ah, excellent
Posted by wangbo in beijing public transport, news on July 24, 2008
新京报/The Beijing News’ Li Liqiang reports that the new Beijing – Yanqing trains will start running in early August.
市区到延庆下月通城铁
Suburban rail from city to Yanqing to open next month
记者昨日从交通部门获悉，连接北京市区与延庆的首条城市铁路S2线将于8月初通车，每天10班，全程共设7站。目前车票价格未最终确定，但预计与铁路软席差别不大。
Yesterday this reporter learnt from the Transport Bureau that the first suburban railway linking the Beijing city area with Yanqing, the S2 Line, will open in early August. There will be 10 trains per day and seven stations along the line. At present ticket prices have yet to be settled, but they are predicted to be roughly similar to railway soft seat tickets.
Alright, so perhaps “suburban railway” isn’t the most accurate rendering of “城市铁路”, but to my mind it makes more sense than “urban-” or “city railway”. And “will open in early August” for “将于8月初通车”? Ah well, 差不多.
S2全线长80余公里，以北京北站为起点，经停清华园、清河、沙河、昌平、八达岭，终点为延庆站。记者从建设方了解到，S2线开通后，从北京北站至延庆需要1小时20分钟，比原先开行的绿皮列车省近一半时间，同时将缓解八达岭高速的交通压力。
The S2 Line is over 80 kilometres long, starting at Beijing North Station and passing through stops at Qinghuayuan, Qinghe, Shahe, Changping and Badaling, with its terminus at Yanqing Station. This reporter learnt from the constructors that after S2 Line opens, it will take 1 hour 20 minutes to get from Beijing North Station to Yanqing Station, saving nearly half the time taken by the original green liveried trains, and at the same time it will relieve traffic pressure on the Badaling Expressway.
S2线全部为动车组列车，每辆列车共7节车厢，座位分为一等、二等两档。据列车长介绍，S2线列车坐椅均可180°旋转，使乘客在列车倒开时能调整坐椅，减少眩晕。
All trains on the S2 Line will be train sets with power cars, with each train having seven carriages, and the seats divided into first and second classes. According to the train captain, the seats on S2 Line trains can all be rotated 180°, allowing passengers to adjust their seats when the train starts, reducing motion sickness.
Wow. Just what the hell is meant by “S2线全部为动车组列车”? I find myself bamboozled by railway-speak, and no resource at my disposal is helping me. I’m not too sure about those rotating seats, either. Help is most definitely appreciated here. Thanks to the Ji Village News for this comment that, although doesn’t entirely clear up the confusion, alerted me to a major, major assumption that had led me drastically astray.
与目前铁路干线上运营的电力牵引动车组列车不同，S2线动车组由新型内燃机车牵引，更加舒适。
Unlike trains pulled by electric locomotives currently running on the main railway line, S2 Line locomotives will be powered by a new model of internal combustion engine, adding to the comfort.
据了解，根据规划，北京将在2020年之前建设6条城市铁路，分别通往门头沟、延庆、密云、大兴、房山和承德。
It is understood that according to plans, Beijing will build 6 suburban railways by 2020, running to Mentougou, Yanqing, Miyun, Fangshan and Chengde.
Alright, I don’t buy that “comfort” claim. Doesn’t matter how good your new internal combustion engine may be, it’s still pumping pollution into the Juyongguan and Badaling valleys and the Yanqing basin, which electric locomotives don’t do.
And that last sentence has me wondering: Is Beijing planning to annex Chengde as well? No, obviously that one’s about expanding tourism, too.
Well, this is very good news for Yanqing and the vast hordes of tourists who visit Badaling (really, people, there’s far more to the Great Wall than Badaling. If you have your eyes open and separated from your guide book, you’ll notice the Juyongguan and Shuiguan sections as you sit in the traffic jam on the Badaling Expressway slowly crawling out to tourist hell. If you put your guidebook to good use, you’ll notice the Great Wall runs all the way from Shanhaiguan to Jiayuguan, providing you with many, many places to see the wall without having to jostle through vast hordes of your fellow tourists). But, assuming the traffic jam that has become almost permanent on the Badaling Expressparkinglot lifts (I remember reading somewhere that repairs to two bridges on the G110 in Changping have added to the traffic pressure on the Expressway, and that those repairs are due to end soon), I don’t see how it’ll benefit lzh and I. The 919 from Deshengmen, when there’s no ridiculous traffic jam on the expressway, takes about an hour twenty, and is marginally closer to us than Beijing North Station. Still, if the trafficjam doesn’t lift and ticket prices are reasonable, it will suddenly look very attractive. I do see this as being a huge advantage for those living in Haidian, though, as it is closer to them. And hey, it’s a short hop from Wudaokou down to Xizhimen on the Line 13 then an easy stroll round to the North Station. Anyways, I’m looking forward to more news on this new train.
waicheng wandering
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on July 23, 2008
So last Thursday afternoon I jumped on the No. 34 bus and rode it round to Tianqiao and went for a wander. There wasn’t really much of a goal or an aim, but I was thinking to walk up towards Qianmen from the south to see what could be seen of the state of the renovations. Which is what I did. But first came a bit of a shock.
stuck?
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on July 23, 2008
So it looks like my plan to spend August in Yanqing might not come to fruition…
Well, first of all, although I haven’t exactly been feeling ‘positive’ or ‘optimistic’ about the upcoming games, but I’ve been feeling less pessimisstic. Perhaps more fatalistically neutral. The games will come, the games will go, I’ll do my resolute best to avoid anything associated with them, life will go on as per normal.
Secondly, though, have been happenings. We heard a month or two back that people were being posted at the village entrances to keep outsiders out. I’m hardly an ‘outsider’, having married in, but village officials…. well, ours are very far from the worst, but they are fairly typical. Although there probably won’t be any more trouble than a village official grumbling over his dinner about that bloody foreigner being at the l family house again, such reports don’t do much to inspire confidence. More important, though, is that lzh has been given a new task at work, a task that lasts until September 20. And yes, I do see a connection, albeit tangential, with the Olympics. And it’s a task that must be done on weekends, too. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t see much sense in spending long periods of time separated from my wife. Tianjin put a stop to that kind of thing- one week, two weeks maximum apart over the course of a school year was enough for us. And call me a pessimmist, but with the Olympics around the corner, I can only foresee more hassles than usual if I go there unaccompanied.
And then there’s this: Through all this visa crackdown and random ID checks and stricter registering (and re-registering and re-re-registering and checking of re-re-re-re-registering) of foreigners and waidiren at the local cop-shops and what have you, I, sitting here in my small corner of southern Chaoyang, have been pretty much left alone. As have all my colleagues. We have been affected by events, but only by proxy, through friends and loved ones who have had to adjust their plans. I guess the natural and obvious assumption is that any foreigner in this area is connected with BeiGongDa and therefore properly visaed and registered through BeiGongDa, and I only know of one instance where that is not entirely true in the strictest sense. And to think, I’ve been dutifully carrying my passport everywhere…
And besides, Roubaozi gets back in the middle of August and I have his apartment keys, so I have to be here then.
So I dunno. I, at least, may get up there for a few days. lzh, too, if her danwei drops this new task, though I doubt that’ll happen. But for the time being it looks like I’m going to have to drop my plan to spend August up in Yanqing and stick it out here, in the heat and humidity of the plain. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Summer in Yanqing is a million times better than summer down here on the plain- provided, of course, you don’t have to toil in the fields day-in and day-out.
I’m a little disappointed, I mean there were things I was quite specifically planning to do up there, but at the same time this does open up new possibilities…..
Did I mention I bought a bike off a colleague? Well, if I can’t spend August in Yanqing, I can spend it alternating between studying and getting out on the bike and re-exploring. There are still large parts of the city I haven’t yet seen. And who knows? Maybe I will stop being such a grinch and go check out some of the 热闹…. nah, probably not.
Well, one thing I should do is write up last Thursday’s wander around Tianqiao and down to Yongdingmen. I saw stuff there that had me planning out a post as I was wandering, it’s long since time I actually wrote it down.
anti-climax
Posted by wangbo in beijing public transport, life in Beijing on July 21, 2008
Well, what an anti-climax that was. Guess I should’ve known. I mean, you don’t get all excited about some new thing then honestly expect that new thing to live up to your all excited expectations, now, do you?
But, well, I remember the first ride I took on Line 5, and it was soooo cool! Well, sure, Line 5’s interchanges with Line 2 at Chongwenmen and Line 1 at Dongdan are not the best, and do involve a fair bit more walking than one would expect in a subway station, but still, it’s cool- especially the Yonghegong station.
But my first impression of Line 10, walking into the Jinsong terminal at about quarter to two this afternoon, was, dude, this place is cheap! Well, not quite. My very first impression was, wow, it’s pretty deep. Then I started looking around and the finishing just seemed so cheap and hurried- a couple of apparently random bits of paper with what I took to be notation for construction workers on them stuck to ceiling panels, even. Not a good look.
Well, I walked through the corridor to the main, umm, ‘atrium’ I guess you can call it, and quickly scanned the area. The usual ticketing machines, gates, security checkpoint with x-ray machine, security guards and a token cop ignoring me (I’ve got to be one of the least threatening-looking people in the world). Everything as per normal. I swiped myself through and went down to the platform. Pretty much the same as Line 5, but the monitors only showed the interval between trains, not the time until the next train and the one after that like on Line 5. Oh, and being the terminus, for now at least, the glass wall on one side was clearly marked “Terminus”, meaning, fairly obviously, when these doors open don’t get on this train. The other side was clearly marked “Towards Bagou” or words to that effect. In other words, no navigation hassles, it was easy enough to find my way in and which platform I needed. Just not quite up to Line 5’s standard of excellence.
So the train arrived, I got on, I rode around to Xitucheng. When I thought about it, I couldn’t be arsed going all the way out to the other terminus, but I did want to pass all the transfer stations- well, Line 13 gets two transfers, forget the second, pass at least one transfer with each connecting line. And hey, Xitucheng should get me to a convenient corner of the old Yuan Dynasty City Wall Park, with options for a pleasant stroll. So that’s what I did.
Again, I was a little disappointed. The ride was no smoother than an old train on Line 1. A bit on the bumpy side, in other words. And two stops up at Guomao I was reminded: You can build a new subway line, but making more civilised passengers is another story. Yep, that old Beijing tradition, run like spoilt primary school brats to grab a seat on the subway with no concern for the comfort or safety of others, is alive and well.
Well, after that it was business as usual, rumbling along with the occasional bounce or shudder towards my destination. The magic lit-up sign showing which stretch we were on and which station was next was more than clear enough and functioned fine. The voice announcements did the job adequately. All was good.
Got off at Xitucheng. Once again, no hassles navigating. Everything was clearly signposted, maps were easily found and easily read, no worries. Got out exactly where I wanted to be with no troubles at all and went for a walk back eastwards through that park.
Then I got a couple of worrying messages from a friend alerting me to certain incidents in Kunming….
Then I got to the Mudanyuan station and thought, bugger it, time to head home and see what these messages are really about.
Well, I decided to take a subway zigzag and try out a couple of interchanges. I took Line 10 to Huixin Xijie Nankou then transferred to Line 5, heading south to Dongdan then onto Line 1 eastwards to Guomao, where I got back on Line 10 down to Jinsong.
Line 10-Line 5 at Huixin Xijie Nankou, apart from the long name of the station, was sweet as. Off the train, straight through to Line 5, you’d hardly noticed you’d changed trains. Nothing remarkable about the station beyond that, though. But yes, very sweetly designed interchange, just a few short steps and you’re where you want to be.
Line 5-Line 1 at Dongdan was nothing new for me, done it a few times before. It’s a bit of a hike, as I’m sure I’ve already whinged about. This time, though, the travelator was open, but still not moving. Cut down on the crowd walking, though, opening up that little extra space. But that’s still not the best designed interchange in Beijing.
Line 1-Line 10 at Guomao, and judging by what I saw, vice-versa: Not quite as sweet as Line 2-Line 5 at Yonghegong, but not too far off. A short stroll, looks like it’ll be a hike, but it’s shorter than it first seems. From the Line 1 platform it could be better signposted, but once you’re up in the atrium it’s easy enough to see.
