China rising.

My friends, China is rising. That idea that you may have of a China that resembles San Francisco's Chinatown or a sweltering collection of narrow and interlacing streets littered with rickshaws and beater cars, well, you are WRONG! I'm not sure what I was expecting before I arrived in Beijing, but my eyes have been opened to what China is: A behemouth economic powerhouse: Construction everywhere, enormous and modern skyscrapers, wide and well-maintained roads, commerce and upscale shopping, and, at least in Beijing, a pervasive middle-class. Yes, the Chinese still need some etiquette lessons in forming and maintaining a proper queue (stop cutting in line!) and their public toilets are questionable at worst (I haven't been in the women's rooms, of course, so a man's perspective may be a bit more rosy since we have the option of standing and not wiping), but I have been in several delightful public loos.

Las Vegas may have more lights, more glitz, and more facade than Beijing, but not more size, and not more scale. Imagine Las Vegas's strip, an extra-wide street with Audis and Mercedes and Hyundais and BMWs and Hondas and Toyotas, shopping everywhere, from multi-leveled high-end department stores to strip malls and massive, huge, upscale hotels and office/corporate buildings and times it by a thousand. That's Beijing. Beijing . . . is . . . HUGE!

Hutongs are not necessarily slums, they are simply the older, preserved sections of the Beijing of yestercentury. Beijingers are proud of the hutongs and they are slowly being stamped out by development. There is an ongoing struggle to protect the remaining hutongs throughout the city.

It is unusual to go into a Chinese equivalent of Teriyaki Stix and see minced kidneys and whole duck (with head) on the menu, but you tell me what a Chinese person would think of mayonnaise on Jell-O or fruit cake. After travelling the world as I have, a few unusual food concoctions in a particular country is the norm. Mostly, the Chinese eat the same foods, prepared differently, that we do. Also, American Chinese food is not Chinese Chinese food. I have not seen a single morsel of sweet-and-sour pork in this country.

Generally speaking, the Chinese have been exceptionally polite. It's culturally ingrained to be accommodating. There are so many Chinese that we have encountered in the hospitality arena (hotels, restaurants, shopping, venues) that speak English! However, taxi cab drivers are conspicuously lacking in the English-speaking category; thank goodness for maps and pointing. I will say that most of our frustrations have occurred trying to get a taxi from the city to Shunyi District on the outskirts of Beijing. About one in three cab drivers say "no" to taking us home in the evening because it is somewhat out of the way. It's an economic problem only; just a cab driver trying to make a yuan. Although, last night, we were espcially put off by a driver trying to negotiate the fare before we left. He wanted 300 yuan for the trip, but Ren and I know it's between 80-100 yuan when the driver uses the meter. We got out of the cab immediately.

When driving in a foreign country, there is a style--an ebb and flow--of traffic patterns that everyone is used to. In China, it's more like Chinese than English, is all. I heard that number too, that 85,000 people die a year on Beijing streets. I SERIOUSLY doubt that number; that's 10 people and hour. Someone needs to get the facts straight. I haven't seen an accident yet in Beijing--car, person, bike, or rickshaw (I haven't seen any rickshaws period, for the record). But I will say this: cars and pedestrian and bikes and motorcycles do some crazy things on the streets that as an American in America, I would never do. It's entertaining!

China is rising. Our host, Carl, said it best: The Chinese are the original capitalists. Eventually, as the Chinese marketplace grows, the old ideals of the Communist government will be squashed by the unstoppable momentum of a burgeoning economy. No ideal contrary to the almighty yuan (or dollar or euro) can stand long against it. It is happening; I have seen it!