I’m the Year of the Ox, but You Can Call Me Horse
Mǎǎǎ kè… Mǎǎǎǎǎǎ kèèèèè!!! I hear those words in my dreams, day in and day out, ringing like the sounds of the morning echo of a bell tower waking its town below. I’ve come to accept my name, I even like it. Hearing those two overextended syllables stretch out from the mouths of my peers and colleagues brings back vivid memories from my first trip to mainland China. The trips multifariousness shaped my experience in China into one rich with culture, customs, history, and friendships, all within the backdrop of the most rapidly transforming country in the world. I am Mǎ kè, 欢迎!
Mǎ kè is a direct translation of my name, Mark, in Pin Yin. When broken down, Mǎ kè actually means horse and to overcome. “This is a strong name!” said Jim, one of the Chinese partners from NCUT. I heard the word “strong” used by various Chinese people all over the country. It seems that being “strong” is a universal term for many things in China relating to all spectrums of health, mind, and body. I’ve found that engaging with and trying to understand another culture is not easy, but the willingness to open up and surrender yourself can make the difference between understanding it and missing it. The opportunity to interact with Chinese students and professors on a regular basis for 4 weeks was the chance of a lifetime for me. I am ½ Chinese, and ½ White American, yet I’ve known very little about my Chinese background which has been rapidly assimilated into American culture. To say the least, I was ecstatic to participate in the ENV China 2010 Program. I now feel closer to China.
 |
| Li Meng and Ma Ke on their way to find a new restaurant off campus. |
Closer to China: Do People Change As Fast As A Transforming City?
I am change. I'm a hybrid mixture of my mother and father's ethnicities. I supposed you can say I’m the product of a globalizing world, a combination of my immediate environment and the extended environments I've been exposed to through new technologies and travel. I am a mixture of no less than five European ethnicities, and one Asian ethnicity, not to mention, I am fully American. China still maintains a largely homogeneous population when it comes to people in the Western half of the country, but in the case of a transforming city such as Beijing, I ask whether the rapid redevelopment of the city will also cause a rapid change in the people and the culture. Is China becoming something we recognize already in western society, or is the country transforming into something unique unto itself?
 |
| An Evolving Beijing w/A Rare Undeveloped Piece of Land |
 |
| Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center |
Entering the neighborhoods targeted for redevelopment became an excavation of time and culture. Our primary project was situated in and around the Back Street of Fayuan Temple, located in the vast Xuanwu area. Only portions of the street block have been protected as cultural or historical sites, leaving out what professionals in the fields of architecture and urban planning consider significant sites within the neighborhood. Professor Zhang Bo of North China University of Technology, Beijing, has dedicated his time to the historic protection of forgotten historic localities and cultural relic buildings in this area. “The vast south Xuanwu area is supposed to have many relic buildings other than just Fayuan Temple and several others, and there is no reason for the area to own just Fayuan Temple, Da Shi Lan, Color Glaze Plant, and two or three historic protection zones” (Zhang, 1). How and under which criteria does the Chinese government decide what stays and goes? When you find out, let me know!
 |
| Fayuan Temple Back Street |
China’s property led redevelopment has become a threat to similar sights in growing Chinese metropolitan regions, and private property developers and investors have been known to overlook the historical value of the buildings that are torn down and replaced with modern commercial and residential uses. Specifically, our site was located in a network of Hutong’s, or alleys created through the erection of Siheyuan, courtyard houses. Courtyard houses are significant to China, because the design was used as the standard style of residential form and served as a functional design to the climate and needs of residents. In recent times, courtyard houses have been modified to solve inner-city housing shortfalls through the addition of units within the courtyards. Today, high-rise apartments are China's solution to the growing housing demands. In our study of the Guang’AnMen NanDaJie Hutong, we found the recurring issues of property-led redevelopment and residential displacement to be in question. Historic preservation in China is executed in ways that may or may not fully preserve the historic integrity of the site or accurately reflect the design of the buildings.
I'm not attempting to decipher whether it is right or wrong to redevelop historic neighborhoods. The fact is, with the amount of people in China and its major cities, redevelopment must occur to account for the massive population of people in the cities, and to efficiently update old infrastructure. The courtyard house is a low-density residential design, a form no longer applicable to the masses.
 |
Typical Beijing Courtyard Home Roof/Floor Plan
|
The myriad social and cultural issues that arise in the face of redevelopment create a tension between the old, and the modern demands of growing cities. This inevitable evolution of cities was evident when walking in Beijing and seeing the contrasts between old and new. Our first visit to the site began with a journey down a major transportation corridor that was laced with bus transit lines and a subway line. The busy streets were packed with cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, and the occasional cart, either pushed by a man or pulled by horse. On either side of the large street were pedestrian bridges and tall, modern office buildings and prosaic high-rise apartments.
The sounds reminded me of any other big city I’ve visited, minus the echo of the Chinese language, leaving me curious as to funny stories or interesting comments I may have missed in my passing by. The smells led me around the area like a curious dog. Some were good smells, like the floating fragrance of the food vendors making steamed buns and meat skewers. Other smells were distracting, like the exhausted sewer systems and basic communal toilets, rubbish left on the street for too long, and vehicle emissions.
Most dramatic were the visual transformations of the built environment, walking from the busy streets down narrow corridors and into the hutongs. The unplanned network of lanes formed through the construction of the courtyard house have become more than transportation networks. The hutongs have become communal spaces for gathering, trading stories and news, business, and recreation. It was amazing how busy the narrow alleys were, and to see the healthy tensions of uses within them.
 |
| Chinese Chess - A Daily Ritual In This Hutong |
It was in these
hutongs that we saw systems of social networks, that have taken decades if not longer to build, in danger of being destroyed to satisfy the appetite of a growing city. Social networks made without cell phones, email or facebook, but with physical contact, were in question. The fragmentation of multigenerational neighborhoods is increasingly occurring. At the same time, younger generations are leaving their villages for the city. Large aspirations for higher pay and consumer goods are growing. China is in a washing machine of coloreds and whites. The old and new are clashing together with tremendous force. Interestingly enough, while in the
hutongs, I saw a range of individuals using them. The elderly in traditional clothes, the young adults in modern blue jeans and designer t-shirts, and children all passed through those hutong lanes. It seems that as China's built environment morphs into a megalopolis, the younger generations are growing with it at a comfortable pace.
What changed first, the people or the city?
 |
Image from the Future Pavilion, World Expo, Shanghai 2010
“The shape of a city changes faster, alas, than the desires of the human heart”
 —Charles Baudelaire, French poet |
Knowing of China’s thirst for growth, it is difficult to say whether it is right or wrong to tear down the hutongs and the homes around them. Is it the dilapidated historic structures or the people and the community they've built that are truly significant? Wang, an NCUT student of architecture and urban planning said, "We build buildings for people, not people for buildings." Wang is absolutely right. China is getting buildings built for people, to supply the basic needs of shelter, but I think it’s the program they use that has been scrutinized.
 |
| Viewpoint of Beijing from Behai Park |
 |
| The Lion Forest Garden, Suzhou City |
 |
| Master Fawan's Pagoda, Shaolin Temple |
Can the rapid change in China’s cities be a catalyst for human evolution? Is Charles Baudelaire right about human change in face of an evolving city? After all, he lived and died in the 19th century before the patent of the first television and during a time when inventors were struggling to come up with an efficient design for the light bulb. Technology in today’s world has advanced more rapidly than ever before in a matter of decades. Still, we have to ask ourselves, how much have we really changed?
 |
| Shaolin Temple Grounds |
 |
The Forbidden City and It's Many Tourists
|
 |
| The Summer Palace, Beijing |
 |
| Zai Jian! From the Great Wall of China! |
No comments:
Post a Comment