1989 AND OLD CITY

As I landed at that airport in winter of 1996, the burst of commercial tourism swell. Democracy Wall became the forum for outpourings of political ideas and pent-up literary emotions. Pace of economy quickened, but still visibly shocked was our taxi-driver pointing out the landmarks of the events - the crossroads where the people had managed to hold up an armored column as it moved towards the square, the spot on a street where somebody had been killed, the bridge from which the troops had opened fired - 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

The city had changed but was still recognizable. There were new hotels, even coffee bars. The authorities' currency controls - their way of keeping a grip on the spending patterns of visitors and thereby monitoring the access of their own citizens to hard currency - were finally slipping. Young people were adopting bolder attitudes to fashion, music and personal freedoms. Many more of them were going abroad and not returning. Most headed for higher education opportunities in the United States where, after June 4th, 40,000 Chinese students were immediately given green cards.

Ten years later, globalization and the market economy has changed the city so much that I struggle to recognize it. The city in my head, the map that is imprinted on my brain as clearly as the map of my home, no longer corresponds to the Beijing I see around me. I try to superimpose this mental map which I am trapped, and fail.

I learned this map as we walked the long, slow journeys, often in the teeth of cutting winds that penetrated the layers of clothing the city demands as the price of winter survival. The Chinese cycled slowly, almost meditatively, falling into conversation as they drifted along. There were no horse-drawn carts, but heavy bicycles. Now, it is a city of cars with traffic patterns so convoluted that on any journey by car I soon lose the sense of where I have been or where I am going.