![\"bgcn.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/bgcn.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA city of neatly ordered design accentuated by sporadic authoritarian statements (Tiananmen Sq, the Great Hall of the People), B\u011bij\u012bng still stumps first-time visitors who arrive expecting a ragged tableau of communist China, only to be bowled over by its modernity and immensity…<\/p>\n
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Seesawing wildly between burning summers and frostbitten winters while scoured by spring sandstorms, arid B\u011bij\u012bng is host city to the 2008 Olympics and emblematic of a nation undergoing a gut-wrenching transformation.<\/p>\n
A city of neatly ordered design accentuated by sporadic authoritarian statements (Tiananmen Sq, the Great Hall of the People), B\u011bij\u012bng still stumps first-time visitors who arrive expecting a ragged tableau of communist China, only to be bowled over by its modernity and immensity and struck by B\u011bij\u012bng\u2019s optimistic verve and sheer commercial vibrancy.<\/p>\n
The colossal flyovers and multilane boulevards heave with two million cars as the must-have commodity \u2013 once a TV or washing machine \u2013 is now a VW Passat or a Buick. Yet ample pockets of historical charm survive, especially along B\u011bij\u012bng\u2019s characteristic h\u00fat\u00f2ng, the maze of narrow alleys that shelters the city\u2019s delightful courtyard architecture. The city has also managed to sustain an epic grandeur from its Imperial days, laying claim to some of China\u2019s superlative sights, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven Park and the Summer Palace.<\/p>\n
Winers and diners are spoiled for choice in B\u011bij\u012bng\u2019s inventive bar and restaurant world. Peking duck \u2013 an oft-copied national institution \u2013 is really only true to form in the capital.<\/p>\n
Frank and uncomplicated, B\u011bij\u012bng\u2019s denizens chat in B\u011bij\u012bnghu\u00e0 \u2013 the gold standard of Mandarin \u2013 and marvel at their good fortune for occupying the centre of the known world. And for all its diligence and gusto, B\u011bij\u012bng dispenses with the persistent pace of Sh\u00e0ngh\u01cei or Hong Kong, and locals instead find time to sit out front, play chess and watch the world go by.<\/p>\n
Weather
\nAutumn (September to early November) is the optimal season to visit B\u011bij\u012bng as the weather is gorgeous and fewer tourists are in town. Local B\u011bij\u012bngers describe this short season of clear skies and breezy days as ti\u0101ng\u0101o q\u00ecshu\u01ceng (literally \u2018the sky is high and the air is fresh\u2019). In winter, it\u2019s glacial outside (dipping as low as -20\u00b0C) and the northern winds cut like a knife through bean curd. Arid spring is OK, apart from the awesome sand clouds that sweep in from Inner Mongolia and the static electricity that discharges everywhere. Spring also sees the snow like li\u01d4x\u00f9 (willow catkins) wafting through the air and collecting in drifts. From May onwards the mercury can surge well over 30\u00b0C. B\u011bij\u012bng simmers under a scorching sun in summer (reaching over 40\u00b0C), which also sees heavy rainstorms late in the season. Maybe surprisingly, this is also considered the peak season, when hotels typically raise their rates and the Great Wall nearly collapses under the weight of marching tourists. Air pollution can be intolerable in both summer and winter.
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\nForeign currency and travelers checks can be changed at large branches of the Bank of China, CITIC Industrial Bank, the airport and hotel money changing counters, and at several department stores (including the Friendship Store), as long as you have your passport. Hotels give the official rate, but some will add a small commission. Useful branches of the Bank of China with foreign-exchange counters include a branch next to Oriental Plaza on Wangfujing Dajie, in the Lufthansa Center Youyi Shopping City, and in the China World Trade Center. For international money transfer, branches of Western Union can be found in the International Post Office and at the post office at No 3 Gongrentiyuchang Beilu (6416 7686; Map pp118\u201319).<\/p>\n
If you have an Amex card, you can also cash personal checks at CITIC Industrial Bank and large branches of the Bank of China.<\/p>\n
ATMs that accept foreign credit cards and are linked to international bank settlement systems such as Cirrus and Plus can be found in increasing numbers. The best places to look are in and around the main shopping areas (such as Wangfujing Dajie) and international hotels and their associated shopping arcades; some large department stores also have useful ATMs. There\u2019s a Bank of China ATM in the Capital Airport arrivals hall.<\/p>\n
Economy
\nSince the Communist revolution of 1949, Beijing has become one of the nation’s industrial centers. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese government funded major development of heavy industry in the city, led by the modernization of the Shih-ching-shan Iron and Steel Works, which is now one of the country’s major steel-producing facilities. Today Beijing ranks second only to Shanghai in industrialization, with highly developed machinery, textile, and petrochemical sectors. Agriculture also plays a significant role in Beijing’s economy, with a large farming belt on the city’s periphery serving to reduce its dependence on food supplies shipped in from the Yangtze Valley.<\/p>\n
Beijing has a rapidly growing service sector, consisting mostly of government agencies. The People’s Bank of China, the major institution in China’s centralized banking system, has its head office in central Beijing, which is also home to a variety of specialized banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China. Other financial institutions in the city include major insurance companies, credit cooperatives, securities firms, and investment companies. Wholesale and retail commerce and tourism also play a major role in the city’s economy.<\/p>\n
The free-market economic reforms of the 1990s created an economic boom for Beijing with the influx of foreign capital and technology.<\/p>\n
Getting Around
\nBeijing’s central city retains its carefully planned historic layout, arranged around a central north-south axis seven-and-a-half kilometers (five miles) long that passes through the city’s entire central core, from the Bell Tower and Drum Tower in the north, through the Forbidden City at the center, to the site of the former Yung-ting Gate in the south. This central core is actually the remnant of two adjoining walled cities, whose outlines are retained although their walls are long gone\u2014a roughly square-shaped “inner” city to the north and a rectangular “outer” city to the south.<\/p>\n
History
\nThe Beijing area is known to have been inhabited by prehistoric humans (Homo erectus pekinensis, or Beijing man) approximately 500,000 years ago. The earliest recorded settlement, in what is now southwest Beijing, dates back to around 1045 B. C. By 453\u2013221 B. C. (the “Warring States” period), the site was home to a city called Ji, which was the capital of the Yan Kingdom.
