Beijing, bottom up and top down
My wife Annet and I lived in Beijing for almost three months in the beginning of 2005 - I was a visiting professor at Tsinghua University. We lived on campus just north of the 4th ring road. Only ten years before this was at the uttermost outskirts of town, now space up to the 5th ring road has been filled with buildings. The 6th ring road is still under construction, but will be finished in a few years time from now. Parallel to this, buildings between the 5th and the 6th sprout up all over the place. Urban planning is clearly a top-down activity and its implementation takes place at a dazzling speed. Every time you come back to Beijing you see new things. Every time the traffic gets more and more congested too. Air pollution has increased now to breathtaking levels and only shortly after a rain shower can you find some fresh air. Outer change is enormous and looks to be orchestrated, although not completely controlled. There are also these smaller ‘bottom-up’ changes. Look at what you can buy in the shops for the ordinary people (not the ones for tourists or the well to do, these are ‘international’ with international prices too), like the grocery shop and the fruit market at the Tsinghua campus. This is really ‘local’, no English is spoken there. A piece of paper to scribble numbers on is good enough, although there is little reason to bargain - prices are very low anyway. As sports it is OK. In mid-winter (it can be very cold in Beijing in February/March, northern winds bring the cold directly from Siberia) you can buy fresh strawberries, cherries, and all kinds of vegetables on campus, all grown 2,000 km to the south. People buy it, enjoy it, and are well acquainted with it. This must have been a big change in habits and a first class logistic achievement. An invisible hand seems to have organized it all. Ten years ago there was none of this, there was just cabbage outside every Hutong building. How was this change caused? Is it just change in Beijing? Will there be anything left of the past? Yes, a lot is to stay. Chinese culture is well engrained in the minds of everybody; it is largely as it was. Self-confidence and pride have grown. China will do it in its own way and it will be successful. Progress is both top-down and bottom-up and it shows everywhere, day and night. Three months is not long enough to get fully immersed in these fascinating developments. It is definitely good enough to get a proper idea of it. City walk: Beijing is too big a city to do it all by walking. Rent a bike instead (this can be done in every hotel). See the tourist highlights by bike. Avoid the big avenues, cycle through the back streets and Hutong areas. For a comprehensive all day tour through Beijing look at Lonely Planet guidebook, Beijing, p. 64 - 69.
国际会议
The 4th International Conference on Waste Management and Technology(第四届固体废物管理与技术国际会议)
北京
英文
50
2009-11-28（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）