A Day in the Life II: China

Photo taken by author

At a time when Russia and China play such a prevalent role in world politics, Staff Writer Nina Bugeja reveals what It was like to briefly live in these two countries before they came under the popular, Western microscope. Her column ‘A Day in the Life’ provides insight into her experiences in both countries.

Beijing is a world unto itself. The change, the way I had to adapt was invigorating.

I arrived at the apartment where I was to spend the next six weeks and was shown around. My bed was a plank of wood with a sheet over it, a thin layer of dust covered the floor and desk, and in the bathroom the shower curtain had blood on it. This wasn’t quite what I was used to, but I was not about to be brought down on day one. The key to these types of trips is to embrace and accept everything, and that’s what I did. Well, as close to everything as possible. I stayed with a mother and her teenage daughter, Wen Cheng, who I became good friends with and who showed me around Beijing’s finest attractions – 故宫(Forbidden City), 天安门 (Tiananmen), 长城 (The Great Wall). With us in the apartment were also two cats who would strut around as if they paid the rent. Unfortunately for me, I only realised they had decided to make the washing machine their home when my clothes emerged absolutely covered in their fluff! Two days of intense de-fluffment followed.

We lived on the nineteenth floor of a twenty-three-storey building. Such multi storey buildings are common in Beijing, a city overwhelmed with severe overpopulation. The lift of this building, as you can imagine, was worked into overdrive. There was a generally unspoken but accepted rule that if you lived on the eighth floor or below, you took the stairs, or indeed if you were up for the physical challenge. I remember mentioning to Wen Cheng that I was into fitness to which she replied, ‘Ah well you can take the stairs then!’ I’m sure some people can climb nineteen floors on a daily basis, but I am certainly not one of them.

On the whole, I found trying to stay fit and exercise in Beijing one of the greatest challenges to my stay there. The key issue – air pollution. The pollution is so bad that even according to the smog scale, on most days it was classed as ‘dense’. Thick, suffocating smog. People in Beijing were wearing masks long before the arrival of covid to try and filter the air. Coming home at the end of the day I would remove my mask to find that it had changed from a pristine white to smoky grey colour. And that was just breathing while walking! What would it be like if I went on a run? I did everything to try and stay fit without doing more harm than good to my lungs. I’d wake up at 05:00 to go run in the local park, but the pollution was still bad from the night before. It was so bad that I was physically unable to run more than 500m. I tried running with a mask, but now I was getting barely any usable air and so was forced to abandon that option too. Eventually I found myself a gym packed with air purifiers and decided that that was as good as it was going to get.

Public transport in Beijing is a truly unique experience. The subway system, Beijing’s pride and joy, is fast, reliable and efficient but there is one downside - everyone uses it, and I mean everyone. Only when you get on the tube do you realise quite how many people live in Beijing. The pushing, the shoving, the coughing in your face, bags and indeed actual people getting trapped between the doors. It is absolute mayhem. People will yawn and cough in your face, they will hold eye contact for what feels like an eternity as if in a completely unnecessary game of chicken, they will have full blown conversations with their mother at a volume so loud the next carriage can hear. Sometimes you just had to laugh.

Saint Petersburg and Beijing are two completely different cities. Neither is superior. In both cities I created a life for myself which I grew to love. I met people and made friends. I joined the community by becoming a regular at coffee shops, parks, gyms. With each day I learnt of some other way to try and make my language and behaviour more native, be it using an emphatic exclamation like the way the Chinese say ‘ai yo’ when upset or going to a Russian Bath and embracing being patted over by a palm tree branch. These cities are a must visit, I only recommend you go there with an open mind, willing to try everything. To paraphrase Lily James in Mamma Mia- ‘the world is wide, now go make some memories’.