This is the "Other" Beijing at Night

New Sanlitun - right of Yashow; Beijing, China

Beijing is more active at night - that's when all the trucks and workers can build without pedestrian, biking or automotive interference. All your village workers (waidiren, nong ming) emerge and blend their dusty skin into the night. If there're not adding more floors to a new building, they are transporting dirt away to build the foundation of a new building.

This site is where the New Fashion Quadralateral of Sanlitun will be located -it will be a taste of LA's Santa Monica, NYC's 5th Ave, Milan and Paris.

I snuck in here in between trucks unloading dirt - the video is short because the next truck was coming in to take dirt away so I had to stop. But this gives you an idea of the rapidness of Beijing's growth. I would not be surprised at all if I were to walk down this street tomorrow morning to see that the entire foundation of this building has been built.

Non of the workers are from Beijing. there are from villages and other provinces. The situation parallels California's hypocritical relationship with Mexico. Just like California, Beijing welcomes the villagers/farmers as construction workers, but they have no other priveledges and they are expected to go back to their province when the work is finished. they are not given a Beijing residency card - without this card - they do not have access to the social services that Beijingner's have access to - like schools, health care and etc. The workers here are recruited from their home province to Beijing by these large construction corporations - as these companies know that they don't have to pay them as much as Beijing citizens. The workers live in squalid buildings and they definitely do not shower everyday. It's 16 hr workdays 7 days a week. There are a lot more workers during the winter because they do not have farming work back in their province/village - so they come here to Beijing for construction work and send their earnings back home. But there has been so much corruption lately as bosses have not paid the workers when the work is done - the boss or entire company will vanish. A lot of these workers are illiterate - so they sign contracts without truly understanding the stipulations. Hey starting to sound more and more like how USA treats their "alien" un-documented workers right?
You can tell who a villager/non-beijingner is right away - they have dust,dirt, grit in every crevice of their body. Their skin tone is darker and more wrinkled - their Mandarin is noticably not on tone.
I like riding the public buses b.c it's the only time I can listen to them talk, and be in the same space with them as equal riders. You won't find them really on the trains.