Then arrival back at Jinsong. Once again, navigation was simple, signposts were clear, maps easily found, no hassles. The one big, big disadvantage of Jinsong station was made abundantly clear, though: Jinsong has exits A, B, and D covering northwest (A), northeast (B) and southwest (D), and there are odd patches on all the signs and maps where one would expect C (southeast) to be. I don’t know what this means or who to blame, I can only surmise that an exit C leading to the southeast corner of the Jinsong interchange was planned but, for whatever reason, has yet to be opened. In fact, there is no sign of such an exit appearing on that corner, at least nothing visible from ground level. This represents a huge disadvantage for those of us living east of Jinsong, at least if we live more than walking distance from the station, as it means to take the subway home we need to find a way to cross over to the southern side of the road to get a bus to take us the rest of the way. You may say I’m just whingeing, but really, when this area is already so well served by buses (and it is: bus transport from here to basically anywhere in Beijing is a breeze), the extra hike for us represents a huge, huge disincentive to use the subway. Take my wife as an example. From here she can take the 852 or 486 heading straight up Xidawang Lu to Chaoyang Park then walk a few hundred metres to work. Or she can walk slightly further and take the 801, which runs from somewhere just east of Pandaomiao through Pingleyuan to Jinsong thence north up the third ring, get off at Changhongqiao/Tuanjiehu and walk a short distance to her office. Sure, she could take the 801 to Jinsong then the subway Line 10 to Tuanjiehu, thereby going under the traffic and avoiding the jams- but getting home? Where’s the advantage in the subway? Taking the 852 home exposes her to traffic jams, but in normal conditions the only choke point is the run from Dawang Qiao south through Dongjiao Market under the railway cutting then through the Baiziwan intersection. Other than that, the bus has a pretty much free ride.
And if Line 10 is to expand southward then hook around west to meet Line 5 at Songjiazhuang, as one map I have seen suggests, it still doesn’t bring us much of an advantage, for similar reasons.
I dunno, maybe for those living west of Jinsong Line 10 is a huge advantage. I suspect not, but I may be wrong. I would say, though, that for those living along the East Third Ring between Guomao and Jinsong within walking distance of the new line life has suddenly gotten a lot easier. Still, I won’t say the subway was crowded as I headed home from Guomao. It wasn’t. I suspect for far too many in this corner of the city it’s still more convenient to take the bus or cycle.
And with this morning’s events in Yunnan, I suppose it’s a good thing I bought a bike. Second-hand, in need of repairs, but useable.
I suspect, though, that Line 10, with it’s hook-up to the Airport Express at Sanyuan Qiao (a rather cheap bridge?), will make getting to the airport a little more convenient, at least if we don’t have much luggage. It’ll be a little more expensive than the bus, at two yuan for Line 10 Jinsong to Sanyuan Qiao, 25 yuan for the Airport Express, and whatever negligible sum the 801 costs on my Yikatong card (does four jiao sound right?); versus the negligible fare for the 801 up to Guomao (I suspect still only four jiao) then the sixteen yuan for the airport bus from the Guomao stop at the China Southern Airlines Hotel. Not a huge amount of extra convenience for the cost, but still, no traffic jams.
Well, I still rate Line 5 as the coolest in the Beijing subway system, and Line 5’s Yonghegong station as by far the styliest. Line 10 was a bit of a let-down, really. I have to admit, though, that I have not yet experienced the Airport Express or Line 8. I may get a chance to try out the Airport Express in mid-August, but Line 8 will have to wait until after the Olympic security restrictions have eased.
Verdict? Line 10 is certainly functional, even if it doesn’t look like much and doesn’t necessarily bring any real advantage to most of us in the southeast of Beijing.
filling the gaps
京报网’s Ma Nan reports on a four-year plan starting next year to fill the gaps in basic infrastructure in Beijing’s rural areas:
从明年起，利用4年时间，本市将对所有郊区村庄的安全饮水、街坊路硬化、垃圾处理、厕所改造、污水处置这“五项”基础设施建设填平补齐，缺什么就补什么。昨天，市人大常委会副主任赵凤山到通州区视察了乡村基础设施建设情况。
Starting from next year, over a period of four years, the municipality will level up and polish the “five items” of basic infrastructure- the safety of drinking water, paving of roads, handling of rubbish, renovation of toilets and disposal of sewage- in all suburban villages, filling whatever gaps there are. Yesterday, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress Zhao Fengshan went to Tongzhou District to inspect the condition of basic infrastructure in villages.
