by Lieven Walther
One of the things that amazes me most about China is how easy it is to get from A to B here. In the Netherlands, I quickly feel dependent on my bike or car again. After all, it is well known, public transport doesn’t take you everywhere and you need to have time. In the village where I come from, we are blessed with a train station that connects us to the big cities, but within the village itself, you remain dependent on your own car, bicycle or, if necessary, your own two feet. There are no shared bikes or scooters to hop on, no Didi to take you home for a few euros. Only then do you realize how quickly you become spoiled in China.
In Hangzhou, where I now live, you can pick a shared bike or scooter on practically every street corner. Not one or two, sometimes there are dozens. There are more than 20 million shared bicycles in use throughout China. And the bizarre thing is: it works. They don’t get knocked over and they hardly get in the way, as is often the case in the Netherlands. In Hangzhou, all I need is Alipay. The number 1 app to save you. Scan the QR code, pay a low fee, and off you go! In the Netherlands, there are a range of companies offering shared bicycles; NS, Donkey Republic, Lime, Bolt, Uber, Rent-a-bike Van Dam, Deelfiets Nederland etc etc. Each company has its own app that you have to download before you can rent a bike.
The metro network in Hangzhou has grown tremendously in recent years, especially after the Asian Games. There are now more than twelve lines and more than three hundred kilometers of track. You notice this well in everyday life: you can get almost anywhere. The metro is clean, new, quiet and cheap. The 30-minute daily commute I made in the Netherlands costs €7.10; Here it costs me €0.50.
The Didi’s make life really easy. In the Netherlands, you think twice before taking a taxi. Here, a half-hour ride sometimes costs less than a cappuccino in the Netherlands. That feels luxurious, but also necessary because it is less common to have own a car here, and we don’t either. Once, after dinner I wanted to walk home, but it was raining very hard and I had left my umbrella at home. So I booked a Didi and got home dry for a small fee. In the Netherlands, getting wet would have been a more likely choice.
And then there are the high-speed trains. It’s an incredible system. You fly through the country at 350 km/h, while in the Netherlands the Eurostar reaches a top speed of 300 km per hour. This is only possible on the high-speed line, the HSL, of which there is only one. An intercity train on the normal track reaches a maximum of 140 km/h. The first time I experienced this speed, during my trip from Hangzhou to Shanghai, was quite an experience. It was then that I really realized how big the country actually is. You can be in Shanghai in an hour. In Nanjing in two hours. Trains depart every 5 to 10 minutes nn average. There are now more than 40,000 kilometers of high-speed lines throughout China. Imagine: this is about the circumference of the earth. And every day, work is being done to further expand the rail network. In addition, a train station hardly feels like a station, but more like an airport. There are rows of security checks and your ticket is always linked to your passport. That’s convenient, but you don’t remain anonymous.
That also brings me to the following: privacy and dependence. As impressive as China’s infrastructure is, it certainly has a downside in my opinion. It is impossible to go through life anonymously because of the digital connection and registration. Every trip, every purchase leaves a digital trail. Your phone is literally your ticket to everything you do: without a phone, you are locked out of transport, shops and sometimes even your apartment. Privacy? All personal data is stored and can be used, for good but also for bad. It doesn’t necessarily have to be negative, but it’s something to think about.
The luxury and convenience of the good infrastructure in China is quickly becoming the new normal for me as an expat. You expect everything to work, be fast and be within reach. Only afterwards – and certainly back in the Netherlands for a while – I am more aware of how dependent I have actually become. It remains a special experience to be able to live in China.
Lieven Walther lives with her husband in Hangzhou and shares her expat experiences with the readers of ChinaNU+.
