When the great Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi, also widely known in Japan as Haku Rakuten, first came to the then-capital of China Changan, now known as Xian, a friend made fun of his name-- which literally could mean "free living is easy," saying: "Everything is expensive in Changan; living here is not easy."
The relatively high living costs in a capital city are understandable, based on fundamental economics.
However, the Chinese government is intervening and making Beijing less expensive than it would otherwise. Take transport for example. A two-yuan (roughly US$0.30) metro/subway ticket can get you anywhere along Beijing's four existing lines (1, 2, 5, 13); whereas in Shanghai and Guangzhou, fare is calculated by distance, and two yuan is only good for a one-way trip of up to 4 kilometers.
Beijing also offers the most affordable taxi service, compared to Guangzhou and Shanghai. Among the three major cities, cabs in Guangzhou are the most expensive.
About seven years ago, when I lived in Beijing and commuted to work by subway every day, the train wasn't as crowned as it is nowadays, but it still had substantial traffic. In China, crowds of people mean juicy markets. Hence the existence of underground businesses on subway trains. Taking advantage of the one-ticket-for-any-distance-any-time rule of the Beijing subway, beggars and unlicensed newspaper and map sellers used to work on the trains all day.
And now, as Beijing anxiously tries to polish its image, I've heard that the city administration is minimizing the presence of beggars, homeless and unlicensed street vendors. On my visit a couple of weeks ago, I didn't see a single street vendor and only met one beggar during rush hour in the subway. And most passengers were just trying to stay out of his way, rather than give him money.
Beijng's metro lines 1 and 2 seem to have been around forever; lines 5 and 13 are relatively new. Still, the current system is not meeting the transport needs of the capital city's 17 million residents. I even met a cab driver who, instead of taking my 60-yuan-worth of business across town, took me to the nearby metro station for 11 yuan, rather than navigate the crowded roadway. "I don't want to get into the traffic jam on the main roads," he said, "even if you pay me to."
According to a subway map on the official Web site of the 2008 Olympic Games, the Beijing metro system will expand a few times and become a huge web that covers the entire city.
Beijing metro blueprintThe purple line 10 on the map is expected to start running in June. It will accommodate locals and, in August, Olympics tourists. Other lines on the map are planned to be completed in different stages by 2015.
The blueprint reminds me of Tokyo's extensive metro webs. There are a number of metro companies in Tokyo, instead of one government-backed system. Metro tickets are not cheap, but with the heavy road tolls and expensive parking, people prefer public transportation to driving. Here is the map of just one of the metro companies operating in Tokyo.
Photo taken by Chen LinI wonder how much the government is subsidizing the Beijing metro. Maybe lessons can be taken from the Tokyo metro industry, for a more diversed and faster-growing system based on market laws.
