Globe &Mail(Toronto, Canada)23 June 1999

China's painful blast from the pastOutlawed for decades, the rickshaw is back,as are porn, prostitutes, and even opium.'Mao would not be happy.'

by MIRO CERNETIGChina Bureau, BeijingWednesday, June 23, 1999

Beijing -- From the day Chairman Mao Tsetung's portrait rose over Tiananmen Square, therickshaw seemed doomed. A rich man's lounge chair on wheels, drawn by poor boys ordesiccated old men, it was viewed as the ultimate symbol of "coolie culture" and China'ssubjugation by the West.

Mao was determined to eradicate capitalist "evils" from Communist China. So, for mos't of thepast 50 years, the rickshaw had been relegated to China's museums and history books ~-even as ithas become a familiar sight in tourist centres around the world. .

In recent weeks, however, the rickshaw has made a comeback, quietly rolling back into the heartof Beijing. It rriay be considered a novelty elsewhere, but the shiny contraption with a yellow toppainfully reminds the Chinese of a time when they were seen as little more than beasts of burden.

"It's inhuman to treat people like animals -- to make a man into a horse," Lang Shenyuan, 73, saidyesterday as he caught sight of the new rickshaws on Beijing's famed Dashilan Street. "This is nota good thing for China."

Rickshaws, seen as the symbol of the 'coolie culture, Iwere eliminated by Mao Tsetung almost 50years ago.Now,four young men, including Liu Yanquin, below, are plying their trade near Mao 'sMausoleum.

Since May 1, four rickshaw pullers have, with the government's blessing, been plying their tradeon the 570-year-old commercial strip near Mao's Mausoleum on Tiananmen Square.

For those who recall the poverty before the Communist Revolution, their presence is anotherdangerous sign that China is losing its values to some of the vices that plagued its past. .

Prostitutes now loiter on the street and in hotel lobbies, and AIDS is on the rise. There arebeggars on most streets. Drugs -- inCluding opium -- are back on the scene.

Even the Internet, carefully regulated for political content by the secret police, has become aconduit into China for hard-core pornography that ranges from bestiality to underaged sex.

"Let's face it, nobody can stop this poor morality that is invading," said Zhang Qing, a 55-year-old laid-off steelworker who was killing time in a Beijing park.

"All the old evils are definitely back again. I never believed a rickshaw would come back toBeijing in my lifetime. Mao would not be happy with the current situation."

A walk up Dashilan Street certainly finds that others are indignant at the reappearance of therickshaw boys, most of whom are in their 20s and laid off from their jobs.

"It's people exploiting people," said a man who drives a pedicab. Having attached a bicycle to thefront of his lounge chair, he believes that the exploitative nature of carrying people has beeneliminated. '

"I am not totally human-powered. I am half-machine and half~human; that's okay. But thegovernment eliminated the rickshaws more than 40 years ago. Nobody except a laid-off workerwants to be a rickshaw boy."

Most older Chinese can still recite the story of Rickshaw Boy, the classic novel by Chineseliterary giant ,Lao She that chronicled the hellish life ofXiangze, one of the "camel boys" whopulled the rich (and usually white) men to the fleshpots and nightclubs of prerevolutionary China.

"He just wants to keep running," Lao She wrote in 1937, describing the life of his rickshaw boy'sdesperate attempt to find the money to buy his own cart and make a better life. "He isjust like astarving and crazy beast."

An old guidebook from 1934, written by an anonymous American, hints at what rich foreignersand Chinese thought of the rickshaw boy's place in the universe. "Rickshaw coolies live in dire,poverty," it said. "Pay them liberally but not foolishly, for it is an idiosyncrasy of the coolie mindto mistake generosity for idiocy."

"In the old China, there were a lot of rickshaw boys," fulminated Mr. Lang, so indignant at thememory that in yesterday's sweltering heat he began gesticulating with his Popsicle, splattering anearby tourist. "Excuse me," he said, taking out his handkerchief to wipe the stranger's shirt.

"I hate seeing the rickshaw boys back. Chairman Mao was a proud man. He would never allowthis to happen. If it will do any good, I am prepared to write a letter to the government tocomplain."

But one of the new rickshaw boys insists that times have changed. Wearing a shiny gold-silk shirtand black cloth slippers to attract attention, Liu Yanqing charges $2 to cart people, mostlyWestern tourists, down the street and back up again, giving them up to four pictures to rememberthe event.

On the job for about six weeks now, the 24-year-old said the ideological debate doesn't muchbother him. -

"When I work, some people say this is good for the street, for tourism," he said, fixing his yellowcap to his head and making sure that his camera was full of film for the passing tourists.

"But others tell me it is a bad thing, a symbol of the old China. I really don't know what Maowould think of what I do."

After a pause, however, Mr. Liu added that the old days of dogmatically following only theCommunist economic theory are long over. In China today, people borrow from both Marx andthe West, he said, explaining his pragmatism with the popular adage of Deng Xiaoping, theparamount leader who introduced ordinary Chi.nese to the market economy that prevails in Chinatoday.

"I tell those that complain about me that Deng Xiaoping said it doesn't matter if the cat is white orblack, as long as it catches the mouse," he said.

Business has been so-so, Mr. Liu said. But he likes the job because he can practise his Englishand keep in shape while he saves money to achieve his dream of becoming a photographer,something he acknowledges might lead to a better life.

A shopkeeper wandered over to the rickshaws and gave a throaty laugh in Mr. Liu's direction.She said she liked riding in a rickshaw, but she made it clear that the drivers were still on thelowest rung of the food chain.

"Look at his skin," she said, pointing to the bespectacled Mr. Liu. "Before he came here, his skinwas white and he looked like an intellectual. Now, he is dark-skinned, like a worker."

Mr. Liu looked on stoically. He said lots of people see nothing wrong with his job, especiallyamong his generation.

Indeed, over at the Lao She Teahouse, named after the famous writer, the young waitresses are infavour of the rickshaw's return.

"I don't know what Lao She would think," said a young woman, who stood before a bronze statueof the writer. "Lao She's stories were mostly sad. But I think bringing back the rickshaw is goodfor Beijing. It goes well with the old buildings."

But there are apparently limits to the rickshaw boys' domain. Another driver, Ma Xin, who pulls arickshaw in the downtown area, refused to take a customer into Tiananmen Square, under theGate of Heavenly Peace where Mao's famous portrait hangs. "The police will stop us from goingthere."