Auf Wiedersehen: Ein Beijinger Says Goodbye

“Ich Bin Ein Beijinger” was a magazine column written by Kaiser Kuo that ran in every issue from October 2001 to October 2011. Kaiser offered one self-proclaimed Beijinger's take on the city that he's come to call home.

On the afternoon of September 1, the first gloriously autumnal day of the year, I rode my e-bike eastward along the North Second Ring Road, admiring the manicured lawns, neatly trimmed hedges, and potted flowers in synchronous bloom that line the roadside.

That admittedly ostentatious landscaping doubtless strikes many as too earnest, as contrived and dated – an aesthetic that wouldn’t be out of place in modern Pyongyang. But that’s not what I was thinking as I rolled by. My reaction was more like, “Lookin’ good, Beijing!” It was like one of those moments I’ve experienced in marriage, when I catch a glimpse of my wife trying on a new and not necessarily flattering outfit before a mirror, unselfconscious and unaware that I’m admiring her, not knowing that watching her is what has impelled me – later, as she’s folding laundry or brushing her teeth or putting away the kids’ toys – to come up behind her, put my arms around her, kiss her on the neck and tell her that I love her.

Ahead of me, in front of the firehouse just west of the Gulou metro station on Line 2, a knot of onlookers had stopped to watch a dozen firemen in camouflage T-shirts running a makeshift obstacle course that had been set up in the bike lane. A whistle blew, and a strikingly handsome firefighter sprinted toward a two-meter wooden barricade, scaling it handily and swinging over it to land without losing forward momentum. He grabbed a coiled fire hose in each hand and, hose spooling out behind him, dashed toward a narrow balance beam, scarcely slowing as he traversed its length. I couldn’t suppress the urge to join in the cheer that went up as the whistle blew again and he crossed the finish line. My mood held as I made my way across town, under wisps of cirrus clouds and the sun gently warming my back, well ahead of the afternoon logjam, to a meeting at the Kempinski.

The weather was as beautiful when I sat down to write this final column as it had been a decade ago to the week when I wrote “Ten Ways to Fall in Love with Beijing” for the inaugural column of a new English monthly – a column I decided to call “Ich Bin Ein Beijinger.” When I wrote that first one, I honestly believed that, with a good seven years in the city already under my belt, my relationship with Beijing was already a mature one – one that had already been put to the test and survived some real vicissitudes.

But looking back now I can see how that love has changed over the years, settling into something less intense, far less epic, but more lasting and deeply satisfying. It’s had its edges ground down, and if the highs are not as high, neither are the lows as low. My changing relationship with Beijing has paralleled the changes in the other relationships in my life. The once wild, erratic pendular swings between expat me and Chinese me have settled into a gentle, non-disruptive waveform. I married, and if Fanfan in any way resents being cast in the role of Beijing in my metaphorical life scheme, she’s never complained. And while our relationship was never tempestuous, we’ve eased into an even more comfortable love.

Same with my band, Chunqiu, which predates the column by nine months. As with the band, so with the column: Neither has experienced anything like spectacular success, but both have been largely free of jarring lineup changes or ugly drama, and even if there are occasional frustrations, they’ve consistently provided creative outlets and remain as personally delightful as ever. They’ve both been lenses through which I’ve experienced Beijing, and vehicles for the expression of that experience.

Even at my age, I’m not even close to quitting the band. So why hang up the column? Because a decade on, I realize that my own relationship with Beijing just doesn’t accurately reflect the experience that others – at least, I daresay, other readers of this magazine – have had of Beijing. For most, that relationship has not settled, and indeed may never settle, into something comfortable or quotidian. The city itself continues to lurch, mostly forward but sometimes the other way. And I know that for most people, their relationship with Beijing is still more turbulent, more unsettled than my perspective can capture.

A noted critic of China’s political system recently wrote that Beijing is two cities – a compassionless city of power and money, and a downtrodden city of poverty and desperation. As an artist with extensive training in color, light and shadow, it’s surprising to me that he sees things in such stark black and white. The Beijing I know is many cities, not just the two of which he speaks. The nightmarish horrors he writes about may well be part of the reality, of the experience of too many.

And yet even without blinkering myself to the injustices, the callousness, and the indignations suffered, the Beijing I see remains mostly a city of ordinary people living through truly extraordinary days, a place where many people feel justifiable pride in what they’ve accomplished and how far they’ve come, where I still witness everyday kindnesses aplenty, where a guy singing unabashedly at the top of his lungs as he jams along on a bike – as I sometimes feel compelled to do myself – can still brighten my day. But I accept that this isn’t stuff that makes for good column fodder.

I’m grateful to the folks at this magazine for entrusting me with a place to share my own observations about Beijing, the satirical and the sappy alike. It has deeply enhanced my whole experience here, and after ten years I have a chronicle of life in this remarkable place as it’s moved through these most interesting times. Happy birthday, and many happy returns!

And of course I’m also grateful to those of you who’ve read this column over the years, for the feedback and the many kind words that many of you have gone out of your way to pass to me. I’m not going anywhere, and you’ll know where to find me.

Click here to see the October issue of the Beijinger in full.