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Since the 2008 Olympics, Beijing has the ambition to become a bilingual city. On the bus and in the subway, stations are announced in Chinese as well as in English, and in subway corridors and other public areas, large posters display the bilingual message “Beijing spirit. Patriotism. Innovation. Inclusiveness.” Beijing is reaching out to foreigners, so much is clear, but the capital is not as inclusive for its own citizens as the posters suggest. To stop population growth, 700,000 people must move from the inner city to the suburbs in the next few years. Naturally, newcomers land in the farthest suburbs, unless they are capable of paying the off the scale rent asked for a flat in more central areas. These measures often result in migrants returning to their homes in the countryside. This is an actual trend, because the Chinese economy is not growing as much as was expected, there are fewer and fewer jobs available. As far as innovation is concerned, things aren’t going too well either. What remains is “patriotism”, which is in fact a euphemism for a new, expansive nationalism. China is an upcoming world power and that makes Chinese values worth propagating, both at home and abroad. This is what the people are made to understand. But the contemporary Chinese aren’t the obedient yes-men they used to be. Attempts to include more patriotic lessons in the school curriculum led to huge protests, and not just in Hong Kong, where the initiative was cancelled eventually. Beijing spirit? Plenty. For example, take a walk in one of the five hundred hutongs that are still there. People talk, eat, play and work in the streets to escape their far too small, dark houses. Life in the hutongs is chummy, noisy and rustic. Solidarity aplenty there.
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