CHAMELEON CITY

I really wanted an iced coffee.

Not just any iced coffee, but my go-to brand, Latte. It’s not a real latte, but kind of a Chinese blue-collar Frappucino served in a tan plastic bottle. It costs 62 cents and I thought it would be the perfect way to cool off my tongue after eating some spicy 串 (lamb kabob). Also I may or may not have sweat through my shirt. It was time to cool off.

So I walked into the little convenience store in my building and opened the refrigerator door and … no Latte. There was the Aha brand, but I loathed the Aha brand more than original sin. My two years of China living taught me that Aha leaves one’s teeth feeling mossy, plus it was too watered down. Comparing Latte and Aha is like comparing vitamin D and skim milk. I’m a Latte man.

So I retreated and went into the alley as my search become more desperate. I rounded the corner and my jaw dropped. The fruit stands and little tables that had been under the tarp canopies that morning were now just rubble. About fifty yards of stores and stands were now nothing but little piles of rubble.

I saw the Peach People, the old couple who sell me a peach every morning. The old woman wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I couldn’t tell if those were tears running down her face or little rivers of sweat. I asked the Peach Lady what happened in my choppy two-year-old Mandarin. 

"What happened? Who did this?" 

"The police. They tore it down. 

"When?" 

"This afternoon."

Silence…

"I am not happy." 

"You’re not happy because you have to get your peaches somewhere else. What about us? What do we do?" 

"Where will you go?"

"I don’t know."

It made now made sense. 

This morning I was cleaning up the Abbey (my apartment which I will be leaving tomorrow morning) and wanted to cash in on our recycled bottles that had been stockpiled since spring. So I put them in a plastic bag and went out to the alley to give them to the trash collector dude who would give me five or six kuai (about $1). As I neared the alley I saw about twenty young policemen standing at attention right in front of the trash collector dude’s cart. The older police captain was walking slowly toward the group. I thought maybe there was a training session or a police fashion show, so I just put the bag of plastic bottles by the garbage can and went back to my room where I had a mountain of emails to climb. 

Now I wish I would have stayed and watched as those policemen ripped down the tarp canopies of the alley and destroyed the fruit stands and smashed the feeble patchwork walls into a lifeless rubble.

After the Peach Lady told me what happened I walked down the alley I had walked through every day for half a year. This morning when I walked through I had to duck my head because the tarps would sag with rain water or just because they wanted to. But now there were no tarps to worry about. 

The Alley was raw China: men eating without shirts, Grannies hawking loogies on the ground, fresh cherries, strawberries and watermelons, stacks of cabbages and eggplants poking you as you walked by. There was nothing polite about the Alley. There was nothing classy about the Alley. But there was nothing wrong with the Alley. It was filled with 老百姓 – laobaixing. Which literally means, “old one hundred names.” Which actually means, “ordinary common folk.” Honest people who didn’t shower and who didn’t have a high school diploma but weren’t afraid to smile. 

Kui Feng is an alcoholic with about nine teeth. He speaks slowly and loudly. He’s a fruit vendor next door to the Peach People. Whenever Kui Feng sees me he greets me loudly and genuinely, “Ni hao pengyou!” (“Hi friend!”) He was sweeping up the remains of his fruit stand. 

"Kui Feng, ni hao." 

"Ni hao pengyou."  Said with the enthusiasm of aluminum siding...

"What happened friend?" 

"They tore it down." 

"What are you going to do?" 

"I don’t know? What is a laobaixing supposed to do?" 

I guess that’s the raw reality of living in a chameleon city. At 8:00am you’re selling peaches and at 8:00pm you have swept up your livelihood into a neat little pile. That’s China – a constant state of becoming. Always moving, always changing, never stagnant. China is the land of contradictions and change. The government decided to tear down the alley in order to make Beijing a more “harmonious society.” But in order to bring harmony they had to destroy the lives of the laobaixing selling peaches. Apparently destruction is harmony’s fullback.  

It's ironic really. The Chinese character for "raze / tear down" is 拆, "chai." The noble authorities will spray paint the character on the buildings that are on death row with red spray paint. The character is the red mark of death. Some people joke that we live in Chai-na, because it seems like everyday there's a demolition of an alley, a noodle shop, a neighborhood to pave the way for a new bank or shiny high rise apartments. 

 

I forgot about my Latte quest. I wasn’t thirsty anymore. I felt guilty. My major concern tonight was getting a certain kind of iced coffee drink. That was my number one priority. The Peach People had been selling peaches for eight years in the Alley. They were wondering where they will sleep tonight and fearful of what tomorrow might bring.