Never been there before, I am leaving this evening for Beijing, there till Wednesday.
What impressins do you people have of the place?
What impressins do you people have of the place?
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- Thread starter Chxta
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Last time I was in Beijing, it was in the summer of 2001. Back then, it was clear the place was undergoing a surge of skyscraper construction. Though there was something distinctively Chinese about their skyscrapers ... all function and very little form in most cases. Call them cheap and plentiful, I guess.
Other impressions of the place? Well, when I went Beijing was making a huge bid for the 2008 Olympics, so there was propoganda everywhere... but it was pretty cool. I wonder what they might be showing now that the games have been awarded and are fast approaching. Areas on the outskirst were being razed, stadiums were being built up, etc.
I talked with some people who were very afraid still of being ratted out by their fellow citizens...which sort of suprised me a little. We had private conversations about the government in cars that we could have no where else.
The city blocks in Beijing are massive. You look on a map and you don't realize that one block between the streets is as much as 2km long! This also creates some bizarre traffic patterns in the sprawling city. While a lot of folks are still on bikes on the side, the roads through the city are characterized by long stretches without intersections. So what happens is that you spend a lot of time driving 80km/hr between intersections, but when you approach an intersection everything comes to a massive traffic jam/screeching halt for a while ... until you can clear through. Repeat over and over and over again, and that's pretty much driving in Beijing.
It was clear in 2001 that a lot of Western goods were making it into the country when only a few stores near the embassy district used to carry them. And as for a lot of Western "fakes" ... wow, what can I say. I got this feeling that Beijing was a society centered on art of duplication on many levels, some good and some bad. I regularly got hit up to buy $0.50 (U.S.) DVD bootlegs on the street. I got so sick of them bugging me (I wasn't hard to spot as a nearly 2-meter tall white guy), that I just lied to them and told them that I didn't have a DVD player. A friend translated for me that they reacted with, "What the hell are you doing in Beijing if you don't own a DVD player?!"
Oh, and hope there are no Gobi desert dust storms while you're there...
Other impressions of the place? Well, when I went Beijing was making a huge bid for the 2008 Olympics, so there was propoganda everywhere... but it was pretty cool. I wonder what they might be showing now that the games have been awarded and are fast approaching. Areas on the outskirst were being razed, stadiums were being built up, etc.
I talked with some people who were very afraid still of being ratted out by their fellow citizens...which sort of suprised me a little. We had private conversations about the government in cars that we could have no where else.
The city blocks in Beijing are massive. You look on a map and you don't realize that one block between the streets is as much as 2km long! This also creates some bizarre traffic patterns in the sprawling city. While a lot of folks are still on bikes on the side, the roads through the city are characterized by long stretches without intersections. So what happens is that you spend a lot of time driving 80km/hr between intersections, but when you approach an intersection everything comes to a massive traffic jam/screeching halt for a while ... until you can clear through. Repeat over and over and over again, and that's pretty much driving in Beijing.
It was clear in 2001 that a lot of Western goods were making it into the country when only a few stores near the embassy district used to carry them. And as for a lot of Western "fakes" ... wow, what can I say. I got this feeling that Beijing was a society centered on art of duplication on many levels, some good and some bad. I regularly got hit up to buy $0.50 (U.S.) DVD bootlegs on the street. I got so sick of them bugging me (I wasn't hard to spot as a nearly 2-meter tall white guy), that I just lied to them and told them that I didn't have a DVD player. A friend translated for me that they reacted with, "What the hell are you doing in Beijing if you don't own a DVD player?!"
Oh, and hope there are no Gobi desert dust storms while you're there...
