Several hundred police and “stability maintenance” officers reportedly descended on the Tianle Market in Xicheng this week (VPN required) after vendors began protesting the city’s decision to close their stalls. The move to shutter the Tianle Market is part of sweeping changes in the Beijing urban landscape this year as municipal authorities have moved to shut down or relocate wholesale markets and small businesses in the city center.
That the Tianle Market is closing is hardly news to those of us who live in Beijing, its closure just more detritus to add to the dust and rubble of hutong cafés, local stores, mom-and-pop shops, and, of course, "Dirty Bar Street."
But as the year of the Great Brickening comes to an end, it is becoming clear both through official statements and the general pattern of “creative destruction” what the future might hold, not just for those areas already affected, but for what might come next.
A few quick hot takes:
- Make no mistake: This is about clearing out as many small and low-end businesses as possible from the city center. If the foreigners and economic migrants who run those businesses leave the city too, all the better.
- 2017 was Phase One. Phase Two will be even more painful because the low-hanging fruit has been plucked and smashed. Expect “fire inspections” and “zoning checks” to start affecting existing (and in some cases long-standing) structures inside hutong blocks and courtyards. If you’re renting the gorgeous, remodeled duplex of your dreams in a hutong east of Gulou, best check with your landlord to make absolutely sure that his sublet is legal and the structure (including all floors, doors, terraces) is 100 percent legal.
- Neighborhoods in Dongcheng/Xicheng will be “beautified” by the destruction of actual historical structures to be replaced by reimaginings of the area, complete with new “ancient” structures designed to attract the “right kind of business.” Think the demonic love spawn of Qianmen and Nanluoguxiang.
The issue here is one of cultural confidence: Every time a tourist visits a gussied-up section of Beijing and complains, “This could be anywhere in the world!” there are a couple of polyester-clad mid-level urban planners in the Beijing municipal government high-fiving each other as they Eiffel Tower the exhausted corpses of “Historic Authenticity” and “Cultural Preservation.”
Even as other international cities move in the direction of encouraging spontaneous markets, small vendors, and an organic street culture, too many planners here seem afraid that these are the things which make Beijing seem “dirty” or “backward.” It’s a problem which goes back to the days of Sun Yat-sen through the “Political Vicissitudes of the 1960s." Having been force-fed a Western idea of modernity for over 100 years, even today’s proudly rejuvenated Chinese leaders find it hard to conceive of a Chinese modernity which can co-exist peacefully with Beijing’s past.
Maybe this will change. Maybe other voices in the municipal government will achieve the goal of a Beijing modernity that harmonizes an authentic past with a dynamic future.
In the meantime, an ode to our changing city (with apologies to Bruce Springsteen and his song “Atlantic City”):
They tore down mojito man behind Taikoolee last night,
They tore down Pure Girl too,
Will First Floor go down without a fight?
Let’s see what those construction boys can do.
Now there’s trouble busin’ in from all around
Everywhere there’s PSB
Gonna be a congress out in the center of town
And our VPNs are hanging on by the skin of their teeth
Everything gets chai’d that’s a fact,
But maybe somethings getchai’d which won’t come back
Brick up your hutong right, make your street look pretty
And meet me tonight, in China’s capital city
Well, I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no hutong bar owner can pay
So I drew what I had from my Weixin and Alipay
And bought some land out in East Hebei
Everything gets chai’d and that’s a fact,
But maybe somethings getchai’d which won’t come back
Forget your sausage stands and LGBT festivities
And meet me tonight, in China’s capital city
Now our bar may have died and our café has gone cold but with you forever I’ll stay
You’ve got a 2-year Z visa and that’s like gold, so put your stockings on
we’ve still got Ron Mexico, and maybe that won’t getchai’d
and that’s a fact, but sometimes everything that’schai’d someday comes back …
Image: Bruce Tapes, tour-beijing.com
