Just
outside Beijing, in Yanqing County, there is a mysterious home whose owners
have long since disappeared, taking with them all their secrets about where
they came from, how they lived, and what they hoped for. I am referring to Guyaju, which is a manmade
complex of 147 caves set in a cliff wall.
Some of the
caves are linked together to form a small 3-room habitation that might have
served for Fred Flintstone. Others are
just small hollows in the wall, where wild flowers grow out of. None of the caves have any markings or
decorations, nor have they found any remains that might reveal when they were
last inhabited. All that’s there now on
a pale autumn afternoon are quaint tourists and storms of ladybirds.
Just below
Guyaju there are billboards advertising a very different kind of settlement: lusty cowboys sit on fences, while the slogan
underneath gasps “Original All-American Style, Unrestrained Cowboy Town”. It’s Jackson-Hole, a weekend get-away for
rich urbanites, made up to resemble their dreams of the American Wild
West. It even has its own mini runaway
train for showing around prospective property buyers. When I wandered around on Sunday afternoon it
looked empty, like a film set, but the guards assured me that 80% of the properties
have already been sold, mostly to Beijingers, and that there are even plans to
expand Jackson-Hole. At the moment
though, nothing is open, not even the shops on Main Street, which are still
being refurbished, or the town church, which has yet to be consecrated. It makes you wonder what the 80% do on their
weekends away. The idea of middle-class
Chinese people dressed up as cowboys, staging mock gun-fights and lassoing cattle
floats teasingly into my mind…
The
taxi-driver who brought me to this place told me that more and more city
residents are buying places in the countryside.
They bring everything with them from the city…nannies, cooks,
drivers…and create gated, hermetic communities where they can spend weekend
time with other people like them.
The
taxi-driver asked me if I am living alone in China, and I replied that I was,
ironizing that “one person isn’t much of a home”. He told me to get married soon, which is
something that you get used to hearing in China, and then, to my surprise he added
that the difficult part isn’t finding someone, it’s sustaining a heart-to-heart
dialogue.
The Beijing
autumn is at its proudest now. It is
like an Emperor in the way it imposes its will across the whole city –
everything feels cool, untroubled, and yes, eternal. But winter is waiting for its moment, and
then the whole city will change.
