Hell is other residents

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but what is hell? Sartre believed hell is other people, as anyone who has ever had to squeeze onto the Subway Line 1 during rush hour knows only too well. Due to my physique, my fellow Irish citizens here in Beijing invariably ask me if I play Gaelic football, a game not unlike soccer that involves using your hands to catch the ball and elbows and shoulders to jostle your opponent out of the way for an hour. I politely inform them that I get enough of this physical torment during my daily commute, and I don't need to spend my free time engaging in such activities as a form of recreation.

As for good intentions, consider for a moment, a campaign by parents in Tongzhou to make sure their children have the same rights as those who have a Beijing hukou (permanent residency) when it comes to entering middle school.

They recently gathered at the local education commission to find out about the fate of their children. And what could be wrong with that? You would have to be particularly cruel to deny them equality with students who are fortunate enough to have a Beijing hukou. Surely this should be the case if you want to ensure an equitable society.

And yet, here I am, stating that maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea.

Like a frog in the pot of water that is slowly being brought to boil, I do not notice the population spurts as well as those who have lived here and then moved away.

Listening to their astonishment at the increase is a particularly annoying sensation, especially since this increase in population pressure was only something I was aware of on a subconscious level; an irritant at the back of my mind. Too many people want to live here.

It really comes down to infrastructure.

Subway expansion and other projects are supposed to make living in the city more bearable, and not merely function as a temporary reprieve from the increase in population density. By extending rights to those who were formerly exempt, it legitimizes the explosion of residents and undermines every effort to manage the growth of the city in a calm, controlled manner. Pushing the infrastructure until it strains at the upper limits of tolerance is not an effective way to run a city and it merely promotes the likelihood of one crisis rolling into the next.

Finally, at the risk of sounding like a terrible snob, certain elements coming into the city really undermine the good reputation Beijingers enjoy. I'm not referring to the gawping peasants who wander the streets in mild, amused confusion after their day's work, but the nouveau riche, who have made their money elsewhere and now wish to enjoy it in Beijing, away from the people they may have climbed over to get to the top. All cash and no class, this group should be the last to be permitted to live in this great city.