The brash modernity of BEIJING (meaning Northern Capital)
comes as a surprise to most visitors. Traversed by freeways (it's
the proud owner of more than a hundred flyovers) and spiked with
high-rises, this vivid metropolis is China at its most dynamic. For
the last thousand years, the drama of China's imperial
history was played out here, with the emperor sitting enthroned
at the centre of the Chinese universe, and though today the city is
a very different one, it remains spiritually and politically the
heart of the country. Between the swathes of concrete and glass,
you'll find some of the lushest temples, and certainly the grandest
remnants of the Imperial Age. Unexpectedly, some of the country's
most pleasant scenic spots lie within the scope of a day-trip, and,
just to the north of the city, is one of China's most famous
sights, the old boundary line between civilizations, the Great
Wall .
First impressions of Beijing are of an almost inhuman vastness,
conveyed by the sprawl of identical apartment buildings in which
most of the city's population of twelve million are housed, and the
eight-lane freeways that slice it up. It's an impression that's
reinforced on closer acquaintance, from the magnificent
Forbidden City , with its stunning wealth of treasures, the
concrete desert of Tian'anmen Square and the gargantuan
buildings of the modern executive around it, to the rank after rank
of office complexes that line its mammoth roads. Outside the
centre, the scale becomes more manageable, with parks, narrow
alleyways and ancient sites such as the Yonghe Gong ,
Observatory and, most magnificent of all, the Temple of
Heaven , offering respite from the city's oppressive
orderliness. In the suburbs beyond, the two Summer Palaces
and the Western Hills have been favoured retreats since
imperial times.
Beijing is an invaders' city, the capital of oppressive foreign
dynasties - the Manchu and the Mongols - and of a dynasty with a
foreign ideology - the Communists. As such, it has assimilated a
lot of outside influence, and today it is perhaps the most
cosmopolitan part of China, with an international flavour
appropriate to the capital of a major commercial power. Only in
Beijing will a foreign face elicit no second glances. The city is
home to a large expat population , housed for the most part
in separate suburban ghettos with little contact with the local
Chinese. Indeed, it's quite possible to spend years in Beijing
eating Western food, dancing to Western music, and socializing with
like-minded foreigners - hardened veterans of the expat scene
compare it favourably with Hong Kong.
Beijing is the front line of China's attempts to grapple with
modernity - the cranes that skewer the skyline and the white
character chai ("demolish") painted on old buildings attest
to the city's furious pace of change. Students in the latest baggy
fashions while away their time in Internet cafés and
McDonald's, drop outs spike their hair and mosh in punk
clubs, businessmen are never without their laptops and schoolkids
carry mobile phones in their lunchboxes. Red-light districts and
gay bars have begun to appear as the city hits its own sexual
revolution.
Rising incomes have led not just to a consumer-capitalist
society Westerners will feel very familiar with, but also to a
revival of older Chinese culture - witness the sudden
re-emergence of the tea house as a genteel meeting place, or a
recent fad for "nostalgia cuisine" - dishes from the Cultural
Revolution eaten in restaurants named after revolutionary slogans.
In the evening you'll see large groups of the older generation
performing the yangkou (loyalty dance), Chairman Mao's
favourite dance universally learned a few decades ago, and in the
hutongs, the city's twisted grey stone alleyways, men sit
with their birds and pipes as they always have done.
Beijing is a city that almost everyone enjoys. For new arrivals
it provides a gentle introduction to the country and for travellers
who've been roughing it round outback China, the creature comforts
on offer are a delight. But Beijing is essentially a private city,
and one whose surface, attractive though it is, is difficult to
penetrate. Sometimes it seems to have the superficiality of a theme
park. Certainly there is something mundane about the way tourist
groups are efficiently shunted around, plugged from hotel to sight,
with little contact with everyday reality. To get deeper into the
city, wander the labyrinthine hutongs, "fine and numerous as
the hairs of a cow" (as one Chinese guidebook puts it), and check
out the little antique markets, the residential shopping districts,
the smaller, quirkier sights, and the parks, some of the best in
China, where you'll see Beijingers performing tai ji and
hear birdsong - just - over the hum of traffic. Take advantage,
too, of the city's burgeoning nightlife and see just how far the
Chinese have gone down the road of what used to be called spiritual
pollution.
If the Party had any control over it, no doubt Beijing would
have the best climate of any Chinese city; as it is, it has
one of the worst. The best time to visit is in autumn, between
September and October, when it's dry and clement. In winter it gets
very cold, down to minus 20°C, and the mean winds that whip off the
Mongolian plains feel like they're freezing your ears off. Summer
(June-August) is muggy and hot, up to 30°C, and the short spring
(April & May) is dry but windy.
Getting to Beijing is no problem. As the centre of China's
transport network you'll probably wind up here sooner or
later, whether you want to or not, and to avoid the capital seems
wilfully perverse. On a purely practical level, it's a good place
to stock up on visas for the rest of Asia, and to arrange transport
out of the country - most romantically, on the Trans-Siberian or
Trans-Mongolian trains. To take in its superb sights requires a
week, by which time you may well be ready to move on to China
proper. Beijing is a fun place, but make no mistake, it in no way
typifies the rest of the nation.