Well, in all the years I’ve been going to and from Yanqing, I’ve seen some pretty big improvements. Remember, these comments are based off my experience of my in-laws’ village only: Toilets, for example, have gone from short drops (which get ever shorter in the winter when it’s too cold for anything to rot) of varying degrees of crude construction- or in some of the lesser-developed courtyards of the village, a southwest corner of the courtyard in which, once you were out of sight, or at the very least the lower portion of your body was out of sight (occasionally uncomfortable for me, having much longer legs than most out there), you were very, very careful of where you stepped- to reasonably decent porcelain squatters emptying into a basic septic tank and flushed using a footpump fed by a cistern set in the ground next to the squatter. The only two problems I can see with that system are that 1: for a large portion of the year you’re still flushing by tipping a bucket down the squatter, because there’s no point filling the cistern when it’s only going to freeze in half an hour; and 2: there’s still a huge reserve of methane from the rotting organic matter that is sitting untapped. Also, and on a more comfortable topic, although I’m sure I could find unpaved lanes and paths out the back of the village, most of the roads and lanes, including the main lanes through the fields, are now paved. The tap water has always been drinkable, although it does have a rather high mineral content and can cause discomfort of the intestinal variety for those not used to it. I’ve noticed plastic or rubber hoses running direct to the roots of trees in the orchards- a vast improvement over older forms of irrigation. Even a new public square/park opened up, and an old stinky water pit (I could never figure out what it was for, but the water was fetid beyond belief, making the signs painted on neighbouring walls banning fishing and swimming a pretty good definition of “superfluous”) was ripped out, filled in, and paved over, creating another public square which I have seen put to good use by a visiting drumming group. Not only that, but park benches and flower planters have been installed along some of the bigger village streets. These are all small things taken individually, but they do represent a pretty big improvement in the quality of life, I reckon. I guess I could also point out that we’ve had broadband internet that is faster and more reliable than what I “enjoy” here at BeiGongDa, cable TV and even satellite TV (whose selection of international channels has waxed and waned with the political climate- for the last few months its been all domestic plus CCTV-4, CCTV-9, CCTV-E and CCTV-F). There are, however, still areas that could be improved. Home heating would be one, as is putting all that organic waste to good use producing methane for cooking, thereby cutting down the amount of coal and straw used- that would improve air quality and therefore local residents’ respiratory health drastically. But looking at those “five items”, handling of rubbish stands out. Unfortunately we’re still stuck with the old-fashioned 垃圾堆 (rubbish heap).
乡村基础设施是农村经济社会发展和农民生产生活的重要物质基础，近年来，本市在乡村基础设施建设方面实施了一系列惠民举措。
The basic infrastructure of villages is an important material base of rural economy and society and rural peoples’ production and life, and in recent years the municipality has carried out a series of moves in the field of basic rural infrastructure to benefit the people.
It then goes in to details that I don’t think are all that necessary- details of the area covered by new, water-saving irrigation systems and by how much that will be extended, for example. But I do like the plan to fill in the gaps in rural infrastructure- I’m reading this as taking each village as it is and building the things it still lacks, which is only sensible- and closing the gap with the city, which can only be a good thing. I also like the prominent mention given to solar power generation. It’s been bugging me for years now- if every south-facing roof in northern and western China were covered in photovoltaic cells, how much power would be generated? How much coal saved? How much cleaner the air?
Oh well, enough ranting for now. I’ll leave it by saying that what I’ve seen over the years in one village in the mountains in Beijing Municipality’s northwestern corner gives me hope that this article really is for real and that Beijing’s rural areas really are on the way up.
one small problem…
京报网 has a nice, flash new design- and it does look good- but there’s one minor problem: They’re still listing the date as 108年7月几日. That would put us (assuming AD) in the middle of the Eastern Han. Oops. Nice design, just fix the date….
danshuang hao day
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on July 20, 2008
Today is Danshuanghao Day, or perhaps Odds/Evens Day works better. Today the regulation ordering private vehicles with plates ending in odd or even numbers off the roads on alternate days comes into effect. I wonder how effective this will be. One of the rumours I heard was that some rich people were planning on buying a second car and getting the licence plate they need so they can drive every day- just alternate cars. I remember seeing in the 新京报/The Beijing News an article saying that not only was this perfectly legal, but the government was going to allow people to book their licence plate numbers so they actually could guarantee getting the one they need. Kinda defeats the purpose of the whole odds/evens rule, doesn’t it? And now this article says that there’s no odds/evens rule between midnight and three am. So I guess all the rich people are going to jump in their cars and… umm…. traffic jam for three hours every night? Somehow, I don’t think so.
