Not all fun and Games

AS the 2008 Olympic Games draw nearer, Beijing is losing its battle to overcome smog problems. John Wright reports on the city's race against time.

No clear solution ... despite efforts to cut Beijing's air pollution, a perpectual haze still clings to the city / Reuters

Not all fun and Games

THE smog and traffic are what get to you on a first drive into Beijing.

That, and a suspicion that the international airport's foreign-exchange counter has given you a raw deal and that the man who has talked you into taking his limousine taxi is going to rip you off.

On a good day, it might take up to an hour to get into the heart of the city at Tiananmen Square along the Avenue of Everlasting Peace.

But Chinese athlete Liu Xiang will probably get there quicker. He holds the world record in the men's 100m hurdles and is the Olympic gold medallist from the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Beijing's great journey 

I saw Beijing first during a brief trip in 2003 when even the ravages of a disastrous Asian SARS epidemic could not restrain the city's almost palpable enthusiasm at the prospect of hosting the 2008 Olympic Games.

Inbound tourism was down by 30 per cent and huge amounts of money were being earmarked for a recovery plan to claw back numbers.

To me then, as a casual tourist, Beijing seemed to be a city of bicycles and street vendors, and you couldn't move around Tiananmen – the biggest public square in the world – without being accosted by someone selling maps, kites, Mao's Little Red Book, Saddam's Most Wanted decks of cards and myriad other souvenirs and trashy knick-knacks.

Billions spent on beautifying city

Four years on, and only a year before Beijing's moment of truth with the August 2008 Games, the city has changed remarkably.

Street vendors around the square and the Forbidden City have virtually disappeared and the rush-hour crush of bicycles has been replaced by a constant stream of traffic.

China's new, less-cautious "spending generation'' has embraced market-driven consumerism as if there is no tomorrow.

Public spending in the lead-up to the Olympics has been phenomenal, too. Billions of dollars have been spent cleaning up and beautifying this capital of 14 million people.

New parks have materialised in and around the city; heavily polluting factories have been moved away or closed.

New ring roads and a new subway line have been built, and environmental protection technologies have been applied to what has been, and still is, a frenzied planning and construction schedule.

Social-manners campaigns

The populace, too, is being educated in "Polite Queuing Day'' and other social-manners campaigns that encourage people not to swear or spit in the streets, how to form orderly queues, obey traffic rules, be honest and respect foreign visitors.

Beijing's citizens are even being asked to learn 20 English phrases to make visitors feel more welcome.

Work on 31 new or renovated local Olympic venues – most in a precinct north of the city centre – is going to schedule, according to Games organisers, and most projects will be finished by the end of the year.

The centrepiece National Stadium, an architectural wonder in the shape of a bird's nest, is due for completion by March and will become a major icon of the city.

Olympic T-shirts and cap sellers are everywhere. From the Great Wall to the Temple of Heaven, you cannot avoid being offered Olympics merchandise.

Perpectual haze 

The city seems ready for, and in control of, its Olympic destiny.

The question is, will Beijing's monumental effort to show off its history, culture, new green environment and tourism services, have been in vain?

A perpetual haze still clings to the city despite two five-year environment and air-quality
improvement campaigns.

Factories may have been moved or closed, but Beijing's motorists and the pollution they cause, despite new emission controls, represent the city's No.1 environmental headache.

City officials have been keeping a count of the number of "blue sky days'' – days on which, presumably, the sun manages to break through the smog strongly enough to cast shadows.

In the first six months of this year, there were 110.

Summer worst time for pollution 

Summer, when the Olympic Games will be staged, is unfortunately the worst time for pollution in Beijing, and though there have been noticeable improvements in air quality, it seems that the year the city has left to fix the problem is not long enough.

Beijing, a prosperous and conservative city until now, has been far less dynamic than China's economic powerhouse, Shanghai, but it is moving at a pace that is unstoppable.

The city's people are switched on to the same things as Australians: making money, acquiring possessions, enjoying life. And now, in the lead-up to the Olympics and with an ongoing campaign not only to improve their environment, but also to make it a cultural showpiece in 2008, they appear to be doing what they can to make their city a truly wonderful tourism destination.

However, summer is not the best time to visit. The smog can turn the streets into saunas and the crowds of domestic travellers who come to this 3000-year-old city at that time of the year are overpowering.

I'd recommend April/May or September/October as the best times to visit – and mid-winter, when this part of China is characterised by blue skies and few tourists.

There is a lot to see – more than you can take in on a typical two to three-night stay on a travel package.

Rich history 

This city was a capital as early as the 12th century. It was overrun by the Mongol warrior-emperor Genghis Khan in 1215 and later rebuilt as the centre of the world's greatest empire under his grandson, Kublai Khan.

It was laid out as the capital we know today in the 1400s, when its breathtaking Forbidden City and many other magnificent structures were built.

It was the home of China's last emperor and of the 1911 Revolution; it was a power base for the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1928 and was where Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Beijing was physically and intellectually ravaged by post-war communist doctrine and by Mao's disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966-76), which saw the wholesale destruction of the city's cultural heritage.

But enough was spared and subsequently restored or protected to make Beijing a fascinating 21st-century destination.

Highlights include the incomparable Forbidden City, the malls and other outlets of the shopping street Wangfujing Dajie, the insanity of the bargaining culture at the popular Xiushui silk market, the once- common dancing squares where locals waltz on balmy summer nights, and the riverside gardens leading to the Forbidden City from the east.

Any visitor must see the Great Wall, of course, and it is only 60km from Beijing at its nearest point.

But it is a tourist nightmare in summer and barely authentic in the places that most tourists visit.

Other parts of the wall are better value, especially if you go outside the tourist season.

You must walk around Beijing's traditional hutong areas, especially in the evenings, though here, too, their integrity has been compromised and degraded by mass tourism.

Any short stay in Beijing should include the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple is another interesting cultural site.

The rest is best left unscheduled: early morning walks to see the people of Beijing exercising in the parks; an impromptu evening foray, perhaps, into the switched-on drinking street Sanlitun Lu; lunch at one of Beijing's fine and value-for-money basement food halls.

Beijing has so much to offer. What you see and experience in this great capital is limited only by the time you wish to devote to it.

The writer was a guest of Helen Wong's Tours, flying Singapore Airlines.

The Sunday Times