Beijing?

[kidkorea]

Anyone on SF in Beijing or have been there recently? I might be going there in January/February for an entire year to study Mandarin as well as teach english. Any experiences, advice, warnings? Cheers

 

[acidboy]

its gonna be freezing

 

[jbmarine]

I'm living here right now for a year and have absolutely fallen in love with the place. It is a huge culture shock, though. However, if you want to try something new, it's completely worth checking out. Wonderful place.

 

[kidkorea]

Well I've been to Guangzhou, Huangzhou, Shanghai, and Hong Kong before. I've never been to Beijing however, I heard it's changed completely because of the Olympics. I'm def. excited to go if everything works out.

 

[edinatlanta]

Went before and during the Olympics. What is the saying? The more things change the more they stay the same?

Lots of interesting places to walk around and see but the weather at that time will be freezing.

One thing I hate is how difficult the city is. It is often lots of little things like long streets with fences in the middle so you have to walk a long block to an intersection then walk a long way back, plus the incessant desire for order at all costs and the sheer size of the city...it kind be intimidating and maddening.

Not sure I want to go back but a part of me really wants to. If that helps.

 

[kidkorea]

Yea, any info at all will "help" me in one way or another. Is it impossible to get around by yourself if you don't know any mandarin? How are the natives generally towards Americans?

 

[Svenn]

I've been to every country in Asia except the Philippines, my last trip was to Beijing for 3 weeks. Really your impressions of the city will depend on what experiences you've had before. Most white kids who have never left the U.S. are impressed and "fall in love" with any Asian city if they go over there for a year to teach English or something.... but that's more the result of having been bored in the U.S. Frankly I didn't care for Beijing that much- it's not really third world but it's not first either, so you don't get the cheap shopping or kingly treatment like you do in Bangkok, but you can't get the conveniences and modernity of being in Tokyo (e.g. the local convenience store is nonexistent in Beijing). The night scene is pretty sparse too, and the women aren't as attractive (or at least they don't flaunt it).

The shopping is the biggest disappointment- most cheap stuff in the world is produced in china but it's actually really hard to find it unless you go to the factory towns themselves. There's more scams and harder haggling than I've found elsewhere. The people seem rather conservative and unconcerned with foreigners. Anyway, I'm no expert, maybe some other posters will have more experience/better advice.

 

[kidkorea]

Disappointing to hear shopping in Beijing isn't that great

And the most common thing I've heard (Not only from SF members) is how cold the weather is going to be. I'm from northern Jersey/New York, are the conditions in Beijing going to be that much worse than here? I thought our winters were pretty brutal...

 

[Montrachet]

My uncle got back from a business trip to Beijing a few weeks ago. He liked the city, but said the food was terrible, which surprised me. I've not gotten a chance to go yet, but it's high on my travel priorities list. I've been studying Mandarin for a couple years now and would love to actually make use of it!

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by Svenn

I've been to every country in Asia except the Philippines, .


really? mustang? burma? Afganastan? mongolia? Oman?

 

[superfans124]

I am a native, but can't say I know the city well thesedays.

shopping is indeed horrible in Beijing, I don't know what is the problem, name brands are way overpriced here, even on sale it's a joke compares to prices in the States. Then cheap stuff are just cheap in price, by compromising on everything else. White collars in mainland China go to HongKong to commit binge shopping (everything from clothes to electronics), if that tells you anything.

The city is too damn huge, what considers "Beijing", the spread of the city, is probably bigger than the entire "northern VA/DC/MD region" (where I used to live). Coupled with lack of thoughtful city planning, it's pretty hard for a foreigners to navigate, because there aren't ONE central location for shopping/dining/night live, etc. instead, there are couple of such smaller clusters scattered all over the place.

The most famous night life districts that everyone seems to "know": San Li Tun, bars and bars and bars, except if you go with all-male-pack, or alone as a single male, you'll be hasseld by street pimps, and as such it is regarded as tourists cheap-shot and avoided by locals. Another and better bar districts are in Hou Hai, and its adjacent Nan Luo Gu Xiang. Clubs district are in Gong Ti Xi Lu (short for "Gong Ren Ti Yu Chang Xi Lu" as "The workers' Stadium west road"), actually it's only 20 minutes walking distance away from San Li Tun, it's worth checking out. As regarding to girls, without knowing your preferences, but according to asian taste in asian women, the last time I checked the girls have gotten hotter. Shopping for luxury goods, every known name brands are available in Beijing, but as said above, avoid at all costs unless you are just too rich to care.

