Category > street scene

walking the legation quarter

Earlier this week, I decided to take a walk from the Beijing by Foot series. (One of my goals, before I leave Beijing, is to go through all 40 of the walks. They are like doing a giant treasure hunt.)  I chose the Legation Quarter walk as I’ve meandered through the Qianmen area many times [...]

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mapping beijing, isometrically

  Google Maps are pretty cool, but if you ever wanted to know what Beijing and other Chinese cities would look like if they were in Sim City, check out these maps created by Edushi.com.  Not only can you “walk” around a cartoon version of the city, you can also search by streets and landmarks.  [...]

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Beijing Traffic Cop Dances Cha Cha, Directs Traffic

Just when I’m about to give up on this blog, I come across this most awesome video that reminds me why I started this blog in the first place! This video is of Beijing traffic police officer He Changqing, directing traffic and doing the cha cha in what is sure to be the patented “He [...]

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“none holds for me the abiding charm that is peking”

I have just discovered the Travel Film Archive, a collection of travel footage from 1900 to 1970 available on YouTube. If you’re a fan of old newsreels, you’ll probably love this.  Complete with serious voiceovers and the slightly patronizing tone of the man on the spot to those funny foreigners, they capture a time when [...]

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the beekeeper of 定福庄

About 100 meters from the west gate at my university is a man selling honey.  This doesn’t seem particularly remarkable, but in fact, he is a beekeeper, raising the bees in his own backyard apiary nearby. There are different varieties of honey, depending on the flowers that the bees fed on, and he had date [...]

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China via Fodor’s, circa 1979

Now that the Olympics are over, and we in Beijing have nothing to talk about, it’s worth taking a look at how China was perceived through American eyes back in the day. Recently, I was given a copy of Fodor’s People’s Republic of China, published in 1979. Written by John Summerfield, “a long-time resident of [...]

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beijing natives – 北京土著

Beijing is changing, Beijing is gone, Beijing will never be the same again. It’s only been a year since I arrived in Beijing. I only know what I know, the Beijing of today which has catapaulted itself into an Olympic city. Even the city that I know now is very different from the city I [...]

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spread the Olympic culture

The Olympics are nearly here, just a few hours to go! In the past few weeks, there have been more Olympic slogan banners around town. Political slogans in China have an interesting and turbulent history, used to spread Maoist thought and disseminate the dreams of the government to the minds of the people. Here is [...]

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cartoon graffiti in 798

Back in December, we came across cartoon graffiti on the Third Ring Road.  When I was recently in the 798 Art District with my friend Cedric, we discovered that the entire area was covered in colorful graffiti, including more of the same funky animal that I had seen earlier. Here are some examples of other [...]

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street signs of beijing

I’m now catching up on the huge backlog of posts that I have built up in my unexpected two month break from this blog.   (Ritan Park forbids visitors from everything.) Beijing has a number of interesting street signs. To be honest with you, I can’t really explain why I am interested in them. Part [...]

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