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\nIn 1215, the city at the site of present-day Beijing was torched by the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan (1162\u20131227), who built a new city called Dadu (“Great Capital”), or Khanbaliq. Later in the thirteenth century, under the rule of Kublai Khan (1215\u20131294), it became the capital of a vast empire, and it has been China’s national capital almost continuously ever since. It was renamed Beiping (“Northern Peace”) at the beginning of the Ming dynasty (1368\u20131644). In 1421, the third Ming emperor, Yongle, made the city his capital, and it assumed its present name of Beijing (“Northern Capital”). It was during this period that the present grid pattern of the central city was established, arranged around a north-south axis centering on the Imperial Palace. The city’s design followed the traditional architectural principles of feng shui, a system of using space in a way intended to achieve maximum harmony between the human and natural worlds. In 1553 walls went up around the “outer city” to the south, enclosing suburbs that had grown up adjacent to the original city.<\/p>\n
Under the Qing dynasty of the Manchus (1644\u20131911), Beijing underwent substantial renovation and expansion although the basic character of the city during the Ming period was largely preserved. The last century of Manchu rule was a period of foreign encroachment from without and political instability within. The city of Beijing was captured by French and British forces during the second Opium War (1858\u201360), and the Summer Palaces were burned down. Foreign forces attacked the city during the Boxer Rebellion (1898\u20131900) at the turn of the twentieth century, destroying many of its artistic and historical treasures. Beijing remained at the center of Chinese history following the 1911 revolution that ended Chinese imperial rule and placed the nationalist Kuomintang in power. At the conclusion of World War I (1914\u201318), it was the site of a historic demonstration in Tiananmen Square, opposing Chinese capitulation to the terms of the Versailles Treaty (signed in 1919, the Versailles Treaty officially ended World War I).<\/p>\n
Military and political developments in the second quarter of the twentieth century affected the status of Beijing. Fighting to regain control of the country from the warlords who had seized power shortly after the revolution of 1911, the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party), under Chiang Kaishek, moved its capital to Nanjing in 1928 and renamed Beijing, calling it Beiping (“Northern Peace” instead of “Northern Capital”). In 1937 the Japanese seized control of the city when they invaded China and it remained under occupation until the end of World War II (1939\u201345), with Chungking serving as the temporary Nationalist capital during the bitter warfare of that period. Beijing was retaken and held by the Kuomintang during the ensuing civil war, but the city finally fell to the Communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong (1893\u20131976) in January, 1949, and became the capital of the People’s Republic of China the following October, regaining its former name and its position as the nation’s political, cultural, and financial hub.<\/p>\n
Under Mao’s leadership, the city underwent modernization, as streets were widened, vestiges of imperial rule were demolished, and technical advisers from the Union of Soviet Socialist<\/p>\n
The Summer Palace, featuring traditional Chinese gardening, was burned down by the allied forces of Great Britain and France in the second Opium War (1858\u201360). ()
\nRepublics (U.S.S.R.) introduced examples of Soviet-style architecture. From 1966 to the late 1970s, life in Beijing, as elsewhere in China, was dramatically affected by the Cultural Revolution. Beijing’s Tiananmen Square was the site of the 1976 demonstration, honoring deceased political leader Zhou Enlai that marked the beginning of the end for this disastrous campaign of political repression.<\/p>\n
For the final time in the twentieth century, Beijing’s Tiananmen Square became the stage for a major political event, as the student-led pro-democracy movement was crushed there in the spring of 1989, accentuating the disparity between the country’s economic reforms and its continuing level of political repression. Although China’s human rights record continues to draw criticism from abroad and dissent at home, the economic liberalization of the past two decades has changed the face of its capital, with the construction of skyscrapers, the proliferation of the services and conveniences that characterize a modern consumer economy, and the exponential growth of tourism.<\/p>\n