Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

The following essay was published in the 17th December 2006 edition of the Sunday Times. We’re looking for advice on whether to move to Beijing, so please feel free to post your thoughts! More on that in a future post :

Sunday Times 17 December 2006
Trying to Fathom the Fatherland
by Colin Goh

“So how?” asked the Wife as we stepped out of ‘Bed’, a super-cool courtyard house-turned-bar near Beijing’s Drum Tower (which has given rise to the pickup line, ‘Want to go to Bed with me?’ amongst the local lotharios), “ Interested in moving to Beijing?”

I scratched the back of my neck. I had come to Beijing expecting grey uniformity, unrelenting tackiness and phlegm-encrusted streets, but was pleasantly surprised to find a generally litter-free environment and some really sophisticated restaurants, nightspots and shops. (Okay, mostly really cheenapiang restaurants, nightspots and shops, but some really sophisticated ones too.)

In some ways, Beijing reminded us of all the bits we like about New York. There was an underground punk and rock circuit, acerbic columnists and bloggers galore, and even a nascent Spoken Word scene – something that’s yet to take root even in cosmopolitan Singapore. There was an undeniable buzz to the place, heightened by it taking place in the shadow of centuries of history.

The cheapo serviced apartment we’d rented was also very New York. We’d booked it through Craigslist, and were amused to find it run by a group of aunties (‘ayis’) trying to make an extra buck. The building itself was tenanted mostly by young people from all over China trying to make it in the big city: models, actors, programmers, etc. It felt like the hipster/artist neighbourhoods in Williamsburg or Bushwick, except with a 24-hour McDonald’s and supermarket round the corner. (Somewhat disappointingly, things came ridiculously close to home when we encountered a group of African Americans along the Sanlitun bar strip trying to peddle drugs to us.)

Even the cabbies reminded us of New Yorkers. In Shanghai, the Wife had asked a cabbie what he thought of the upcoming 2008 Olympics. His reply: “Oh, it’s good. It’ll bring in a lot of money.” In response to the same question, however, his Beijing counterpart sucked in air through his clenched teeth for several weary seconds before exhaling, “Ma fan (It’s troublesome).”

In some respects, Beijing even outdid the Big Apple. In a little street off Sanlitun, we visited possibly the best DVD store I’d ever been to – it had every title, from quotidian Hollywood blockbusters to serious arthouse fare, straight from the major festivals. Of course they were all pirated, but the storeowners were no ordinary copyists. In fact, they were curators: on the shelves were boxed sets featuring the complete works of Godard, Jim Jarmusch, the Coen Brothers, Akira Kurosawa and even Shohei Imamura… collections that don’t even exist in the official world! As a filmmaker, it was frightening. As a cinephile, it was fabulous.

In other words, Beijing was extremely appealing. The projects our prospective Chinese partners were proposing were also very intriguing, with the potential to work with and learn from some really cool folks. But, but, but…

“It’s damn scary, lah,” I shuddered. We’d heard too many stories of Singaporeans being taken to the cleaners in China, with all their losses having to be written off as ‘xuefei’ (tuition fees). We had asked some Chinese friends for their impressions of Singaporeans and one of them, after a long pause as she struggled to find a diplomatic answer, replied, “You dian dan chun (A little wet behind the ears).” This produced nods and giggles from the rest. She might as well have said we all had a big huge ‘S’ for ‘sucker’ painted on our foreheads.

But at the same time, for all the dangers and discomforts, the thought of being able to witness first hand or even participate in China’s current metamorphosis was really tempting. It may seem like New York now, but in two years, who knows? China certainly wasn’t in hentak kaki mode.

So maybe you readers out there who’ve had experience with China can help me decide. Is China really a shark pit, or is it mostly hype? Have you had particularly good or bad experiences living or working in China? Any advice? Are the opportunities really that great? Is it really worth giving up the full functionality of Google for? I’d genuinely like to know, so if you’d care to share, please email your stories to me at colingoh@colingoh.com. Your confidentiality is assured, and it could change my life.

I’d really like to find out why the Chinese spent so many centuries building that great wall: was it to hide its treasures from the barbarians or to shield its inhabitants from accessing greater truths? Or maybe both?

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