Bei-Bling

For two weeks in August, Beijing stepped to the front of the world stage, and served notice that it is a metropolis ready to join the ranks of the world’s alpha cities.

The Bird’s Nest: it’s not just for soup anymore

There is perhaps no other nation on earth that is modernizing more rapidly, and today’s China is far less about...

Long live the glorious people’s revolution

...than...

The National Grand Theatre: the mothership has landed

Or so one would think from first impressions of the city, which has more newly-constructed glitzy skyscrapers and fantastic modern architecture than you can shake an Olympic gold medal at. Or would, if you could see them...

Smog over Tian’anmen Square

We arrived here on Sunday the 12th from Seoul, and were immediately struck by how different Beijing is from our expectations. Oh, sure, the major tourist sights are the icons of its imperial past:

The Forbidden City

The Summer Palace

The Great Wall at Jinshanling

But this is not your father’s China. Today, the subway is full of posters for LG and Toyota rather than communist propaganda. You only have to spend a few hours walking among Beijing’s fashionably-dressed young people, more interested in their cellphones than Chairman Mao’s little red book, to realize that this is a country that is undergoing a second Cultural Revolution -- and one that is potentially even greater in its impact on Chinese society.

The future of China: you can’t fool the children of the revolution

The China of old, with its olive-drab uniform of communist conformity, has crumbled under the weight of a new consumer-driven culture that appears content to coexist with the totalitarian political system. This is really not surprising when you consider how deeply ingrained capitalism is in the soul of the Chinese people -- as the hoards of souvenir hawkers will attest. One old lady, “Ginger,” hiked with us for an hour on a very strenuous portion of the Great Wall, teaching us Chinese and "helping" Lynn up steep steps, all as prelude to pulling out a picture book and starting the sales pitch. That’s commitment to profit.

But step away from the neon and glitter of Beijing’s main thoroughfares, and you discover just how thin the veneer of modernity can be. For every brand-new modern edifice, there is a centuries-old hutong (alley) full of traditional courtyard houses, where life clings to the old ways of public baths and coal-burning stoves.

Out for a late afternoon stroll

In this Beijing, old men still gather in doorways to play mah jong and haircuts are given on a stool in the square. We paused in a particularly evocative alley, and an old lady invited us in to see her two-room, coal-heated apartment (she didn’t seem to care that we spoke no Chinese, she happily carried both sides of the conversation).

This hutong is home to at least 6 families

A common tongue isn’t necessary for friendship

Beijing is a city in transition, and we found that most evident in the faces of her people. I will close this post by letting them tell their own stories.