthy is the fact that Tiananmen and the forbidden city, the latter with a sewage system also dating back to the Ming dynasty, experienced only minor upsettings. It seems that 800 years ago, sewage was better constructed then today.

In its drive to become a very modern, very shiny, very glittering glass and smooth concrete city, proper drainage and sewage works got a bit forgotten in Beijing. And undoubtedly, not only in Beijing. Everyone wants their name on a high glass tower after all, but who wants his or her name on a sewer pipe?
On the internet, people commented on this with varying degrees of frustration and sarcasm. I get my information through a few blogs that follow the movements in the chinese social media, and I have no idea how accurately the few posts they report represent the overall feeling in chinese cyberspace, but it is telling that many Chinese themselves expect China to be better now. Chinese officials may tell the world that China is still a developing country, its citizens certainly no longer expect it to be.

(EDIT: Update made on sunday morning 29th of july: this article on tealeaf tells how indeed, the way officials handle disasters might be changing, in no little way due to the aftermath of these floods. An interesting, and mildly hopeful read)

Tags: Art, Beijing floods, bertolluci, Chinese art, Chinese netizens, Living Beijing, modernization, Songzhuang, the last emperor