Beijing Auto China and Shanghai World Expo 2010

The May holiday weekend has just passed. It was a bad time to visit the tourist sites since there were so many people visiting Beijing, not just foreigners but also other parts of China. 4.36 million visitors came to Beijing over the 3 days, 17% more than last year. And 230,000 people crammed into the Forbidden City. On Apr 30th, a record number of 6 million passengers used the 9 lines of the Beijing subway, that's like the population of London all on the move in one day.

Some were at the Auto China 2010, which featured 990 cars from all over the world. The show attracted 800,000 visitors over 10 days, making it the world's best-attended auto show. I'm glad I went last year (see my Apr 2009 blog "Moo-ve over Ox, this is the Year of the Car"), and bought my car then, because in just one year, prices have gone up and delivery times increased to several months. My car is cheap compared to the 40 luxury cars sold for 150 million yuan, that's an average of just over half a million USD each! The most expensive one was a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 sold for 5.6 MUSD.

And for those without that kind of money, there were always the free parks, currently with lots of blossoms and tulip displays. But again there were crowds of people, since the weather finally turned warm, and every day, over 500,000 visited the city's 11 parks.

Some of my Beijing clients were on their way to the Shanghai Expo. You hear about this every day on the TV, a bit like before the Beijing Olympics 2 years ago. Twice as much money has been spent on this Expo than on the Olympics. 70 million are expected over the 6 months to end of October, in a city of 22 million people. It will be a chance to show off China's economic development to the world, but since 95% of the visitors will be from within China, it is more a chance to show the world to the Chinese.

This is the world's largest Expo since the first one in London in 1851, with 246 countries and organisations taking part, 102 government leaders attending and 2 million volunteers to help you around the site, whose area is equivalent to 1000 football pitches.

Tickets sold out on the opening day, May 1st and large crowds came over the long holiday weekend, over 200,000 a day. However numbers are now down to less than half because of the hot 30 degrees C temperature or maybe because of the rain or maybe because it's too expensive for locals. They may have to start giving away free tickets or organise company outings to reach the targets. During the soft opening, the most popular pavilions, apart from China's Oriental Crown, came from United States, Australia, Spain, France and Japan.

I plan go in July with some clients. For those of you who can't come, there's always the virtual site on http://www.expo.cn/.

Beijing's Bloomin' Beautiful(ly)! And How About You?

At a reader's request, a friend has gone around with a camera to show you what is blooming now. Finally we can see some colour in the city. It's also one of the peak seasons for tourists, so I'm busy showing them the blossom as well as everything else in Beijing!




Actually he already went 10 days ago with some friends to the oldest temple in Beijing (even older than the city itself) and saw some beautiful old trees, but not the usual spring blossoms. One small yulan magnolia (indigenous to central and eastern China) tree was just starting to show some flower buds. The temple has both white and the less common purple varieties.

Three other temples also have purple, white or pink lilacs in their grounds, and some are over 200 years old. Then it will be the turn of the peonies in their various colours, including black and green. And the most famous place to view the largest area of lilacs is the Temple of Heaven.






Now, in our area, we can see a whole range of colours, and even more is promised as the weather warms up.

up.

Most of the photos were taken in my neighbourhood, but of course you can see much more in various parks and the botanical gardens - crabapples, and apricot, cherry and peach blossom (70 varieties of these alone in the Beijing Botanical Garden). One photo taken near the Ming City Wall shows the new plants in front of this old historical structure. See if you can spot the artificial trees/flowers, and the one I took before in South Africa (see last December's blog)!

And how about you? Are you ready for Spring? Have you done your Spring cleaning? It's also time to make yourself 'beautiful' too with some body and spirit 'cleansing' according to the earliest ancient Chinese traditional medicine compendium "Yellow Emperor Internal Medicine":

"....Spring is the season of growth, and a new beginning to the year. The movement of the air seems like a rebirth of our mother earth. To get used to the spring, sleep later and wake earlier, take walks with your hair flying in the wind, wear loose clothes, allow an open and joyful outlook to life. Instead of killing, let things grow. Instead of stealing, give abundantly. Instead of punishing, reward by teaching. This is the way of the Dao....."

I think the easiest piece of advice to follow is the first bit about sleeping later. Agree?

Holiday Weekend in Beijing

It was a double holiday last weekend with Easter, not known by many and even forgotten by some, and Qing Ming, or Tomb Sweeping Festival. It's the time to pay your respects to those who have passed away (perhaps they have also risen from the dead), and offer gifts, made of paper, deemed necessary for the after life.


Of course, you have to keep up with the changing times - and with the neighbours- so in addition to the traditional items of paper money, other sacrificial articles now available, all made of paper, include villas, sedan cars, garments, wines, cigarettes, seafood, pianos, violins and other "luxury goods", so reports the China Daily. This year's creative thinking by those out to commercialise the festival has led to some novel ideas. "The 18-yuan ($2.6) bra and a cosmetics set, which costs 28 yuan, are new products this year. The cosmetics set includes foundation, perfume, lipstick, facial cleansing cream, lotion and shampoo". It's not clear if they are only for women, but I know a few men who would appreciate these as well.

And of course you can remember your loved ones on the internet on special memorial websites for those too busy to go to the cemetery. After all, who knows, there may well be life after death in cyberspace.

I did not join the half million Beijingers in their tomb-sweeping and instead just spent the sunny day in Ritan (Temple of Earth) park. Whereas its more famous counterpart, the Temple of Heaven, lies to south of the city, Ritan Park in the north is a much more modest affair located near the earliest diplomatic area. It is nevertheless an interesting place to stroll around in on this holiday. The many tress there were starting to blossom like the magnolia in the photo.

