Raccolta Online

Unless you’ve been blindfolded, you obviously know that Beijing’s on edge — and apparently, not just at Zhongnanhai and the Bird’s Nest. Indeed, in what runs under the earth near the two — the Subway — there’s an equal amount of nervousness — or rather, distrust.

When we were told that Subway Line 10 was about to open on June 30, 2008, we felt really pleased. This took the strains off just about everywhere in northern and eastern Beijing — Zhongguancun, the CBD, the Hotel Cluster on the Eastern 3rd Ring Road — you name it. Then, there was word that this was going to be pushed into early July 2008. The change was announced by the “Municipal Communications Commission” without giving a reason; the delay, however, would only run into “early July 2008″.

I myself also am a big Subway kind of guy (thanks, Kaiser), so I often dip my head into local metro forums. What’s interesting in these forums is the fact that they are staffed with ordinary passengers and even Subway company staff alike, so the news you get there is pretty much — straight from the horse’s mouth.

And now they’re saying (this is off the record; remember, in this nation of authority, if it didn’t come from The Boss, it’s not official) that the delay could plague Line 10 (and Line 8, as well as the Airport Express) until July 20-25-ish. This is hardly “early July”!

A recent thread summarizes this pretty well: we’re now to the extent that nobody can come out with “the hard facts” and announce it to the world. Come early July 2008, if Line 10 doesn’t open up — well, we would have passed the date announced by the media (quoting from a government organization no less — this is where it gets interesting). And then people would get mad at the Subway company. Their only ammo: “The media lied.”

If the Subway company comes out now with a pledge — say July 5 or July 12 — and miss that, the locals will go: “The Subway company lied.” The Subway company will promptly attempt to deflect that onto the media: “The media lied, not us.”

In a Western society, people are dragged into prison or given hell by the media. The media is the universal always-on camera (and microphone) that never takes a day off. If you said something on-record, it’s immortalized. You will be scrutinized. Miss the opening for a day — and you’d better have a good excuse.

In China, though, it’s quite the other way around — from what I’ve seen. The media and the companies often fight enough wars to make the next one look more like World War MMVIII (World War II was in the Mesozoic era, apparently, if we look at how many wars they’ve done). They screwed it up in late April with the supposed opening of Qianmen Avenue on May 1; they messed it up again on May 17, when the AFC ticket system was supposed to go into place. Bad PR + lack of info transparency = hell.

The media’s not on a clean slate, either. We’ve heard reports of the media asking for argent to cover news (yes, this happens); horror stories abound about journalists (sometimes rewritten in Chinese characters with porno connotations; let’s just say that the characters sound alike) covering this and that news and being able to grab a car in no time.

Unfortunately, none of the two seem harmonious enough for some deep-seated change right now. Change will come, eventually, but for the short run, the thing’s going to get a bit more gruesome before it gets any better.

Raccolta Online

A Thing of Bad Faith? Beijing’s Media and Subway Experiencing Mutual Delays in Trust

自己的鼻子: 比本人提前入籍九年