Prepare for your arrival: Huixin Xijie Nankou Station

It’s one of the most complicated and probably one of the longest station names in the Beijing subway system, but when you hear it blaring through the subway speakers, it has a special ring to it. Although it probably makes more sense in English as Huixin West Street South, it remains stubbornly true to its pinyin name: 惠新西街南口站. Huìxīn Xījiē Nánkǒu Zhàn.

Long names aside, the opening of Huixin Xijie Nankou in late 2007 was a breath of fresh air – even more so when Line 10 services began on July 19, 2008. Before its opening, changing lines in the network from Beijing was a real long way. Walk beneath the surface – and for those who had to endure Xizhimen before 2008, at the surface level too. The easy interchange routes were one way (looking at you, Jianguomen and Fuxingmen, Line 2 to Line 1). Cross-platform exchanges did not exist at all until the 2010s.

I have been to this station several times. It reminds me of a Beijing in transition. It was in a part of Beijing where we were already a few kilometers north of the old imperial city walls, but not really in the new city of tomorrow. This was China as it was in the 1980s and 1990s, but also in the early 2000s, in a part of the city where new skyscrapers were rising. At the time, the city had just reconverted and expanded the 2nd and 3rd ring roads with a 4th ring road in preparation and the “Ring Highway 1 and Ring Highway 2” (today 5th and 6th ring roads) in the planning phase. Not far from there was a university of the time: the University of International Business and Economics. This was the time when Chinese citizens could, for the first time in the early 2000s, apply for a passport because they wanted to travel, without needing approval from their work unit.

It was and still is a part of Beijing with streets still based on the hutong grid and elongated, sometimes modified a bit, yet the dimensions were more like your North American highway than the narrow streets of the city center , or even slightly wider streets. the streets of many Europeans Altstadt Or Old City. There would of course be exceptions to the rule. I remember a nearby road, Jian’an Donglu, which, in our era of scorching summer heat, is like a climate refuge – a narrower street, but full of trees, and therefore much cooler.

I myself have good memories of this part of the Chinese capital. I was a student at this university, and since I had a Swiss passport, I had to go through 中国概况 Zhōngguó gàikuàng lessons, essentially an “official introduction to China”. Like everything in China, when the teacher – the “laoshi» – asked you to do something, you did it; and in this case, he asked me to help him with the English lessons at the nearby vocational school, right next to the university. I also remember the university fondly for its social events. Indeed, my status as master of ceremonies in terms of linguistic and cultural shows is what led me to my media commitments today. Twenty years ago I started with college radio; today, the internet, along with podcasts and videocasts, has taken things to the next level.

I also remembered this university for what happened in December 2003 – more precisely on the 5th of that month – when I organized a language competition that put me on a trajectory that would, twenty years later , make me become a full member of the committee of the best in the city. language specialists. As we are used to correcting Chinglish, some call us, obviously ironically, the “Chinglish committee”. But it’s much more than that. This station itself, Huixin Xijie Nankou, has seen many changes in terms of the use of English on the Beijing Metro. For the first time, new, fully bilingual signage was part of the network. With, of course, a new way to change Beijing metro lines. For the uninitiated, it was confusing: for the first time in the Beijing network, you had to choose your direction of travel (if you were going from line 5 to line 10) before changing floors. But it was a good start to shorten the long walk that was then part of the many exchanges. You followed the signs and changed floors once and only once – from platform to platform, almost.

This station is also where I prepared for my arrival on Beijing’s new subway system. Of course, October 7, 2007 was not my first trip on the network, but it was for the new Line 5, which was revolutionary. For the first time, instead of going east to west or making loops or arcs that stretched for miles in the northern countryside of Beijing, you could go north to south through central Beijing. Beijing. It has changed the way we travel. And it’s made travel more civilized, with everything from platform-side gates to (slightly) cleaner toilets becoming the new normal.

So begins this new column, named after an announcement refrain aboard the Beijing metro. It will of course cover trains, including the Beijing metro, and national railways having something to do with the Chinese capital. But it will be much more than that. I add a bit of this, that and other things Jing – anything from the artistic inspiration of the station, to the history, to a station in its geographical context, or what’s to come ; and sometimes even a few rants as a frustrated commuter – Swiss, no less, wondering how the city’s rails could be better if everyone was as detail-obsessed as we are. From my most overwhelming experiences on the network, to those where my jaw almost dropped (looking at you, line 17, Ciqu interchange!).

READ: Subway Art: the murals of line 2 of the Beijing metro

Images: Unsplash, David Feng, the Pekingese, Wikipedia