There were lots of families out enjoying some local snacks (roast sweet potatoes and strawberries already), as well as flying their kites or practising 'tai qi'.

They do seem to start young these days. The boy in the photo was only 5 yrs old and not only performed a vigorous set of movements for me, but could also speak some simple English.

 

 

 

 

 

The city traffic was light because of the long weekend, and some local farmers even ventured into town with their horse-drawn carts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another traditional form of transport is the rickshaw which can be found outside shopping malls where foreigners like to go, such as this one called "Alien's Street", written in English and Russian.

 

 

Let me know if you want to go for a walk in a park, eat local snacks, ride a rickshaw or go shopping. I can tell you the best places to go (for cosmetics as well but not for bras!).

Healthy Living - Vegetarian Food in Beijing

After all the excessive eating over the Chinese New Year, it's a good time to eat something a that's bit easier on the stomach. Of course, Chinese eat many vegetable-only dishes anyway, but nevertheless there are many good vegetarian and vegan restaurants in town, and I went to one of my favourite ones recently, see photos.

Now don't get turned off by the thought of bland vegetarian food which you get in the West, such as beans, lentils, raw carrots, alfafa or plain tofu even. Here in Beijing you can find many different vegetarian dishes, with different styles and different tastes. They can be quite different to the mock meat dishes you get in Hong Kong, where it can be too oily or too sweet.

 

China has a long tradition of vegetarian food starting over 1500 years ago in Buddhist temples, and no egg, garlic or spring onion was allowed. Confucius was probably vegetarian as well. From there it spread to the imperial family and then to ordinary citizens. The main ingredients used are soybean products such as tofu, fresh vegetables and even some flowers and tea leaves.

There are several dozen different restaurants to choose from in Beijing, some near tourist sites, some in outlying temples, some easy to find, others hidden down narrow hutongs; some with character and charm, some decorated like fast food cafes; some with cheap buffets, and a few with expensive a la carte menus. Some are state-owned with minimal service and traditional dishes, and some are privately-owned with innovative fusion food; some cater to foreigners whilst others don't have any English-speaking staff at all. 

Some have Buddhist inspired names such as "Lotus in Moonlight", "Pure Lotus", "Still Thoughts", "Sea of Mercy" and "Bodhi-Sake", so you can expect calming and tasteful decor. Others have more common names such as Veggie Love Kitchen, Loving Hut, and Vegetarian Tiger (particularly appropriate for this year). Some, such as Wo Xing Wo Su and Xu Xiang Zhai, are unpronouncable and won't mean anything to you unless you know Chinese and the pinyin system of 'spelling'. Talking about pinyin, perhaps the phrases 'wo bu chi rou' or 'wo chi su' for "I don't eat meat" and "I am vegetarian" will come in handy for you.

There are some good vegetarian restaurants near the National Museum of Fine Arts, Lama Temple and Confucius Temple (see blog on Ancient Scholars July 2009) or MOMA, which you might be visiting as part of an architectural tour (see blog on Beijing Architecture Jan. 2010). Try Roast Beijing Duck without the duck, or Chicken in Chili Sauce or Stir-fried Prawns or Grilled Fish Country Style, all meatless. Another dish I saw on the menu, Steamed Sliced Pork with White Gourd, said it can "....promote weight loss, reduce inflammation, release heat and purge pollution and toxins....". We certainly need that with all the recent sandstorms!

Beijing's Fabric Market is Fab!

Some of my clients have been to Beijing several times and so want to go somewhere different, away from the must-see sights full of tour groups. I wrote about Badachu (8 Great Temples) last August and shopping at my local market last July. Well, this time I want to tell you about a huge market, the so-called fabric market. There, you can fit yourself out with a complete new wardrobe, tailor-made if you want, choose soft furnishings for your whole house, and lots more!

I took a friend to this off-the-beaten track market recently and he raved about the unique fabrics available. It doesn't look promising from the outside, a series of dull warehouse buildings on a dusty, crowded road, but inside, well a whole new world of weird and wonderful goods: not just fabrics, such as linens, cashmere, silks, cottons, printed, woven, cut to any size or length you need, but also accessories, cosmetics, bags, wallets, belts, jewelry, clocks and watches, .....if you like markets, if you like hunting for something unusual, if you want a unique souvenir from China, then this is a fun place I can take you to! 

Of course if you are a Harrods, John Lewis, Macy's or Nordstrom customer (or perhaps in these days of recession a Wal-Mart customer), you won't want to go near this market. Silk Alley, Friendship Store, Yashow or any of Beijing's new shopping malls will be enough of a downgrade for you. Similarly if you are on a 10-day-see-all-of-China tour then you won't have time to go off the beaten track for some adventure. Not only is the market a 40 min drive to the edge of town, it's also laid out in a random way.

However, if like my friend, you want to explore places where the locals go and get an unbeatable opportunity to pick up a bargain, then this is the place for you. The service can be a bit, well, minimalist, but I can help you deal with that. And although everything is very cheap, I can help to negotiate the price down even further for you.

You can be creative, mix and match, choose your material and accessories and then take them to a tailor to make something to your own design....or make a copy of your favourite Armani shirt or whatever. Just let your imagination go! How about new curtains, or sofa covers or duvet cover? How about making a new suit or shirt? Silk underwear? Leather trousers? A new party frock?

I couldn't resist getting something. I picked out a cotton print with a colourful flowery pattern, just like a Paul Smith design, and will take it to my favourite tailor, the one who made the winter coat I showed you in January's blog, to make into a new shirt for the Spring. I'll show it to you - and the market - next time you come!