Chinese Buffet – Part 3: Truly Immersed in Beijing

by Kelly Amabile on

Chinese Buffet is a month-long series that chronicles the travels of an American woman who visited China for the first time in July 2007.

(Immersion Guides Staff, L to R: Reid Barrett, Gabriel Monroe, Shelley Jiang, Jackie Yu and summer interns from Stanford – Amy Xue and Catherine Lee.)

In the Housing and Hotels section of the Insider’s Guide to Beijing, Editor Reid Barrett suggests that residents of the city should “…set the trial and tribulations of your time here to a laugh track rather than a weepy violin.” He’s got the right attitude for navigating this awesome and overwhelming city — and so does the entire Immersion Guides team that I had the opportunity to meet with while in Beijing.

No matter how polluted the air may be, the True Run Media team lives and breaths Beijing. In addition to the Immersion Guides crew, which produces all print guidebooks and maps, the company publishes several magazines, including the flagship city guide That’s Beijing and niche offshoots: TBJ Home and TBJ Kids.

All full-time staff and contributing writers for both the magazines and guidebooks live and work in the city, churing out monthly copy for the city guides as well as impressive annual rewrites of the print guidebooks and mid-year updates of neighborhood maps. We all know how quickly things are changing throughout China, so it’s great to see a media company that is willing to invest in people and pages to stay one step ahead of things…

This is the main room where the That’s Beijing magazine staff works — several other smaller rooms packed with hard working writers make up the headquarters of True Run Media, located south east of the city center. The company began with the magazine lanuch in 2001, and has grown tremendously in the past six years. Now, with the Olympics only one year away, the True Run operation is well positioned to serve a variety of existing and new audiences. In addition to the magazines and Insider’s Guide, they publish a Mandarin phrasebook, a Beijing Excursions guide, restaurant ordering books and a guide to Lhasa, their first title outside of Beijing proper.

Immersion Guides Managing Editor Adam Pilsbury was out of town when I visited, but I was able to sit down and chat with Editor Reid Barrett and Michael Wester, the General Manager of True Run Media, to talk about how their company is managing to cover Beijing from every angle.

Since their writer network in so extensive (with over 40 “insider” contributors), the guidebooks pop with a “panorama of voices” as Reid Barrett explained. “How could one person write an entire guidebook and hope to do it justice? We find people who are experts in their area — someone who does the club scene often writes about nightlife; another writer with a professional background in art dealing covers that scene for us.”

As Mike Wester explained to me (shown here with the very first issue of the That’s Beijing magazine), True Run is willing to make an investment in staff to ensure that their products are the most comprehensive. “There are a lot of city mags in Beijing, but ours is the thickest and has the largest directory coverage. We also invest more in gathering data. For example, we are the only magazine to hire a full-time restaurants editor, and mentally, I think that makes a huge difference, to have someone focused on that topic all the time. Hopefully that is reflected in the quality of our product’s content.”

Mike and Reid both wound up in this business because of their interest in print media and because they had studied Mandarin in college. “People who bother to learn the language usually wind up making it part of their career,” says Mike, who worked as an editor in Taiwan before moving to Beijing to launch the magazine. He now makes his home here with his wife and baby daughter, and is both professionally and personally invested in promoting the city.

“People have had for a long time very negative perceptions of Beijing. If you ask people what they think about the city, now, it’s about pollution. Five years ago all anyone would say was Tian’an Men Square. I’m concerned with the future of the city being a good one. I live here now with my family and I want our products to – not hide the negatives – but also communicate that there is a lot more than pollution and crowds here. We want to share information about how it can be a good place to live and how we can make it better.”

Throughout the week I’ll be sharing more insight and travel tips from the Immersion Guides team at True Run Media.

See you tomorrow — the 365 day Olympic countdown begins!

One for the Road – China: Insider’s Guide to Beijing

by Kelly Amabile on

As a sidebar to this month’s Chinese Buffet series, throughout August, One for the Road will highlight travel guides, reference books and other recommended reads related to life or travel in China.

I know most travelers don’t want to be weighed down with heavy books while on the road, but if you’re ever going to be based in Beijing for at least a week or so, I’ve got to recommend the hefty Insider’s Guide to Beijing, produced by the Immersion Guides team at True Run Media.

