Okay, here is the translation following your instructions: Say it, Beijing

Author: Li Jiangshu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: It is difficult for Chinese people to reach ideological consensus, so people always witness dull debates being staged endlessly. There is one exception: environmental issues. More and more people are getting involved, with those buying mountains and volunteering for tree planting becoming a trend, and the army of environmental protection advocates gradually growing, spanning all social strata. Beyond the natural concern for desertification through green activism, a tender gaze is also focused on cultural environments. The indignant voices interfere with the crude and short-sighted construction teams, and everyone becomes a guardian of cultural heritage. Emphasizing refined culture and condemning shallow construction, foreigners are particularly enthusiastic. It is often heard that a foreign wife of European or American nationality is tirelessly blocking demolition and defending hutongs. Who can say this isn’t a form of social progress? But nothing can stop the rumbling of construction sites. City after city, the accumulation of history and precious remnants are still being demolished and destroyed one by one. Identical overpasses and flyovers make locals lose their way. Apathetic bank towers and shopping malls unify the rugged north and the gentle south into an abhorrent pattern. Amidst clusters of buildings resembling 1970s makeshift structures, selling European-California-style homes, they go to great lengths to add an Olympic Bird’s Nest and a potcake. Foreign experts exploit trendy bureaucratic psychology to give the shy city another term—a word called "city," which is misused in a vague and ridiculous manner: not only do names like "Dingzhou City Zhuozhou City" defy Chinese character logic, but can you understand signs like "Hulunbuir City Hailar City Manzhouli City" in the ancient grasslands? And the obsession with naming cities seems far from over. People are waiting for the official announcement of "China City Beijing City Badaling City." In Tang and Song legends, the military states and prefectures of the world; on historical maps, the prefectures and roads; even in the Cultural Revolution era, the counties, prefectures, and provinces—all these historical crystallizations of human settlements—provinces, prefectures, counties, towns, and markets, regardless of size or importance, are all turned into ambiguous "cities." Atop them is a uniform height, in their eyes is the dazzling white of tiles, and in their ears, the news of destroying cultural relics. At the end of monotony and exhaustion, people no longer love their hometowns. Fortunately, this is after all a field where discussion is allowed. Like protecting forests, anyone can harshly criticize those who destroy the appearance of ancient cities. Even before the national landmark theater was completed, texts cursing it as "cuckold architecture" had already appeared. The earliest advocates, those who called for action when it still carried strong political connotations, have long been despairingly silent. Perhaps, for our insensitive nation, only when the historical city perishes will the observation of urban history begin. Only when imitation ancient streets are one by one fabricated and the illusion takes hold, and even we truly treat them as heritage—will the new historical city, whether you like it or not—make its way onto the stage, will people turn around and pay attention to the precious historical cities.
The progress of human civilization, when it diverged at ancient crossroads, presented different approaches to urban types. In other words, the cities we have possess inherent weaknesses from the very beginning. Today, with a thoughtful comparison of some famous Mediterranean cities, we discover they followed different planning traditions. For example, Granada is built on a mountain ridge, following the mountain’s slope and undulations, first constructing the palace, the royal city. Then, outside the fortress walls, civilian residences were built haphazardly. The square was the market; using the neighbor’s outer wall as my own front wall, connecting the small paths of a few neighbors formed a city network of roads. Private ownership of homes and land limited the state’s arbitrary will. Streets between neighborhoods were major thoroughfares, following the springs and watercourses, leaving a basis for future modifications. The urban planning that borrowed from nature brought undeniable benefits to humanity. A thousand years later, the entire layout revealed a labyrinthine charm. No wonder the Alhambra Palace and the Albaicín cave district, both within hundreds of steps of each other, were early designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
In the minds of Chinese people, urban planning is about ritual. Since the era of the Rites of Zhou (Kaogongji), the grand grid of nine meridians and nine parallels has remained unchanged, regardless of dynastic changes or the passage of time. This is a flat plane to display the ruler’s majesty, not a design for comfortable and rational living. Such layouts inevitably place cities in the plains, and plain cities, besides their vulnerability to floods and wars, abandoned the use of building elevation, effectively losing the depth of the city. The flaws of ritual-based planning cannot be solely attributed to the placement in the plains. The rigidity extends beyond the-cutting division of districts; other ideological factors also make cities rare to thrive. Need I mention the Yin Ruins of Anyang? Need I mention Bianjing in the Clear and Bright River Map? Even the great Chang’an, famed for its famous lifang districts, why did they vanish later? There are countless lessons worth reflecting upon. Kashgar is also built on the plains, yet why is its charm so irresistible? By the way: the foolish transformation of Kashgar City is also proceeding relentlessly, eliminating its charm and using the nine meridians and nine parallels as its blueprint.
