Study Chinese sociaty - my impression of Beijing
Student name: Ms. Neha Navlakha
Nationality: Swedish
Time in China: 20 weeks from Jan 10, 2011
Occupation: student in US
After a fortnight in Beijing there are two things that stand out to me. The first is that, while I was well aware that Beijing has a large population, I didn’t realize what this would entail in practice. Beijing has a population of over 23 million people, which is far more than in any of the places where I grew up, in New Delhi, India (about 19 million) and in fact greater than the population of the whole of Sweden (about 9 million) . When you take the subway on a regular basis you really get a taste of what this entails, as you struggle to find a spot to stand (sitting is out of the question) no matter what time of day you are traveling.
Quite in contrast to the overwhelming bustle of people that is the norm in this city, my second observation is just how efficiently everything works and how the millions of people who live here manage to seamlessly maintain an equilibrium that gives the city a reassuring sense of structure rather than becoming a chaotic web of conflicting needs and wants. The subway itself is cheap and timely with a network that stretches across the city. Despite the fact that the trains are always full to the brim, there is an orderly system that governs the movements of these commuters; people line up patiently while they allow passengers onboard to exit the train and somehow, no matter how packed the train is, people are able to get on and off at their respective stations.
The subway system is to me representative of the city as a whole. Beijing is a city of contrasts and it is the remarkably seamless co-existence of these contrasts that has had the greatest impact on me.