Well, whatever, I like this rule and anything that reasonably cuts down on the number of private cars on the roads, and I hope this rule succeeds.
good news
新京报/The Beijing News reports that the three new subway lines, Line 10, the Olympic Line, and the Airport Line, opened at 2 pm today. Airport Line tickets will cost 25 yuan for a one year trial, after which a permanent price will be set. As a temporary security measure Line 8 will only be open to spectators holding tickets for that day and relevant workers- i.e. if you’re trying to take Line 8 on August 8 you better either have tickets for events on August 8 or work at the Olympics, otherwise you won’t be allowed on Line 8. Apparently trains on Line 10 will be spaced three and a half minutes apart, which is a slightly shorter gap than Line 5’s four minutes. Also, from tomorrow Line 13 will successively put six 6-car trains into service.
I think that’s all the main points of the article.
I note that Line 10 is referred to as 10号线一期- Phase One of Line 10- and the Olympic Line as 奥运支线（8号线一期）- Olympic Branch Line (Phase One of Line 8). I have no idea when those two lines are planned to be extended or in which directions. Oh, wait, here’s what looks like the official Beijing Subway website, and it has a map which….is very cool and quite useful but does not enlighten me about future expansion plans (and in a less useful feature, clicking on ‘English’ takes you straight back to the Chinese version of the map). But wait- for expansion plans this page might be more helpful. Get yourself a magnifying glass, though, those maps are not big. This one dated 2008 shows Line 10 expanded westward from Bagoucun to Huoqiying and curling southwest to join Line 5 at Songjiazhuang- although it’s drawn in a solid line from Guomao north then west round to Bagoucun, but a dotted line south then west from Guomao to Songjiazhuang. It also has a solid yellow line marked running southeast from Songjiazhuang to…. somewhere without a name, a solid red line marked M4 running north from Majiabao up the west side of the old city (it looks like it passes under Xinjiekou), hooking west through Xizhimen and Shouti, then swinging north again and running out to Beigongmen (hey, cool! That means it’ll be possible to take the subway to the Summer Palace!), and a line marked M9 in solid blue running south from Shouti to Beijing Xizhan (Beijing West Railway Station), then in dotted blue further south to Shijie Gongyuan (World Park? What is its English name?). It does not show any extension to Line 8 and seems to mark the Batong Line as being part of Line 1.
This map dated 2015 shows a vastly expanded system which includes lines to Changping and Shunyi, southwest to Liangxiang and south to an unnamed place (presumably Daxing town). This map also shows a line running from what looks like Panjiayuan in a zigzag northwestwards across the central city, and then westwards parallel with Line 1, passing through Pingguoyuan after which it splits into S1 which looks like it runs to Mentougou town and S1支 which runs somewhere south of there. Google.cn’s map is less than helpful. The rest I can’t see in enough detail to make any intelligent comment on, but it seems to have the central city fairly well covered- although there do seem to be fairly large gaps, and Yongdingmen seems to become a fairly major hub.
zhen dou
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on July 19, 2008
Sometimes you’ve really got to wonder. Just got a travel advisory emailed to me from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Safetravel website. That’s the website that carries travel advisories and where you register your details oops, no, you register here at Kiwis Overseas should you be travelling outside New Zealand (if you’re a New Zealander, that is), and if you are travelling overseas, you really should register. You’d be surprised at just how little Foreign Affairs (and by extension, embassy and consulate staff) can do to help you, but even so, they can be a very useful contact point, and that in itself is all you need. Just think, those Kiwis in Sichuan on May 12 who were registered could be contacted and accounted for by the embassy or nearest consulat much more easily than those who were not registered. At the very least, this meant that even if their families could not contact them directly, they could get information through Foreign Affairs. Those who didn’t register, well…..
Anyway, so this travel advisory, yeah, you really got to wonder sometimes. It starts off warning about events in the southwest in March and the continued potential for trouble out there. And it warns that New Zealanders should stay away from such trouble should it occur, stay indoors out of harm’s way, and follow all instructions. It also warns: “Permission from the Chinese authorities is required for travel to Tibet.” Right. Nothing new there, then. File this one in the “No Shit Sherlock” bin while wondering why they even bothered including this piece of non-information.
Then it warns about the earthquake in Sichuan in May 12. I didn’t get any such travel advisory back in mid-May when it may have been pertinent. Travellers don’t always have easy access to the latest news, but they do often check email, but now, three months after the quake, I think it’s safe to assume that anybody with China on their mind is aware that the quake happened and did a lot of damage and that it’s probably best to save northern Sichuan and southern Gansu for next time. Surely travel advisories for the quake zone should’ve been sent out in May?