It’s a tome,” says True Run General Manager Michael Wester. But he sees that as one of the primary characteristics that distinguishes this guidebook from the rest. “We don’t skimp.” Just lift the 750+ page soft cover book and you’ll see — it’s hard to believe they’ve left anything out! This “Bible to Beijing”, written entirely by folks living in the city, is primarily produced for the English speaking population residing in Beijing. But travelers will surely find this glossy color guide to be a valuable reference as well.

Although it does cover sightseeing, nightlife and the arts scene in detail, the real value lies in all the other “daily life” data it provides: information on renting a home, finding a summer camp for your kid, navigating the health care system and buying the perfect Chinese furniture. If you’re heading to Beijing for an extended period of time — to teach, study abroad or work during the Olympics — definitely consider this comprehensive super-guide to the city.

The fourth edition — the 2008 version — will be available in September of this year. And there are plans to do another update prior to the Olympics, that should be available (only in Beijing) about two months before the Games begin. Right now, the easiest place to purchase the 2007 edition (outside of China) is on Amazon, or directly from True Run Media. The company hopes to have international distribution of the book within the year.

I’ve got more from the Immersion Guides team coming up later today and throughout the week.

One for the Road – China: Top 10 Beijing

by Kelly Amabile on

As a sidebar to this month’s Chinese Buffet series, throughout August, One for the Road will highlight travel guides, reference books and other recommended reads related to life or travel in China.

One of guides I used frequently during my week in the ‘jing was DK Eyewitness Travel’s Top 10 Beijing, a new title in their popular series that was released in Spring 2007. I’ve never really used DK guides before but decided to bring this one along since it wouldn’t take up much room. I also usually steer clear of glossy guidebooks with lots of photos, as they can often lack the detailed content I’m looking for in a travel guide. But if you have done your detailed research ahead of time with the heftier guides, this might be the best traveling companion to throw in your pack. It’s a slim and sleek overview to the city, loaded with practical and useful content.

Because of its compact size, I carried the Top 10 Beijing with me almost very day. The “Around Town” section was most useful to me — there are six suggested walks for different sections of the city, and although I didn’t follow any of them exactly, each served as a handy reference tool when mapping out daily itineraries. In addition to DK’s featured ten must-see Beijing sights (I only visited six of their top suggestions) there are a variety of other creative top ten lists throughout the book — things like music bars, parks, socialist monuments, Chinese movies, teahouses, galleries and street food. The 128-page guide also includes decent mini flip-out maps in the front and rear covers. It’s definitely a guide to consider, especially if you’ll only have limited time in the city.

Chinese Buffet – Part 2: One Week in the ‘Jing

by Kelly Amabile on

Chinese Buffet is a month-long series that chronicles the travels of an American woman who visited China for the first time in July 2007.

Although I planned to spend the majority of my time in China visiting with friends in Shanghai, it turned out that I tackled Beijing first — all on my own. This was the perfect travel challenge for me — a seasoned European backpacker visits Asia, alone, for the very first time. I arrived in China’s bustling capital during the heat of summer, with no knowledge of the local language.

There was little time to learn any Mandarian before I departed, but I made sure to nail down the very basics: “Ni hao” (hello) and “xie xie” (thank you). And then I just studied some maps, so I’d feel comfortable navigating the city.

Tour groups often whiz through the main attractions of Beijing in three or four days, so I knew that the seven nights I had allotted myself was a generous amount of time. I managed to see most of east Beijing and the Sanlitun area on my first day, tackled the Forbidden City and Tian’an Men Square on day two, and visited a variety of city parks, temples and other attractions through the remainer of the week. I put aside one day for the Great Wall, and allotted myself a free unplanned day near the end of the week, in case I was rundown or sick. (I was both.) That free day is a luxury many travelers can’t afford, but if you can swing it, a “spare day” can be a real lifesaver when you need a break. This was definetly the case for me by the time day six came around.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Another benefit of spending a full week in town was that it allowed me enough time to split lodging between two accommodations in different parts of the city. If time permits, a mid-week lodging change offers the opportunity to experience the atmosphere of multiple neighborhoods. I began by Couchsurfing for three nights with an expat in Eastern Beijing (an excellent way to learn about the city from a local’s perspective), then spent the next four at a hutong-based hostel in the Dongcheng district. (More on that later this week.)

