Earlier this year, the Chinese authorities cannily smothered online calls to stage a series of public protests against the government - the so-called 'Jasmine Revolution', which never got off the ground - by creating a pointless 'roadworks' on the doorstep of the Wangfujing branch of McDonald's, which had been designated as the Beijing meeting point for the would-be subversives. This (empty) enclosure of blue-painted construction fencing made it tricky to access the McD's, and all but impossible to see from anywhere down the street what might be going on inside or directly in front of it. (It might also have provided a discreet area where government goons could beat the crap out of presumed protesters, away from the scrutiny of bystanders with their pesky camera-phones and such - but I don't think it ever came to that, thank heavens.)
Now we find that there is a precisely similar - apparently purposeless - erection almost completely blocking the south end of the Sanlitun Houjie bar strip.
Has Luga been trying to revive the 'Revolution' to pull in more customers to his little basement burrito joint on slow nights early in the week? Or are jealous neighbours using their government contacts to try to squeeze him out of business by restricting access to his front door??
Perhaps we shall never know. It's been there three or four weeks already, and there's no sign of any digging of the road getting under way. The fenced off space is just becoming a repository for litter and broken beer bottles. Why, oh why?
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