Some things right off the bat: it doesn't look like your dad's china anymore. If you just looked at the buildings, you'd think it was some new place in EU or a new version of new york. If you looked at the people, you might think HK. Definitely not what I expected for china. At least from what I saw, it's much less crowded than NY (where you constantly feel as if you are drowning in meat) or even downtown SF. And the air was clean, which seems impossible, but there you have it.
And the people had their pluses and minuses. I'm still not used to nicely dressed females clearing their throats like truck drivers and casually spitting on the floor inside a building. And the matter of fact way that Beijing people lie is startling. If you ask a question that they are too lazy to find the answer too will cost them money it seems fairly standard to lie right to your face. One example: a guide was trying to get us to go see some tourist thing, but we told him we were going to the forbidden city --- "Oh, you can't do that, they close at 3pm!" Which, of course, was complete bullshit. And thing was, it was trivially easy to falsify this claim since the gate was just 10 yards away. Stupid. Another favorite: if you ask a question they don't want to answer they just look away. Example again: taxi drivers parked by the side of the road "Are you working now?" which triggers no response and a studious look to the side.
Right off the plane, you can see a trend:
The airport is huge, with lots of space, and clean:
And no matter what people say, Chinese food is not spicy. They use the wrong peppers. Here's a good example: peppercorn, red peppers and a bit of meat, but 10x less hot than a good Thai chili (and nothing compared to habenero!).
You go to china for Cantonese --- hunan and Sichuan just isn't worth it:
Overall the food was not particularly good. All places eaten at were highly recommended by locals, but CA Chinese asian food is noticeably superior. The food in Beijing often tasted old, and the oil was extreme (and old). Some things were reasonable, but even Beijing duck wasn't what was expected. On the other hand the food is crazy cheap. The best meal was a chain(!) Cantonese place where 8 dishes and 3 500ML beers was less than $20. The quality was not over the top, but it was honest food and a great price. The thing I was looking forward most when getting home was finally eating good fresh fruit --- while there were lots on the streets, it was typically fairly mushy.
For all this whining, I did get fatter visiting, so shouldn't complain. And the absence of stunning meals might just be an ignorance tax rather than an indictment of Beijing.
Some things are the same everywhere. Different spelling, same location and purpose:
Though some things are not the same. An example of "faux amis" --- in this case, the "hospital" is actually a beauty parlor. It's a bit disconcerting til you realize this.
China struck me most as what would happen if you took a brand new EU city and interlaced a Mexican border town through it. Here's an example of the former: huge esplanades, much commerce:
And here's the border town aspect, not two blocks from a 4 star hotel and business district:
Unlike most countries that have a fairly standard division between bright shiny and old, decaying, Beijing at least has them tightly interlaced. You can walk a single block and see a new, open, modern edifice and street, only to then run right into a 3rd world hovel collection.
And just for contrast, here's some old china:
Tienanmen square is freaking huge. The streets had 15 lanes at least, I'm guessing to support massive tank movement.
And here's Mao, still alive despite the dollar:
And co-existing within eyesight of enormous TV screens and lots of commerce:
Rush hour in one of the shopping districts. You get the feeling that work places and living places are not distributed uniformly at random:
One nice thing about this traffic jam it that it was the safest I ever saw a Beijing street. Everyone was stopped. In general the driving in Beijing is crazy. Distances between cars are measured in micrometers. Cutting through solid masses of meat and metal is done by just not fucking caring what happens to your car. This is *not* a place where you can rent a car and not die. If you try to drive like the locals you will fail. If you try to drive safe and slow you will get demolished since trucks will simply run over you. In fact, you really need to pay attention when merely crossing the street --- they might honk, but they will not slow down. And while I saw many cross walks and many people using them, it wasn't clear what the point was, other than to concentrate the number of people next to you in the hope that they would get hit rather than you.
A tourist night market:
With lots of fried scorpions, crickets and other insects:
Funny enough, scorpions taste more of less like french fries:
Though I wimped out and didn't eat this sucker:
One way to tell you are not quite in the tourist area anymore (note the lack of paper --- this was a perennial issue, they even charge for napkins):
Beijing is a great place to not have a car. Taxis to anywhere are incredibly cheap, and the subway is modern, clean, and on time and a bit of $.25 to ride. Especially nice is that the Chinese have exterminated all the ghetto trash that inhabited the subways in Boston and NY, often causing trouble. Here's the escalator down --- the pictures on the side are advertisements for a watch (all of them), as usual the contrast of capital and commie is amusing:
A different shopping district, less touristy:
As you can see immediately:
In general, everything in China happens by bargaining. If they ask for $120 YUAN, you start at 40 or less. It doesn't matter if you speak their language, a calculator will appear and numbers will change. I don't know anything about how to bargain so my algorithm was to just halve the price and go up slightly, then whip out the amount of YUAN I wanted to stop at and offer it with the implication of walking away. Cash in hand seemed to hurry things along. In any case, since things are crazy cheap there, so even not bargaining would have been a bargain. I do love countries that when you visit you actually save money compared to staying home. Beijing was one of the rare places where that was true, but things did not suck in terms of crime.
An interesting thing about Beijing is just how many bodies of water there are.
Next to the ones I saw, there's a very strong feeling of an EU lake town
or a less watery Venice, with boats taking passengers, many outside cafes and bars and nightlife:
District 798 is an interesting art district (art ghetto?) --- it was originally a factory donated by eastern GM, but has been since used as a place to stick all the artists and try to make some money. It has some really nice rusty, decayed, industrial buildings.
A typical exterior:
And another:
A typical interior:
Some art, with a predictable focus:
A bit more gruesome:
Less so:
"I wish I could have known you longer":
The graffiti was often a high point:
And here's the chinese take on current events:
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