AS 5 pm nears, vendors roll stoves made from oil drums up to Beijing's busiest intersections and begin their hoarse, slurred cries: ''Piping hot meat buns!'' ''Have some dumpling soup!'' ''Hurry, get your noodles!'' The warm fragrances grab homeward commuters by the nose as they stream past on bicycles. Some stop abruptly, prompting a trill of bicycle-bell ringing from annoyed riders braking hard behind them.
Pairs of cyclists shout back and forth over the loud drone of traffic and of jackhammers at the subway construction site across the street.
On the sidewalk, pedestrians have to weave among small squares of cloth covered with wares: hair clips, small porcelain statues, cigarette lighters, imitation ancient coins. Most of the sellers have day jobs, but rush out early to set up shop in time forrush hour.
Pre-teen girls from outside Beijing - part of China's new army of itinerate hawkers - wander up and down, thrusting roses at passers-by.
Walk further, and two sets of tables and chairs are smack in the road, forcing bikers and drivers to veer into the oncoming lane. A few early diners slurp noodles in soup, oblivious to any danger, as the car horns and bicycle bells and hawker cries and conversations blend with the sounds of televisions and cassette tapes being played inside open-door restaurants.
Beijing's clamour and congestion are the symptoms of life and commerce flooding back to this capital city of 11 million people after decades of socialist good order.
