July 25th: T-minus-Two-Weeks

The Olympics Opening Ceremony begins two weeks from today, that is, on August 8th, in the national stadium (nicknamed the "Bird's Nest").

We returned from Japan on July 14th, and were pleased to find that the air had cleared considerably. It was blue sky that day, and for several days thereafter. Actually, it was raining heavily when we landed. The rain with the associated winds are what usually clears things up. Now, 11 days later, it has gotten somewhat smoggy again, but not as bad as in mid-June.

We were tempted to stay longer in Japan, but figured we needed to get back to take care of various things. Most important was a meeting with my Chinese mentor, Shen Zhihua, who is probably one of the two or three most prominent scholars of the Cold War in this part of the world. Jingxia and I have been translating some of his work, and he wanted to talk to us about this. So we took the light-rail, then the subway, then a taxi, to travel the 20 miles or so from our suburban apartment in Tongzhou qu (Ba and Ma’s apartment) to Shen’s high-rise. We had a good meeting, and then Shen headed for Shanghai, to return on August 1st. We are then going to go out to his Materials Center/Villa in Da Xing qu, another suburban district of Beijing municipal area, to spend a few days poring over his substantial collection of archival materials on Sino-Soviet relations.

After Japan, it was most pleasant to be able to take taxis again for only US $2 to $5 in central Beijing. They are Hyundai sedans, air-conditioned and quite comfortable. Occasionally, if the boys are tired or we are transporting purchases, we will take a taxi all the way back to our suburban home in Tong zhou. That costs maybe 75 Chinese yuan, or about $11. Usually, though, we take an air-conditioned express bus (2 Yuan, about 30 cents) along the super-highway that connects Tong zhou to central Beijing, or the light-rail, subway (also 2 Yuan, or 30 cents). The light-rail station is only about a mile or so from us. One of the advantages of living in Tong zhou is that the public transport connections to central Beijing are so good.

One of the things we were on the road for this past week was buying furniture and accessories for the apartment. (Ba, Ma, Jingxia’s brother Gaoxiang and sister-in-law Dongmei, and their baby, moved into a larger, rented apartment about 10 minutes’ walk from this apartment. They left us this entire apartment for us to use this year.) And guess where we went to do all this shopping? Why, the Beijing branch of IKEA, of course. The prices are pretty much the same as in the US. We made the mistake of going on a Saturday… it’s was difficult to move due to the masses all savoring Scandinavian designed-housewares.

But back to the Olympics: Starting last Sunday night, cars with license-plates ending in even numbers can only take to the roads on even-numbered days, odd-numbered plates on odd days. This is supposed to cut down on smog and traffic. It certainly has cut traffic by 1/3 or more (taxis and govt. cars are exempted), such that most of what one sees in central Beijing is swarms of taxis and busses. It remains to be seen if this will have a significant impact on air quality, though.

COMING NEXT: Pictures! Stay tuned!