Seeking humanity in an inhumane city

Cities define who we are in non-human terms, whether that be as consumers, laborers, white-collar workers, migrants, and so on. These identities often become so engrained with time that we begin to see each other in these terms.

Nothing is more telling of how city life can cheapen human life than hearing: "I think someone was just killed on the street," as I was informed offhandedly by a stranger outside a music club last Sunday night.

"Are you sure?" I asked, shocked by his casual tone.

"I mean, I can't tell," replied the dreadlocked foreigner, already eager to get into the club. "He might just be doing that Chinese thing where he's not moving in front of the police. He's laid out pretty good though."

In a Beijing minute, I quickly jogged to the intersection to find a circle of smoking cops, ushering traffic away from the death zone. A crowd had gathered, and was now shifting around in the cold, growing bored. I asked some folks for details, but nobody knew anything. It seemed the only person who knew what happened was the cold corpse crumpled in front of us.

A BMW Roadster had killed the man, reducing his scooter to plastic debris strewn across the axial Di'anmen intersection in Dongcheng district.

From the curb, the victim appeared to be a pile of bloody army fatigues; limbs positioned unnaturally, head twisted to the side. The stocky, middle-aged man's hair was cropped short, and his soggy, cloth shoes were miraculously still on. He was anonymous, another phantom laborer in the city where construction never ends.

The BMW, parked across the intersection, had clearly jackknifed the man's bike with sufficient force to throw him against the windshield and over the vehicle.

The driver, also middle-aged, stood next to his open door in slacks, hunched over his cell phone. He glanced down, sporadically stealing gazes of his victim.

About 10 policemen were now on the scene, most waving on cars as they waited for paramedics to arrive. I slipped through the gridlock and approached one of the listless policemen at the intersection's center.

"Uncle officer, what happened? Is he going to pull through?" I respectfully asked in Chinese.

The burly cop sprang to life, grabbing my shoulders and spinning me around.

"None of your business," he scoffed, leading me by my backpack to the curb. I had been close enough to see the dead man's bruised, pale face.

In the distance, I saw a silent ambulance trapped in gridlock. One cop strolled over to part the rubbernecking traffic that prevented it from the reaching scene.

A driver of a white Mercedes Benz insisted on squeezing through and rolled out in front. It was only then I heard a single voice of protest.

"C'mon! Go! You're blocking the ambulance!" yelled a man beside me. My gaze was fixed on the turtle-necked driver and his jewel-encrusted wife.

Next, the protestor surprised everyone. He slammed the Benz's hood with his palm, and screamed into its windshield. Some who saw it smiled, but a policeman rushed over and pushed him back into the crowd.

It had taken about three minutes for the ambulance to travel 10 meters to the body. After checking for non-existent vital signs, they bagged him and took him away. Almost as quickly as it had gathered, the crowd dissolved.

Despite being China's political and cultural center, Beijing is also an unforgiving city that eschews life in favor of development. Most of us agree to these terms every day, whether we know it or not.

But forget all the "civilized city" rhetoric and the "Beijing spirit" proclaimed in banners, and remember that in a sense we are all scooter riders in heavy traffic nearly every moment we live here. This should make us want to help each other, but it doesn't. Although we are defined by non-human terms here, it doesn't mean we can be excused from treating each other as anything less.