Then it gets to the Olympics (finally, something relevant):
Beijing Olympic Games 8-24 August and Paralympic Games 6-17 September
The Chinese authorities have put in place extensive measures to ensure the safety and security of visitors attending the Games. Visitors should at all times comply with the directions of the Chinese authorities. See our Olympic Games Information Sheet for more information: www.safetravel.govt.nz/topics/2008%20Olympics.shtmlTravellers should be aware that Chinese laws are not the same as New Zealand laws. Chinese detention facilities are not like those in New Zealand and if arrested you could be jailed or deported.
There are strictly enforced laws prohibiting demonstrations without prior approval and travellers should avoid demonstrations of any kind, especially those related to hum@n rites, anit-g0vernm3nt and religion [spelling altered by me].
Information on what New Zealand consular officers can and cannot do is available on our Arrest and Detention information page: www.safetravel.govt.nz/thingsgowrong/arrestdetention.shtml
Yeah, they need to learn to put proper links in their emails. Here’s that Olympics page, and here’s what Foreign Affairs can’t do for you if you are arrested or detained.
Well, that Olympics page is very basic, doesn’t have much detail, and doesn’t say terribly much about the Olympics themselves. It’s more of a general travel advisory. Very general. Having said that, the information is good, clear and concise. If you’ve never been to China before, I recommend you read it. And I particularly like the phrasing of this section:
Alcohol and Drugs
Penalties for drug offences are severe and include the death penalty. Public displays of drunkenness are not appropriate in China. Chinese authorities do not take kindly to injudicious acts by drunken individuals.
Nicely put.
That arrested or detained page is similar- it provides a good, clear rundown of what you can do and what embassy or consulate staff can and can not do for you should you be arrested or detained in any foreign country. It starts with a reminder that should not be necessary, but unfortunately is:
If you are travelling or living in a foreign country you must comply with its laws and regulations. The New Zealand Government and its officials cannot intervene in the justice system and law courts of other countries. Being a New Zealand citizen does not lead to any special treatment.
Basic laws may differ from New Zealand. Penalties may be much harsher in some countries than for similar offences committed in New Zealand, and prison conditions may be much worse. New Zealand does not have any prisoner exchange agreements and cannot accept the transfer of New Zealanders from overseas prisons.
Americans have gotten the stereotype of thinking their passport puts them above the law and gets them out of jail free, but in my experience some of the worst travellers are my fellow Kiwis (and although I have met one or two Americans who come close to fitting that stereotype, the overwhelming majority, in my experience, are pretty good travellers well aware of their place in the grand scheme of things). So please, everybody, remember this: You are subject to the laws of whichever country you are in. It’s that simple.
Anyways, all of this advice is common sense. Trouble is, common sense is much less common than its name might suggest. So a quick summary: Keep a safe distance from anything that looks like a demonstration or protest. The earthquake area is not a good place to visit right now. So long as you are in China, you are subject to Chinese law, so if you get caught doing something you shouldn’t, you’d better be prepared to face the consequences.
interesting news
Thanks once again to Danwei, here’s an interesting article from China Daily: Three new subway lines are apparently opening this weekend. That’s lines 10 and 8 (the Olympic line) and the airport express. But I’m a little confused. The first sentence says Line 10 will open this weekend, but it says:
A 4.3-km length of the Olympic line and a shuttle train between Dongzhimen and the airport terminals will also open for test runs at the same time.
Oh. Well, I hope Line 10, at least, is really open and not just testing. After all, it’s already a month late. But:
Construction of new lines is on schedule despite the delayed opening of Line 10, which had been scheduled to open early last month, Liu Hongtao, deputy director of the local railway transportation construction corporation, said.
Hmmm…. Mr Liu needs some lessons in basic logic. Line 10 was sceduled to open early last month, but it won’t open until this weekend. So it’s five to six weeks late. That means it is not on schedule.
Anyway, there’s one small problem with that Olympic line (Line 8):
However, the Olympic subway line, part of the planned Line 8, will not be open to passengers without tickets or accreditation.
It seems it’s open to Olympic people only. Us ordinary, non-Olympic plebs are not allowed to sully its Olympic purity. Oh well. Suppose it fits with the ever insanely increasing levels of “security” around the place.
Anways, I guess that means that sometime on Monday I’ll be taking a subway joyride to check out the new Line 10.