Beyond the layout, building materials are another weakness. From the Yin Ruins to the high platforms of the Warring States period (e.g., the of Zhao, the of Chu), ancient materials were only rammed earth. The rapid decay of wood and rammed earth is self-evident. Later, harder materials were added, and Chinese architecture embarked on a long path of earth and timber construction. As the cellular material of cities, the fragility and rapid corrosion of this building material made preserving ancient structures difficult. It cannot be compared to the stone-built city of Alara on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Ancient buildings everywhere had to be rebuilt every century and repaired every three decades. Though the inscriptions on the monuments might trace back to the Tang and Song dynasties, the temples and halls before our eyes are almost all reconstructed in the Qing Dynasty. We lack a tradition of using stone. On the boundless plains, once dotted with brick kilns, now stand cement plants. Thus, there is no Alara, no Roman ruins stretching along the Mediterranean, towering even before the Common Era. The cheapness and limitations of earth and timber materials fostered speculation and short-sightedness in urban construction. Take some time to visit a stone market—it reveals that no one actually plans to build a stone structure. Instead, stones are cut into slabs and "dry-hung" on poor-quality skeletons! Such buildings, and the cities built from such buildings, their precarious preservation, their historical heritage, are already on the brink of collapse.
Braudel, in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, summarized some elements of early capitalist cities, such as their geographical origins and relationships with markets and transportation, their functions as bureaucracy, commerce, industry, crafts, religion, and military, and pointed out the urban diseases of food, politics, transportation, and population. He concluded with the bank age of cities. He said: "If urban life develops in stages, it also declines in stages. The birth, growth, and decline of cities are closely tied to the overall economic situation. In the process of decline, cities gradually abandon their sources of power." (Commercial Press, volume, P468) But the transportation factors that led to the rise of capitalist cities in the 16th century had not yet developed into urban cancer as they do today. Transportation is the city’s veins; once it becomes inflamed, the city suffers high fever and paralysis. Developing transportation is a sacred name. Transportation problems are the cover for all conspiracies and corruption. Real estate’s massive profits are also quietly calculated behind this cover. Cities are fragile; with just the excuse of transportation, every intersection of Beijing’s hutongs can be turned into a monstrous flyover. People in the city are even more fragile; behind the construction teams and developers lies the "irresistible force," and people can only accept the judgment to leave their homes. Barriers and iron fences are for traffic—yet seventy-year-old men struggle to climb over high pedestrian bridges, yet cars still surge in locust-like swarms. Widening, every road is widened to 80 meters or 100 meters, and the troublesome nine meridians and nine parallels can be replaced with terrifying overpasses at all 81 intersections. In the near future, one can imagine pedestrian crossings packed with shuttle buses. Can a mere hutong not contain your nostalgia? For transportation, cars, and real estate, for the will of officials and fat profits, can all civilization be carved to the bone, torn down to the core!
I recall the Moroccan city of Fez. That ancient city, along with its modern life, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is also built on relatively flat ground, and the materials are not hard granite—it manages traffic problems with a single-lane donkey track. The key is that in the urban construction there, cultural preservation is absolute, as taboo—no one dares to touch a single hair of the ancient city. In the planning lacking social supervision and expression of dissent, there is no taboo—only tyranny. I have seen the lower-level scenes of Zhengzhou vanish in an instant, and witnessed the wooden streets of Kunming being demolished room by room. Last year, the charm of the Ili Han bazaar disappeared, and now I witness the encirclement of Timbada in Kashgar—cities are like history, fragile and can be rewritten. Regret has turned into sorrow, and though ink may be thick, words fail. Is it that we compete to spread the news of ancient city demolition? Is it that we race to curse the reckless destruction movement? Whenever I hear someone talk about Beijing’s hutongs, I feel frustrated.