王府井 Wangfujing/useful information

Wanfujing /useful info 9th May, 2007
The National Art Gallery.

Currently the National Art Gallery has an exhibtion. "America: 300 years of innovation". The art hardly seemed particularly innovative and has a flatness to it. There were many examples of naive art. It seemed to lack warmth. There was however an interesting time line which tracked American history abliet with photographs. Of course Martin Luther King and Rodney King were included on this timeline. As well as the African American lady who refused to stand up and give her seat to a white man.

The Chinese people looked at the painting in this exhibition with curiosity, like someone viewing the exotic. Which of course America is to them. A foreign place, with foreign looking people.

Yes many Chinese people still look surprised to see a Non-Chinese looking person, even in Beijing. Peoples reactions vary from staring is shock or curiosity, to laughter, to saying "foreigner!" or "white person", to some its total indifference. Some say "hello" smiling at the novelty of getting the opportunity to practise English. In Xuanwumen there is a 2 dollar shop. In the corner there is a section with pictures of caucasian women. These women are big busted with blonde hair.


This exhibition had 2 paintings which featured black people. One of a naked black women lying on the ground dead with kkk members in the background. Another of a Jazz club with musicians and people dancing.

There are many opportunities to view Western Culture in Beijing. There are grocery stores which import food from overseas. At high prices. You can buy Italian and Australian wine. You can buy chocolate. Bread and chocolate are rare. Unless you live in an expensive Western inner city suburb. Or Westernised more outter suburb Shunyi where many expats seem to live. McDonald stores dot the map of inner Beijing like a child with the measels. Although McDonalds is a luxury. Expensive.

Western Films are expensive to see at the cinema 60yuan (10 Australian Dollars) but American DVD's are everywhere. Pirated ones for about 6 yuan ($1) and authentic ones 25yuan ( $3) most of them come in English with Chinese subtitles. Some are dubbed with Chinese. All the writing on the cover is in Chinese. To make sure you are buying a DVD which has English in some form look on the back of the dvd, down the bottom. look for characters ---英语 or 英文
(yingyu or yingwen) English.

There is an English magazine in Beijing -- called Time Out. This magazine is sold all around the world. There is London -Time Out etc. There is an English paper - The China Daily --- online and in print form. There is an English radio station which is multilingual, mostly English, Chinese a little bit of French. Most of the songs and commentary is in English. It is quite a good ecletic mix of music. Most of the English speaking facilities - gyms, language schools, yoga, caligraphy are centred around Choyangmen, Wanfujing and Dongzhimen. So living in these areas has its advantages. There are plus and minuses to everything. Sometimes people living here only end up talking to other Westerners and perhaps miss out on the "real China" . Then again - living in the "real China" can sometimes make life really hard. -- depending on ones Chinese language ability.

There are a few Foreign Language book stores around --- Wanfujing, Wudaokou, Choyangmen.
Imported books are more expensive than locally printed books.

Chinese Language -- it is really hard for westerners to get the tones right. People who learn Chinese say that reading the characters is the easy part. One thing that makes Chinese easy is that is is not based on many different language like English is. It is based on itself. Therefore the characters that make up words are quite logical example

small dog puppy
small cat kitten
water mouth saliva
ni hao you good

so once you learn some characters - you can just combine them to make so many different words!!!!!

recomendation: if you learn Chinese - concentrate on the tones from the beginning, really practise. it is hard to undo when you have already learnt words with the wrong tone.


Personal space

In a city with 15, million it is hard to get your personal space.
You are more likely to get shoved. It is not meant to be horrible it is just socially acceptable.
Also crossing the road is crazy. Looking at a Beijing intersection it seems there are no rules but there are ------

People must give way to turning cars. Cars are able to turn most of the time. So even if the green man is showing and many cars going straight ahead stop. look ahead, step forward a little bit, let a turning car have right of way, then cross when you get a chance. It is not that the cars are trying to run you over, they just have right of way. Always be alert. If you are crossing bicycles and motorcylces can creep up the side of a bus.

ATMs are hard to find. There are not as many as in Australia. Most have an option for English.

Navigaton: buy a map with English and Characters
(so you can point to taxi drivers)

useful info

north bei, east dong, south nan, west xi
北 东 南 西

Streets are really really long.

so xinhua street will be called

nan xinhua street. bei xinhua street
south xinhua street north xinhua street

useful

内 inner nei 外 wai outside, outer

streets are also called

dongzhimen nei street, dongzhimen wai street.