The Dirty Boot

It always makes me chuckle when I see reports on BBC News about Beijing's preparations for the 2008 Olympics. These articles tend to focus on the skyscrapers and shopping malls shooting up all over the city and on the breakneck pace of stadium construction but rarely make any mention of what Beijing will be like for Olympic visitors staying there.

Whenever I read about the city's preparations I can't help but think back to my trip there in 2004 and how unlike a future Olympic city it seemed: The lack of information and signage at the airport and the difficulty in finding anyone who could speak English there; the insanely dangerous traffic; the unregistered cabs and rip-off scams I had to watch out for; the dirty bank notes which came in so many denominations and sizes (including tiny ones the size of two postage stamps) and were sometimes counterfeit; and worst of all, the primitive sewage system which meant you couldn't flush any paper down the toilets, with the result that all the toilets I went to were disgusting and stank to high heaven.

One experience in particular made me question what the 2008 Olympic experience will be like for overseas visitors though, that of the dirty boot. I needed to get from the youth hostel where I was staying to Beijing Station in a hurry so I flagged down a taxi. The driver pulled over and got out to help me with my suitcase. We went around to the back of the car and as he popped open the boot I noticed the boot was full of soil(!) which he made no attempt to clear as he tossed my suitcase in. When I took my suitcase out at the station, of course, it was absolutely filthy.

To me this illustrated perfectly the fact that while superficially China appears to be improving things like technology, infrastructure and the standard of living, it still has a long way to go before it becomes a first world country - something which is ever-apparent if you just scratch the surface.

For all the money that's being spent on new shopping malls and skyscrapers, and all the general improvements to the city that have no doubt been made since I went there, I'm sure a lot of overseas visitors to the 2008 Olympics will experience some kind of unexpected situation which, like the dirty boot, highlights the superficiality of China's modernity.

One of the new Beijing Taxis, presumably with a soil-free boot