Chinese Buffet – Part 4: Beijing’s 365-Day Countdown Begins

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.

(Olympic neon glows from a hutong shop window.)

In a few hours, the city of Beijing will kick off it’s official one-year till the Games countdown celebration. The big 08-08-08 is just 365 days away, and the media buzz surrounding whether or not Beijing is ready will continue to escalate. There is constant chatter about public health and security concerns, human rights violations, and civility initiatives. Here are just eight examples of topics currently on the table:

1) Yesterday the city began its two week ban of one million cars from the city streets. The ban, which will affect one third of Beijing’s vehicles, is a pre-Olympic test to temporarily decrease pollution and traffic. (Several city residents told me that when they did this last summer, there was a noticeable difference in the sky and on the streets.)

2) But the IOC President said today that athletic events could be postponed if the air quality is not good.

3) Sixty new parks will be built between now and when the Games begin, but many still wonder, will Beijing be green enough? (I was impressed with the number of tree lined streets and blossoming parks, but is it just for show? Hopefully these new parks will be preserved beyond the duration of the Games.)

4) Over 1.25 million people have already been forcibly displaced from their homes as a direct result of preparations for the Olympic Games.

(A model of the “bird’s nest” Olympic Stadium)

5) Taxi drivers (among others) must follow new regulations that meet the standard of the city image Beijing is striving to show to the world. (I rode with several drivers who were quite happy to share their English language skills.)

6) Water closet will be flushed for toilet: All “WC” signs will be replaced with “Toilet” signs before the end of the year. (I don’t recall seeing even one WC sign in Beijing, so they are making progress on this one.)

7) The first of three new subway lines is set to open in September.

8) The Made in China manufacturing craze ensures that Olympic merchandise will be over the top. (Do do you really need an Olympic pinky ring?)

The That’s Beijing blog has a good roundup of major pre-Olympic initiatives underway and a blog about public relations in China has a handy summary of the various protests taking place. Olympic excitement and anticipation is addicting, especially if you are a fan of sport…but debate and discussion about the challenges Beijing faces is just as fascinating to follow.

(A model of the bubbly Olympic swimming venue.)

Being aware of these Olympic-size issues will be helpful for travelers heading to Beijing in the next year. But let’s get back to basics for a moment with some general sightseeing travel tips from the Immersion Guides team. Here are five “insider” tips they shared with me during our visit:

1) Most people come to Beijing and spend too much time worrying about bargaining. But who cares about getting ripped off every once in awhile? Expect to get ripped off – it’s part of the experience! And remember that you are probably still getting something for a very cheap price.

2) Skip the student art exhibit scams and steer clear of the tea scams as well. (Bill Bowles is a traveler with a website full of awesome videos about his visits to China and elsewhere; watch his team scam story for the scoop.)

3) History buffs who want to learn all the details and background of a particular site should always find an official guide or audio tour.

4) If you are short on time in Beijing, it’s best to choose between the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City. They look very similar — one just has lots more green landscape around it! With limited time, only visit one.

5) If you do choose the Forbidden City, be sure to seek out the West Palace. Lots of people whiz through the FC, wondering what the big deal is, because everything looks the same. But the West Palace is unique and does not look like anything else. (Hopefully it won’t be under restoration. But regardless of when you visit, some section of the palace will surely be closed.)

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!

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.

Gallery: Asia’s Crazy Bamboo Scaffolding

by Justin Glow on

One thing that surprised me on my trip to India was that bamboo was still commonly used for scaffolding. I was blown away by the gigantic structures I saw being built — skyscrapers, statues, modern office buildings — that were covered in a bamboo skeleton, rather than the metal I was used to seeing in the United States. But no matter how unsettling it may be to look at, bamboo is used for a reason: it’s strong, extremely lightweight, and very flexible (as you’ll see in the photos). Check out this gallery of crazy bamboo scaffolding across Asia — I hope you’re not afraid of heights!


At the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.


Would you climb up this thing? I sure wouldn’t.


The Sri Ekambaranathar temple in southern India.


Another shot of the same temple. Wow!


Look, it’s a monkey!


Bamboo mixed with heavy metal machinery in Hong Kong.


Bad photo, crazy bamboo!


A human cement ladder.


India once again.


Yikes.


Hong Kong.

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Driver Shot For Honking at Green Light

by Justin Glow on

This story came up in my RSS feeds this morning, and I couldn’t help but think of my recent trip to India. What’s getting shot in the abdomen for honking at someone at a green light got to do with India?

Well, if you’ve been to the subcontinent — or most other places in Asia for that matter — you’ve no doubt noticed the differences between the way we, Americans, use our car horns, and Asians use theirs. In India, the car horn is a tool, a way to alert the (millions of) other drivers (on the same road as you at one time) that — hey! — I’m creeping up on you, or I’m about to pull out in front of you, or I’m carrying a rather large load of chickens. A trip through any major Asian city accompanied by a consistent hum of car horns; as you finally lay down to rest in your hostel or hotel bed for the night, you can still hear the faint buzz of a million horns going off at once.

So what’s different with America (and much of the Western world?)

Sure, shooting someone for honking at a green light is an isolated case…. but even so, a horn is not a tool in America. More often than not it’s an audible flip of the middle finger, a beep to let someone know they’ve just done something really stupid while driving. Or maybe it’s a way to keep from having to get out of the car when picking up a friend. On the rare occasion it’s used to actually avoid an accident.

After spending a month in India, I returned to the States, and was thrown off balance by the absence of horn noise. What a strange feeling — seeing cars but not hearing horns.

Unfortunately sometimes that beep of the horn isn’t an audible middle finger, but an actual warning, or a friendly reminder that the light has turned green. Sadly, the moral of the story for America: be careful who you honk at. [via]