The Rhythm of the City

On the surface Beijing is primarily a city of straight lines. The entire city is a grid. The Forbidden City in the direct center with major roads radiating north, south, east, and west, and there are five major highways that create concentric rectangles around the city. All other roads run parallel or perpendicular to these. Skyscrapers dominate the skyline in every direction creating vertical lines, and even Chinese characters are made with combinations of straight dashes.

At street level, however, it often seems have no order at all. Traffic lights, street signs and road lines are ignored. Pedestrians, two and three wheeled bicycles, taxi cabs, SUVs, black Mercedes, cement trucks, dump trucks, flat-bed trucks, buses, and motorcycles share the roads and weave in and out and around each other continually. It's a constant games of Chicken and the winners are those who understand angles and timing. There is an art to cutting someone off here, and you must never make eye contact or you'll lose your edge in the situation.

I've discovered that different cities require different soundtracks. Since I've been here I've found that "Kill the Moonlight" by Spoon, "In Rainbows" by Radiohead, and "Graceland" by Paul Simon seem to fit Beijing well. This city has a very strong rhythm to it but there is plenty of nuance as well. I tried to listen to Bowerbirds the other day; the meandering melodies and simple instrumentation reminded me of Eau Claire, but it definitely didn't fit Beijing.

People talk a lot about "culture shock," which is obviously part of adapting to Beijing, but it's almost as much of a change to get used to the tempo of a large city like this.