The Beige of Beijing: Lionel Shriver Calls Our City Ugly

Acclaimed author Lionel Shriver thinks Beijing is ugly and accuses expats in this city of having perverse habits. She says so in this article from UK magazine Standpoint. Shriver, who was here for the 2013 Bookworm International Literary Festival, claims the atmosphere in Beijing was so thick and brown she could taste it. She claims it "coated the inside of her mouth with greasy, toxic film that induced a mild but persistent nausea" (the very same film she later describes coating buildings and even the “very trees”).

After calling our city ugly and making fun of all the "rectangle" shapes (also known as buildings, which are 3-D ... so, not quite rectangles), she goes on to attack the expat community’s high awareness of pollution:

"Expats find a perverse satisfaction in checking daily American Embassy air quality readings; the higher the pollution score, the more they feel intrepid, a breed apart. But especially foreigners with kids cited the air as a leading reason why they were planning to leave."

Kind words from an author who gave us such a thoughtful interview on being an expat.

The conclusion of her piece is that weak infrastructure is the biggest problem China faces. Her point is driven home with class – "blocked toilets" and "soiled loo roll" (that’s shitty toilet paper, for American English speakers):

"The fact that all over Beijing you have to put soiled loo roll in a little basket beside the toilet is telling: the infrastructure is fragile. It's easy to imagine that finally one too many migrants arrives, and all those tower blocks collapse like dominoes. The plain practical challenge of keeping Beijing and countless cities of similar size from imploding or coming to a standstill surely absorbs the majority of the regime's energies. I left China horrified and awed in equal measure. I'm betting the party's functionaries are less concerned with blocked websites than blocked toilets."

I’m sure my Chinese neighbors will be thrilled by her metaphors. Someone please translate this piece into Chinese (if it hasn't already been done). I can’t wait to see the ripples of glee on Weibo. In fact, even Standpoint readers thought she went too far. Comments on her piece accuse her of being boring and narrow-minded:

"Sounds like a little Englander, not surprised she elected to take-up UK citizenship. The above wouldn't be out of place on the Daily Mail. How very sad."

"LOL Lionel Shriver. Dreary author exhibits parochial worldview; there's a surprise. Utterly myopic – did she even leave the confines of her expatriate cafes, I wonder?"

I suppose these comments aren’t surprising. Shriver’s branded herself as a bitchy interview and writer, and her readers seem to dig her for those very qualities. She makes a living being cynical, expressing views on the world that are just as greasy and toxic as our beloved Beijing air.

So, just how ugly is Beijing's architecture? Check this out: