In the Name of Progress?

A lot can happen in a short time here.


Today I went to my favorite market to pick up some things for Mike.  I was not prepared for what I found!
As the driver pulled up to the gate where he always lets me out  it seemed very different.  At first I thought it was due to the early hour.  We were there much earlier than I had ever been before because we had to take Olivia to school at 7:00 so she could go to the airport for her band trip to Hong Kong.  Traffic was so good that we got to GE by 7:30 to drop off Mike and I got to the market by 7:50, definitely record time!  (Poor Mike more than made up for it by taking almost 2 full hours to get home...major traffic issue this evening)

So, back to the intent of my post, the market.  I was at Muxiyuan about three weeks ago , right before New Year/Spring Festival.  Many of the stores I frequented were packing up all their stuff and in others there seemed to be sales going on.  I can never really be sure what is happening unless I have a friend along who speaks Chinese.  My skills in that area are limited.  A bit frenzied.  I mentioned it to my friend and we thought maybe they were trying to get extra cash for the holiday as most people go back home (most people only work in Beijing and are from some other place and their families are not here) and don't work for two to three weeks.  People tell stories of their Ayi's going home for New Years and never coming back.....no notice just never show up again!  If I had only known what was going on I would have done things differently!

My favorite part of the Muxiyuan market has been reduced to rubble!

I could peek through the material they put up on the fence and this is what I saw.  So sad.  Frustrating as well because I now cannot find the shops I planned to go to.  I have no idea what the shop owners do now.  I think some got shop space in the sections not being razed as there was a great deal of activity in some spaces I wandered through.  New displays being constructed and cleaning of spaces as well.





 This is a closeup of the shot above.  In the center of the picture there is a man sitting amongst the rubble cleaning bricks.  You can see his black hat and shoulders around a pile of them.  

   

 These two shots show left (above) and right of where he is sitting.  I am sure in a day or two they will also be reduced to a pile to be sorted through.

Bricks.  Gleaned, cleaned and stacked, ready to be used again.  Are they going to reconstruct?  Put in a large indoor market?  A subway?  I am sure someone knows.

Here are two guys salvaging materials or recyclables.  You can now see clear across the space where a labyrinth of shops stood a mere three weeks ago.

All is not lost!  I came across this in my wandering and stood there quite a while before it hit me what these black things were.  It was newly poured cement and these were straw filled pads used for insulating the cement while it cured.  I don't remember this gaping space in the market before so perhaps they already cleared an area and plan to put up new shop space?  Anybody's guess!





Love, fondly, sincerely,
zaijian,
Ramona