Why Travel to Beijing, China?
For centuries this huge and historic city has been the centre of the Chinese state and was ‘different from any western capital because it expressed its culture in spatial harmony and stone’ [Michael Sheridan], with gracious courtyards, narrow streets, grand temples and curious artefacts scattered here and there. Unfortunately ever since Chairman Mao’s great leap backward in the 60’s, Chinese leaders have focussed on eliminating old city harmony and replacing it with style-free concrete apartments and broad, blank slabs of asphalt, none more so than in the few years since Beijing was chosen to host the Olympic Games. A million people were moved out of their homes to accomplish the ‘modernisation’ of the city and now just 5% of old Beijing is intact, while extraordinary structures such as the National Theatre [picture above right] are admired [and designed by] by foreigners, but locals dislike them; they derisively call the theatre ‘the big turd’. There’s still much to see and do for tou
