04 · Return-to-Beijing Syndrome: The Relentless Line 10
In some cities, you don't even need to clock in; your body has already started working overtime.
Returning to Beijing is a Physical Reaction
About to return to Beijing after the New Year. Before I knew it, I had been living here for two years.
Every time I return to Beijing, my body reacts first. I start to get anxious, my skin gets allergic and itchy, I feel down, and I don't want to go back to school.
In fact, I still look forward to learning new things and experiencing new aspects of life.
What I truly resist is the imminent plunge back into the physical environment of this city.
Beijing is too dry. The dry air just touching the skin makes people inexplicably irritable. The cold winter wind is like a blunt knife, constantly cutting into your senses outdoors. My knees ache faintly, forcing me to mobilize all my body's energy just to keep warm. Just when you are about to run out of fuel, the indoor heating suddenly gives you a chance to catch your breath.
Coupled with the strong winds, dust, rhinitis, and spring flu allergies, I often joke: the most widespread dividend Beijing offers to ordinary people is probably medical reimbursement. It's indeed necessary.
The City's "Sense of Compression"
This feeling reaches its peak on Lines 10 and 13 during the morning rush hour.
Especially in winter, the carriages are packed with dark, bulky down jackets, permeated with an indescribable, mixed smell. Individuals are submerged in the social backdrop; you can hardly see anyone's face.
Occasionally, you can catch the expressions of a few peers:
Empty eyes, carrying exhaustion.
Some people in the carriage are sleeping while standing, leaning against the handrails. The vast majority have their heads down, their thumbs scrolling meaninglessly on their phone screens.
In these areas densely populated with top universities and major enterprises, everyone is like a spinning top whipped by inertia. Everyone is spinning, but very few truly stop.
The unavoidable long commutes start shredding people's time and energy from the early morning. It is a very peculiar kind of consumption. It's not a momentary exhaustion, but a continuous wear and tear.
No matter where you work, the commute takes at least an hour. The high density of the crowd infinitely compresses personal space, making it impossible for you to ever have a fresh, personal morning to yourself.
A Dislocated Life
Beijing is too big, so big that the city's grand narrative is completely separated from the micro-lives of ordinary people.
Guomao and the CBD are always bustling.
Exhibitions at the Forbidden City and the National Museum are always crowded.
Many of Beijing's landmarks are more like backdrops.
The freshness of newly arriving vanishes without a trace after just a short year. Then, life begins to turn into a fixed track.
When the weekend arrives, faced with long distances and crowded tourists, the ultimate choice is often compromise: staying indoors at the dorm.
Under such a massive spatial scale, lovers living in two different districts are undoubtedly in a long-distance relationship.
The Folded Experience of the City
In this city, the experiences of different groups of people are folded.
For local residents, those magnificent buildings are nothing more than the scenery outside their doors. The commute is manageable, the living radius is stable, and Beijing is a city where one can live a normal life.
For those "Beijing drifters" who come from afar, they endure long commutes and compressed lives. Many try hard to stay, perhaps only earning that bit of face when they go back to their hometowns. As for the other side of life in Beijing, only the person experiencing it knows how it truly feels.
And as a student, I am in a subtle in-between space. The school is in a corner of the city, and my life basically revolves around the campus. The campus walls temporarily block some of society's biting cold, but I can already clearly see the predetermined path laid out in front of all students who decide to stay in Beijing:
Grad School / Civil Service Exam → Internship → Big Tech or Government Job.
Massive amounts of time and vitality are silently consumed in subways, buses, and offices.
A Deeper Question
Everyone is trying hard to move forward. But occasionally, I can't help but wonder:
If life is not just these things,
then what other possibilities are there?
See you around.
— Maggie
*Beijing · 24 Feb