I love Beijing for its virulent growth.

You won’t find a city with as many construction cranes dotting the skyline. As others have said before, it is the fast changing nature of the city that makes Beijing a place unlike any other. For its beauty and the scars it took to make it what is is — and is becoming — I wanted to share a few of my photographic observations.

Here is a short pictorial of how the city’s looked through rain, darkness, smog and sunshine this past summer.

A confession — the Olympics were not an event I “seized” in the traditional “live life to the top” sense.

In many ways, I might as well have been in Siberia watching it on a small black and white TV screen. I didn’t fling myself into the mob at Tiananmen Square and witness the fireworks during the opening ceremony. And I certainly didn’t crowd in at Wangfujing to watch it on the big screen.

Instead, I went out with friends, hit the Saddle, and came back to watch the opening festivities at home.

And then I went to the light-weight and light heavy-weight boxing matches the next day. A friend hooked me up with two tickets. The other “cool” venues were out of my price range. So all in all, I got to watch 21 matches.

Russia whooped on Sweden. The US beat out Argentina. The Irish kicked ass because, well, they’re Irish and this is boxing. And China barely won against some small country I can’t even remember.

(The Chinese guy wasn’t good, but the People carried him to victory. He had no choice but to somehow win. For that matter, the People carried all of the Chinese athletes to victory with a force I haven’t before witnessed in my life.)

But anyway, boxing was fun until I got bored and uncomfortable sitting in chairs designed for someone two feet shorter than me.

That’s it really.

All attempts at politicizing the games aside, the Beijing games went off flawlessly. The plan was sound and the people rose to meet the occasion with a sense of diligence and honor rarely seen.

I was impressed. The sincere kind of impressed, not the one laced with cynicism and the word “but.” And this from a guy who hates pageantry and “feel good” events.

And if you were to press me further, I would have to say the 2008 games were most remarkable because for the first time in several hundred years, the Chinese people, as a whole, had something to be genuinely happy about.

Something to be proud of that wasn’t tainted or contaminated. Something they earned for themselves in the wake of rebellion and unforgiving natural disasters.

To understand the Chinese mentality, you only had to watch the opening and closing ceremonies.
No one stood out. There were no individuals. Instead, there was a force of people moving in synchronized coordination to accomplish something grandiose.

That was China moving at its best. It is also China’s strength and its most staggering weakness.

And in the coming years, I’ll be keen to to see if they’re able to keep their footing together.

The current situation on the ground:

• Today, a new Olympic-centric rule goes into effect that effectively removes half of the vehicles from Beijing’s roads by prohibiting cars with even and odd numbered license plates from driving on the same day.
  (Hint: More people are pissed off about this than you read in the news.)
• Hundreds of factories around Beijing and Tianjin have been ordered closed to further reduce air pollution and will remain “turned off” until the end of September.
• The internet censors who man the Great Firewall are burning the midnight oil — websites of all flavors are randomly down, garbled and outright blocked more frequently than normal. This is a major grievance.
• Quasi-security check points are emerging around the city. Some reports of people being hassled, but nothing really substantiated.
• Areas of the city (specifically Gonti, Sanlitun) geared more toward ex-pats are being turned into zones that are cryptically called “limited access.”
• Visa extensions until October for student visas are more than 6500RMB (1000USD). Visas are being revoked randomly depending on the make of your jib. Clean cut, shaven = greater odds of not being denied entry.
• For a Chinese L-Visa (tourist) you need proof of return air ticket and evidence that you have at least $3000 (that’s USD not RMB) in financial assets to ensure you can “afford” to be in China.
• Construction efforts are reaching fever pitch, with parks emerging overnight from debris fields — complete with grass and grown trees. This is a freakishly surreal sensation; waking one morning to a neighborhood that’s magically changed literally overnight.
• Every pirated DVD shop and brothel has been shut down. There isn’t a single one left.

Speaking of surreal, the weather is nice when it’s not raining. When it is raining it’s still pleasant. Smog is down considerably. Gray skies are blue.

Astounding to few, but Beijing residents know otherwise.

You gets the feeling that the entire city was forcibly dragged through a make-over TV show and spat out with new clothing that doesn’t quite fit as snugly as it should and walks as though it really doesn’t belong wearing it.

Let’s hope that they don’t slide off too quickly.

The eye-soar in Sanlitun known as “The Village” — under perpetual construction since my arrival — is starting to look done.

And much to my surprise, lo and behold, an Apple store!

This is mainland China’s first official Apple retail outlet.

The store is two stories — first floor is the show room. Apple lets us play with all their products with minimal documentation or sales pitches. Just a table with the stuff for our grubby hands to fondle. The second floor is a multi-lingual “Genius Bar” where free advice and tech support can be had.

Do note that Apple products are considerably pricer when purchased in China than America. For instance, a 15″ MacBook Pro costs roughly RMB 17,500 (2,600 USD) compared to the $2,000 (RMB13,600) it costs back in the States.

Also note that the majority of Apple products are manufactured in Shanghai. Go figure.

Pictures of the store and the Village area galore:

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