The accommodation switch helped me feel even more comfortable moving about the city, which in general, I found easy to navigate. I tend to walk a lot in cities, and I wound up using my feet and the subway most often during my week in Beijing. I don’t regret passing on a bike rental (I’m just not good on two wheels!) but one regret I have is that I didn’t learn a little bit about the bus system — I probably could have saved myself some energy and time if I had hopped on a bus every now and then. The current subway system still bypasses chunks of downtown (more lines are being built ahead of the Olympics) and I’m sure the bus routes fill in those gaps, but I didn’t make an effort to investigate.

The taxis are cheap and it was often easiest to just hail one when my feet got tired. These rides (often accompanied by long stops in traffic) were especially delightful when I had drivers who’ve been practicing their English in preparation for the Olympic Games. One man I rode with was listening to English-language lessons as he drove, and he demonstrated for me how he could say “hello” and “thank you” in Russian, French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. Most of the drivers, though, do not speak English, so I always carried the Beijing Tourist Map or a guidebook with Chinese characters and Pinyin for the major sites and streets.

I, like Ember, found the subway system to be a cinch. Signs are well marked in English, and I soon learned to stop at these handy area maps before leaving any station — They list the nearby sights and attractions for each of the exits and really helped me get my bearings before heading outside into the hot, crowded streets:

I had read that I would notice pushing, especially in public transport lines, but on the day I first rode the subway, I was impressed to see folks lining up in orderly rows to wait for the next train to arrive in the station. There were also attendants with whistles directing people to stand in line until passengers had exited the subway car.

Later that evening, I learned that my first day on the subway just happened to be an official Queue Day — since February, the 11th day of each month has been a “voluntary wait-in-line day” in Beijing, to practice civility in advance of welcoming the world to the city next summer. The 11 symbolises two straight lines — makes sense, and the straightforward approach seems to be sinking in. The initiative was clearly working that day, and I noticed people lining up willingly on other days as well.

Despite the fact that I found Beijing to be fairly tourist friendly and easy city to navigate, I still experienced paralyzing moments throughout the week when I felt like this:

I spied this little sweetheart getting doused with water by her parents outside the Forbidden City and wanted to stop and have a good cry along with her. It was just too hot and crowded to be able to really enjoy the siteseeing experience with the energy I had hoped. There were incredible moments I’ll cherish (these usually took place in the shade of a tree or pagoda, after a soft wind passed through), and then there were those terribly sticky, messy ones (when the ice cream melted before I could finish it, and the water I washed it down with was luke warm and powdered with a dusty aftertaste.)

If you’re headed to Beijing next year for the Summer Olympics, don’t be discouraged — just be prepared! It is definetly possible to travel through this city in the heat, but mental preparation can’t hurt — psyche yourself up just like the athletes do. It will be hot and hazy and you may not have the time (or stamina) to see everything you want. I didn’t get to some of the top sites on my personal “must see” list. I had to skip the 798 Art District, the Summer Palace and the Lu Xun Museum. But I was glad I had made a short list of what seemed most interesting to me. I’ll get to the rest next time…in a cooler season for sure.

One for the Road – China: Oracle Bones

by Kelly Amabile on

As a sidebar to this month’s Chinese Buffet series, throughout August, One for the Road will highlight travel guides, reference books and other recommended reads related to life or travel in China.

The one book I knew I had to read before I left for China was Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China. I had read countless rave reviews about Peter Hessler’s narrative non-fiction about life in modern day China, and I had a feeling it would be the perfect crash course book for me to read. My hunch was right — it’s a gem that reads like a novel, weaving a well-told background of ancient history with tales of what life is like for a variety of Chinese living today in cities like Beijing and Shenzhen. The story of Hessler’s friendship with a Uighur named Polat is especially captivating, revealing details of what life is like for a Chinese alien living in the U.S.

I’m glad I waited to read it until the paperback copy came out in early May — it’s still a thick book at just under 500 pages, but the lightweight version worked well reading on the go. I intend to re-read Oracle Bones, as well as Hessler’s first book, River Town, an earlier memoir which chronicles his two years of Peace Corps service in Fuling, along the Yangtze. I highly recommend Oracle Bones to anyone visiting China for the first time — it gave me the perfect framework of what life is like in China, and made it easier to learn more once I began traveling through the country.