The Other Forbidden City

For years I had heard tell of it: A vast underground city beneath Beijing, built back in the Cultural Revolution and able to keep millions of Beijingers safe from nuclear attack. I half suspected that it was an urban myth. I had been in a bomb shelter beneath Peking University, where for a while there was a hip student bar in the early 90s. And the commie chic Red Capital Club kept its wine cellared in a shelter. But until last year I had never actually been to the Underground City, and to be honest, I was skeptical about all the stories I had heard.

There are rumors -- repeated by nearly every Beijinger but verifiable by no one -- that there's a central tunnel ("wide enough for three trucks," everyone attests) that leads from Tiananmen Square and the Zhongnanhai leadership compound to the western mountains and a military airbase outside of town. Whether this subterranean highway actually exists is anyone's guess, but what's certain is that as the Sino-Soviet split worsened in the late 1960s, Mao Zedong and his then-heir-apparent Lin Biao stepped up construction of Beijing's bomb shelter complex out of fear of a Soviet attack. Tunnels were hewn out of the rock at depths of 10 meters and almost entirely by hand; labor, after all, was one thing China had in ample supply. The Underground City was stocked with food, fresh water, medical supplies and armaments. Elaborate ventilation systems were installed, as well as gas- and waterproof hatches which would supposedly protect Beijingers from chemical attack and radioactive fallout. Entrances to the Underground City could be found in neighborhoods all over central Beijing; supposedly, some three hundred thousand could get below within minutes of an air raid warning and survive there for four months.

Probably the best place to see the Underground City today is at 62 Damochang Road, near Qianmen. Run by the Tourism Bureau, the Damaochang section is well lit and fairly extensive. You can take a 20-minute stroll through a circuit that lies about 10 meters underground. Comprised of tunnels three to four meters wide, it contains a hospital, classrooms and even a barbershop. Numerous narrower side passages, some of them reaching quite far down, offered tantalizing detours, but we were discouraged from exploring them. (A more enterprising friend of mine claims to have taken battery-powered lights off the walls and spelunked his way down another kilometer or so of rubble-strewn tunnel).

Wang Shudao, a native of Zhejiang Province, regularly leads tour groups of foreigners through the tunnels. Oddly, Chinese nationals are not allowed in. When I pressed him as to why, he meekly explained that they would be unable to accommodate that many domestic tourists. Funny, I thought it could house 300,000 for four months.

Introducing myself as an editor for the website ChinaNow.com -- my subterranean explorations were back in the dotcom boom days -- Wang was visibly excited and gladly offered to play Virgil to my Dante in this Beijing demimonde. "You guys are an e-travel site, right? I think featuring attractions like this could drive a lot of traffic to your website."

I nodded. "It's quite cool down here," I commented as we descended the steep stairs into the dank maze below.

"Yes, 18°C year-round! You know, I actually know a thing or two about the Internet..." He name-dropped at some length, then asked me about our investors, our business model, my options package. I answered tersely and asked him about the total length of tunnel under Beijing.

"I've heard the figure 26 kilometers, and I think that's a joke. I've easily walked far more than that, and there's lots of it that I haven't explored myself," Wang replied. "Right here, we're in Chongwen District. I've walked all the way over to Xuanwu District in the tunnels. Say, are you guys going to try to IPO on the NASDAQ or on the Hong Kong GEM?"

We walked past pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. We read slogans from the Cultural Revolution about struggle and war preparedness, murals of proletarian heroes rendered in vintage Socialist Realism, a ceramic bust of The Great Helmsman. And then, quite suddenly, we emerged into a brightly-lit underground silk workshop, where Taiwanese tourists in yellow golf hats admired silk-floss comforters assembled while they watched and shopped for silk goods in adjoining showrooms. Wang, sensing the horror that must have registered on my face, apologized embarrassedly over the presence of the silk vendors. We crossed the workshop quickly, though Wang obligingly recited his explanation of how silk floss is taken off the cocoons and what a tasty treat the silkworms themselves are. Yum yum.

The tunnel on the exit side of the workshop was done up in imitation Buddhist frescoes evoking the Fahai Temple and Dunhuang, and led to a gaudily festooned altar to the Bodhisattva Guanyin. Again, sensing my horror at this, he explained that most of the visitors are superstitious Hong Kong and Taiwan compatriots who insist on having idols to pray to. "They're not like us -- modern, Internet-age people. So what is your company's exit strategy?" I was more concerned about my own exit strategy by then.  

Getting There
The Underground City entrance is on Xidamochang Jie. Proceed east on the first alley south of Qianmen about 400 meters and you should see the sign, in English and Chinese, in the south (right) side of the road. Cameras are allowed, and it's a good idea to bringing a flashlight to peer down unlit corridors.

Address: 62 West Damochang Street, Qianmen
Tel: 6702-2657, 6701-1389
Hours: Daily 8am to 6pm
Admission: RMB20 [$2.50]