A guide to world cities: A great leap forward

Beijing is just weeks away from its international coming-out party. Take a trip from the airport, past the hutongs to the ‘bird’s nest’ stadium and the
glowing bubble-like aquatic centre and you’ll discover a new city being revealed from the maze of cranes and hoardings. Heather Connon reports

If you want a flavour of what has been happening in Beijing in the last few years you need go no further than the airport. It is designed to impress from the first time you see it out of your plane window: it is supposed to look like a dragon, with the skylights acting as scales. The sheer immensity of the glossy, high-tech terminal is breathtaking - it is the second largest building in the world, capable of handling 50 million passengers a year.

It will be clear from the trip into the centre - the high-speed metro which will link the airport to Beijing is still some way off, so visitors still have to choose between the airport bus or a 40-minute taxi journey - that the airport is not the only pre-Olympic building project in the Chinese capital. The cranes which have dominated the skyline for much of the last five years are gradually revealing landmark constructions like the ‘bird’s nest’ Olympic stadium, the new UFO-shaped concert hall and the multimedia bubble that is the Olympic aquatic centre. There are also a host of new hotels and restaurants to expand the previously rather sparse choice for visitors. Of course, there is so much to see in Beijing that you may have little time to get to know your hotel. Some of the must-sees such as the enormous portrait of Mao, which gazes down on to Tiananmen Square from the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and the six-century-old Forbidden City, the best preserved, most complete section of imperial architecture in the country, are already familiar.

There is little of the old Beijing left now that much of it has been bulldozed to make way for concrete and steel constructions, but for a glimpse of the way life used to be, take a tour of the hutongs as the historic winding alleys are called. The most accessible are along the edge of the Shichahai Lake at the foot of the Drum and Bell towers which used to sound out the hours to regulate the life of the city.

If you can get out of the city, the place to head for is the Great Wall of China. Most tours head for the Badaling section which means it is usually pretty crowded. Quieter, although hardly deserted, is Mutianyu which, although it will take the best part of the day to get there and back, also involves an interesting journey through the Chinese countryside. When you get there, the cable car ride - or, for the very fit, the walk - offers views almost as good as those of the Great Wall itself, snaking across the mountain ridge on both sides of the summit.

History

Human history in the area around Beijing stretches back to Peking man, who settled in the area around 500,000 years ago. Fossils of early Peking man and stone tools dating from 18,000 years ago have been found, and agriculture was introduced around 5,000 years ago. Beijing first achieved prominence in the 10th century when it became the second capital of the Liao dynasty but its modern history started three centuries later when it was rebuilt by Kublai Khan, grandson of Ghengis, who built artificial lakes and parks as well as a canal to the sea. In 1406, the third Ming emperor Yongle ordered the building of the Forbidden City, which remained the sanctuary for the imperial family for the next 500 years. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Beijing fell victim to foreign intervention, first to western powers and then, in 1937, to the Japanese. Communists and nationalists banded together to fight the occupation, but in the power struggle that followed liberation, the Red Army seized victory. In 1949, Chairman Mao announced the formation of the People’s Republic of China, with Beijing as its capital, from Tiananmen Square. The city expanded massively in the post-war period and now covers an area of around 750 square kilometres. In 1989, pro-democracy protests in the same square were crushed causing between 200 to 3,000 casualties. In 2001, Beijing was awarded the 2008 summer Olympics, which will be held in August.

Sleeping, eating and etiquette

It is worth checking for hotels near the areas you want to visit as transport around the city can be difficult. Among those close to Financial Street, Beijing’s answer to Wall Street is the glass and chrome tower of the Ritz Carlton, while the Hilton is in the Chaoyang district, an area which is both close to the airport and attracting a number of companies and embassies. The superb Grand Hyatt is only a few minutes’ walk from some of Beijing’s most famous historical sights - the rooms at the front overlook Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Inside, you can relax from the pressures of business or sightseeing by pretending to be Indiana Jones in the opulent pool, complete with waterfalls, rainforest and a virtual sky. Food choices range from the tiny kiosks hidden in hutong walls to the swankiest of restaurants. For business lunches, try the beautiful Aria, one of the top attractions at the China World Hotel. But for a flavour of ‘old’ China, head for the Red Capital Club, open in the evenings only, where the cuisine is based on the favourite dishes of the old communist officials. A bit further down the scale, the Dadon Roast Duck Restaurant, near the Nanxinang International Building, is as noisy and crowded as Chinese restaurants should be - and food is one of the main areas where it is worth knowing a bit about the local etiquette. Many restaurants will only supply chopsticks, so it is worth a bit of practice with these before your trip. Remember not to stand these in your bowl and do not load your plate with food - it is polite to take just what you can immediately eat from the communal bowls which are a feature of many formal Chinese meals. Follow your host - it may be acceptable to spit your bones on the table cloth - except when he tries to get you to drink too much. To the salutation Ganbei, which roughly means empty your glass, reply Suiyi, or each party can drink as much as they like. Swapping business cards is almost as much a ritual as food: take and offer them with both hands and be sure to study them immediately.

Top tips

Currency: renminbi, also known as yuan. £1 = 13.7 yuan
Language: Mandarin
Dialling code: +86 10
Time zone: China standard time is eight hours ahead of GMT
Climate: January and February are dry and most days hover around 2C. In summer, Beijing is hot and humid with highs of over 30C. Autumn and spring are the best times to visit.
Getting around: Travelling around Beijing can be at least as slow and frustrating as in other big cities - one reason why the ubiquitous bicycles, which even have their own traffic police, are such a good idea.
Entertainment: Theatres include the Chaoyang, famous for Chinese acrobatics, and Liyuan, where you can see excerpts from traditional operas, with English sub-titles. Also try the music and shows at the Lao She or Sanwai tea houses.