Demolition in Gulou

Gulou (Drum Tower in English) is a centuries old tower in central Beijing that happily lends its name to the surrounding neighborhood.  Together with the Bell Tower directly to the north, the Drum Tower was used for centuries to announce the time to Beijing's residents before western timekeeping made it obsolete after the fall of the Qing Dynasty.  Some of the hutongs surrounding the Drum and Bell Towers date back to the Yuan Dynasty and give this otherwise bland megacity a few points for livability and originality.

Beijing tour guide pointing out Gulou

Sadly the drums are eerily silent now.  The neighborhood named after the city's largest timepiece appears to have run out of the valuable commodity it kept track of for centuries.  The historic neighborhood that surrounds the towers is one of the city's main tourist destinations because it remains so well-preserved, but the city seems intent on changing this fact.  

Beijing might be my temporary home, but outside the second ring road it is a lame, desolate cultural wasteland.  Imagine a never ending vertical suburb that is unlivable and lacks any sort of defining characteristics.  Places like Gulou are few and far between in mainland China.  Most people from mainland China seem oblivious to the fact that development and construction don't necessarily make a neighborhood more livable or raise quality of life.  As a result, you'll find many housing developments in China that are tens of stories tall, but still miles away from anywhere.  Living in a neighborhood like Gulou is far closer to what life is like in the United States where convenience is king.  Even if most of the structures are older than dirt, at least a list of errands doesn't take 10 hours

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Old ladies playing mahjong in the rubble

But now it looks like the neighborhood's days are numbered (Probably numbered 4 because it sounds like death in Chinese).  Last week the Drum and Bell Coffee Shop, a Beijing institution known for its great Americano, closed without warning and is slated for demolition soon.  You might be wondering why the Chinese Government is demolishing one of the city's most historic neighborhoods, and the answer might surprise you.  It is planning to build a Disneyland-esque copy of the current neighborhood.  That is right, tear down the old buildings and simply reconstruct copies of them in their place.

Officially called a "restoration", the destruction of a historic neighborhood in Beijing is nothing new.  Both Qianmen and the Houhai district went through "restoration", with Qianmen now resembling a Chinese version of Disneyland's Main Street USA, complete with every bland American, Taiwanese  and Japanese chain-store that you can imagine.  The funny thing about it (at least from the perspective of foreigners) is that they destroy the entire historic neighborhood to rebuild a cartoon version of what stood before.  And as you can guess, in mainland China, there isn't any public dissent against this travesty.                  

Hong Kong: Democratic Crossroads

Crowd at the protest last week. 

Last week, mass protests erupted across Hong Kong as pro-democracy advocates took to the streets.  With 2017 fast approaching, it remains unclear how or if Beijing will be able to implement its plans for universal suffrage in Hong Kong.  The protests occurred on the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from the United Kingdom 17 years ago and have become a kind of annual event.  Organizers estimate than over 500,000 people participated in the protest, but police estimate the number to be around 98,000.  Over 500 protesters were arrested, and coverage of the event by state news agencies in China remains almost nonexistent.  

Protestors being detained by police

Unrest in the world's 3rd financial capital are nothing new.  Riots in the 50's and 60's brought the colony to a standstill as it attempted to cope with mass migration across the border from China during the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution.  Last week's protests are something different, and very few would ever compare Hong Kong's "repatriation" to America's Fourth of July.  (By the way, my fourth here was alright.  Had barbeque)  Hong Kong remains relatively unique among former British colonies because it didn't receive independence, it just became part of another larger entity.  It is worth noting that pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong often carry Hong Kong's former colonial flag, complete with the British ensign in the upper left-hand corner.    

From 2013.  Notice the old colonial flag.  

The protests prove something very important to me that I already knew.  Political apathy isn't ingrained in the Chinese through some inherited trait.  This might sound ridiculous and slightly racist, but I have heard it many times over the last year.  During my time in China, I have had several people (exclusively mainland Chinese, always wealthy, and usually party members) tell me that the Chinese people don't care about politics in any form.  This argument is of course absurd, especially considering the Communists fought a war to win power and that usually the person telling me this is a member of a political party.

As the situation down south continues to develop, it remains to be seen how Beijing will deal with its politically unruly, financial hub.  A clampdown likely would not go well for any of the parties involved, especially Hong Kong's pro-democracy advocates.  However, their moral victory last week proved human rights don't discriminate based on ethnicity or what passport you hold.