Now for dinning, this deserves some explanation. The concept of "fine dining" is uncommon in China. By "fine dining" I mean you pay a premium to be accomodated in a nicely decorated and calming environment where you are expected to behave gentlemenly, enjoy the food prepared carefully by the chef both artistically and in flavorful delivery----This is uncommon in China (I won't say non-existant). 95% of folks here go out for Bang-of-the-buck deals, price is the predominate criteria. When a native recommends a "good" restaurant to a friend, it means the food is good, and the price charged is right according to the food served. If a restaurant serves similar food but charges premium for fancy dining environment and anything else you didn't pay to put in your mouth, you'll hear people warning "AVOID THAT ONE!" So it's a culture thing. Anyways, a rule of thumb is, on any given night, if you find dinners waiting in lines and parking spots all filled in front of a restaurant, that's where you want to go, that means the food is great, and on top of that, the price is "right", to locals. Whether westerners find the local dishs favorable or not is another thing, but you might have guessed corrected, we don't give a **** whether you like it or not. On the other hand, if you want to resume western style fine dining scene, I'm sure the restaurants in 5-star hotels are designed just for that, where renowned chefs prepare chinese food in western style: string quartet playing in the back, big plate, tiny actual food, lots of filler decorative carvings artistically done out of ordinary fruits and vegetables that you are not supposed to eat, and a big fat check in the end...but I don't eat there nearly enough to offer sound advice.

Transportation is pretty good, public transit has been taken on a highway since the Olympics. for a quater and a dime (￥2 fare one way, roughly 30 cents), metro will take you to almost every worth-going-to place in Beijing. But avoid metro at commuting hours, meat-packed is an understatement. Taxis starts at ￥10, 5 bucks is often times more than enough to cover the tracks where metro falls short. Expect traffic at any given hours on any given day, commuting hours during weekdays are just badder.

Others have already said, weather is pretty horrible: Spring is too windy and dusty, without scarves and face masks, the Mongolian sand storm will peal your face off (but that's just from my memory, let's see what happens this coming spring). Summer is tooooo freakin hot, get used to carrying a UV-block umbrella with you at all times, or you just enjoy human vaporization. Fall is the most comfortable and beautiful season in Beijing but it only lasts two days! Literally, it passes right through, you go from t-shirt and shorts to sweater and coat in a week. Winter is too cold, it's not Siberian sub-zero cold, but it's too damn dry. Anyways, unless you are emotionally connected to this place, you won't enjoy living here, I don't know anywhere else in the world that has a even worse climate. Though the air quality has gotten way better thanks to the Olympics, it's still something westerners would sniff at, but I've never seen a bluer Beijing sky and clearer starry beijing nights most of this past summer compares to my childhood memories, that says a lot.

By the way, is the OP korean by ethnicity? If so, then you'd probably find it slightly more comfortable, since there are sizable Korean communities in Beijing, pretty much Korean "settlements" in Wang Jing, Wu Dao Kou and spreading. Even not, you'd still find locals in Beijing much more friendlier than New Yorkers (though it isn't saying much). Chinese are rude amongst ourselves but friendly toward foreigners, wonderful in a pathetic way, sometimes you'd be surprised to find how out-of-its-way a local will go to help a foreigner if you speak a foreign language that indicates you are from a "cooler" country.

When everything fails, I will still love this abomination, the architectural freak-show of the world in Beijing, simply for the cultural relevance and emotional connection. But for everything else there are better options.

There you go, that's what I have to advice from a semi-native-semi-foreign perspective.

 

[Svenn]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

really? mustang? burma? Afganastan? mongolia? Oman?
Oman or Afghanistan aren't "Asian" countries unless we're talking about continental geography (in which case let's include Israel

).
Yes, I've been to every country in East Asia, including Burma (Kengtung for a week) and Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar).
Mustang isn't a country... unless you recognize all parochial former kingdoms as countries.

 

[darkie_one]

Check Xidan for shopping, Sanlitun for drinking and Workers Stadium area for discos. The women in this discos are great

 

[vasili_leung]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

really? mustang? burma? Afganastan? mongolia? Oman?
Where's Mustang?

 

[Svenn]

Originally Posted by superfans124

shopping is indeed horrible in Beijing, I don't know what is the problem, name brands are way overpriced here, even on sale it's a joke compares to prices in the States. Then cheap stuff are just cheap in price, by compromising on everything else. White collars in mainland China go to HongKong to commit binge shopping (everything from clothes to electronics), if that tells you anything.
I'm glad a native verified by shopping frustration with that city. I wonder what the reason for it is? Is there some law that forbids directly selling from the manufacturer or something? Maybe the Western headquarters made deals with the factories not to sell the product without going through marked-up retail. Wow, so the mainlanders just go to retail places in Hong Kong, or is there some outlet center there?