Beijing Then And Now

Beijing has several millennia of human history. It has been a city of regional importance for many centuries, first becoming the Chinese imperial capital in 1267. The city has been known by various names through the ages, reflecting a turbulent history of change. As the political and cultural heart of modern China, Beijing has grown dramatically since the Communist revolution of 1949.Beijing Then and Now shows how that dramatic modernization has affected the city and how, despite all the new building and modern infrastructure, some of the great historic sites have been preserved and maintained. Sites include: Deshengmen Arrow Tower, Qianmen Arrow Tower, Qianmen Gate, Entrance to the Imperial City, Mao's Mausoleum, Tiananmen Gate, Duanmen Gate, Entrance to the Forbidden City, Wumen Gate, Hall of Supreme Harmony, Jingshan, Beihai Park, the White Dagoba, Imperial Canal, Drum Tower, Beihai Lake, Bell Tower, Temple of Confucius, Hall of Classics, Imperial Observatory, Qianmen Boulevard, Hall of Prayer, Altar of Heaven, British Legation, Dong Tang, Marble Boat, Jade Belt Bridge, Ming Tombs, Spirit Road and the Great Wall of China.

The popular city of Beijing is illustrated in this new addition to the Then and Now series. With an increase in interest and travel to China, Beijing has become a hot tourist and business destination, and all eyes are on the city for the 2008 Summer Olympics.Readers will experience the richness of this ancient and modern city through remarkable then-and-now photographs, featuring landmarks such as Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, as well as captivating street scenes, temples, palaces and more.

Journalist Michael Meyer has spent his adult life in China, first in a small village as a Peace Corps volunteer, the last decade in Beijing--where he has witnessed the extraordinary transformation the country has experienced in that time. For the past two years he has been completely immersed in the ancient city, living on one of its famed hutong in a century-old courtyard home he shares with several families, teaching English at a local elementary school--while all around him "progress" closes in as the neighborhood is methodically destroyed to make way for high-rise buildings, shopping malls, and other symbols of modern, urban life. The city, he shows, has been demolished many times before; however, he writes, "the epitaph for Beijing will read: born 1280, died 2008...what emperors, warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist planners couldn't eradicate, the market economy can." The Last Days of Old Beijing tells the story of this historic city from the inside out-through the eyes of those whose lives are in the balance: the Widow who takes care of Meyer; his students and fellow teachers, the first-ever description of what goes on in a Chinese public school; the local historian who rallies against the government. The tension of preservation vs. modernization--the question of what, in an ancient civilization, counts as heritage, and what happens when a billion people want to live the way Americans do--suffuse Meyer's story.

Looking at the cost of modernization, a British journalist and specialist on East Asian history focuses on Beijing as it prepares for the 2008 Olympics to reveal how a thousand years of priceless historical treasures, monuments, shrines, and landmarks have been swept away to make way for residential developments, blocks of office towers, shopping malls, and other "progress."

This book details the great unreported story of the Chinese giant, its enormously rapid conversion to Christianity, and what this change means to the global balance of power.

Jan Wong has returned to Beijing. Her quest: to find someone she encountered briefly in 1973, and whose life she was certain she had ruined forever. In the early 1970s Jan Wong became one of only two Westerners permitted to study at Beijing University. One day a young stranger, Yin Luoyi, asked for help in getting to America. Wong, then a starry-eyed Maoist, immediately reported her to the authorities, and Yin disappeared. Wong chronicled that brief meeting in her bestselling book Red China Blues. Now, a decade after Red China Blues and thirty-four years after that fateful encounter, Jan Wong revisits the Chinese capital to begin her search for the woman who has haunted her conscience. She wants to apologize, to somehow make amends. At the very least she wants to discover whether Yin survived. Emotionally powerful and rich with detail, Beijing Confidential weaves together three distinct stories—Wong’s journey from remorse to redemption, Yin’s journey from disgrace to respectability, and Beijing’s stunning journey from communism to capitalism.

"Four short stories set in a hutong, or residential alleyway, of Beijing, China. Yu'er, her grandfather, and their eccentric neighbors experience the magic of everyday life."--

A “suspenseful, elegantly written” account of the author’s return to China after thirty years to search for the woman she betrayed to the authorities (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In the early 1970s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong traveled from Canada to Beijing University—where she would become one of only two Westerners permitted to study. One day a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked for her help getting to the United States. Wong, then a starry-eyed Maoist from Montreal, immediately reported her to the authorities, and shortly thereafter Yin disappeared. Thirty-three years later, hoping to make amends, Wong revisits the Chinese capital to search for the person who has haunted her conscience. At the very least, she wants to discover whether Yin survived. But Wong finds the new Beijing bewildering. Phone numbers, addresses, and even names change with startling frequency. In a society determined to bury the past, Yin Luoyi will be hard to find. As Wong traces her way from one former comrade to the next, she unearths not only the fate of the woman she betrayed but the strange and dramatic transformation of contemporary China. In this memoir, she tells how her journey rekindled all of her love for—and disillusionment with—her ancestral land. “Gone is the semirural capital where the author’s ‘revolutionary’ course of study included bouts of hard labor and ‘self criticism’ sessions. In its place are eight-lane expressways lit up ‘like Christmas trees,’ shiny skyscrapers and the largest shopping mall in the world. Wong is a gifted storyteller, and hers is a deeply personal and richly detailed eyewitness account of China’s journey to glossy modernity.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review