If everything goes according to plan, by the time you read this blog I will be well on my way to the airport.

I’ll admit that when I left Beijing after living here from 2009-2012, I was glad to go. I was fed up with the pollution, never-ending traffic, constant food scandals… the list goes on. However, after living in the US for two years now, coming back for a month has been amazing. I realize more how lucky I was to have had the experience of living here..

As I say goodbye to the ‘jing again, I have compiled a list, in no particular order, of ten things that I will miss about Beijing.

1. Cheap and Delicious Chinese Food
This is so obvious, but I have to include it. As I sat in the hip jianbing restaurant Huang Tai Ji this morning, I thought about how I will probably not have another jianbing, or any bing for that matter, for a long, long time.

Out of curiosity, I recently looked up jianbing vendors and restaurants back in the US, and it turns out there is one food truck that offers it – but for USD 7 (RMB 43) each!
 
The list of food I miss could go on and on, but at top is definitely good Beijing kaoya, special regional cuisines like vinegary Shaanxi noodles and roujiamo, and cheap jiaozi and baozi.

2. The Morning Market(s)
As I explained in this post, I really do love the Chaowai Morning Market. However, honestly I love all fruit and veggie markets in Beijing – this one is just the biggest and closest. These open air markets are like farmer’s markets only better: they are permanent, daily, and cheap!

3. Sightseeing
I also can’t overlook this one. It is so easy to forget how many amazing sites Beijing has until you are about ready to leave. When I lived here, going to the Forbidden City seemed ordinary, and even boring. However, once I found out I was leaving, I wanted to go back and experience it all over again.

Similarly, this month I have turned into a somewhat-crazy tourist, trying to squeeze in visits to all my favorite places on the weekends.

4. Meiwenti-ing Everything
Something that never gets old about China for me is how so many responses end with “meiwenti!” (no problem”)

Last night, I headed to one of my favorite restaurants in Worker Stadium, only to find there was an event going on that required a ticket to enter the stadium area. I explained my situation to a worker, who immediately told me “bukeyi;” I couldn’t enter.

The restaurant was within spitting distance of the gate where I was, so I asked if he knew the restaurant’s phone number, or could somehow help me order. He told me to wait a moment and went to talk to his boss. Just 20 seconds later, he came back and suddenly began moving the gate door behind me to block off the line behind me, and motioned me to go through.

“No” is rarely a definite answer here. I want to enter ticketless in a place that requires tickets? Meiwenti.

5. Ease of Transportation
Seeing the masses constantly jaywalk never ceases to amaze me. Foot traffic doesn’t abide by traffic lights, but rather whenever the number of people on the sidewalk reaches a tipping point everyone just spills into the street, preventing the (now honking) cars from moving. I am pretty sure Chinese are born with no fear of being within inches of a moving car.

6. Trying New Things
Beijing or not, living in a different city, especially in a different part of the world, is exciting. I love that even simple things in daily life like heading to the market or going to the bank are learning experiences.

Even familiar brands are different. Where in the US can you find iced tea Lay’s potato chips or grape Oreos?

7. “Casual Dining” on a New Level
The freedom to shout “fuwuyuan!” (“waiter!”) at the top of your lungs, keep your elbows on the table and spit bones on your plate, yet still be accepted in society is truly exhilarating. After living such a significant portion of my life in Beijing, I still have to remind myself to leave a tip at restaurants.

8. The People’s Gym & Other Outdoor Activities
I really admire how older Chinese always seem to be socializing. One of my favorite touristy places in Beijing is the Long Corridor right next to the Temple of Heaven. Seeing the number of benches full of retirees playing mahjong or cards, or those huge groups of dancing and singing Chinese ladies makes me wish that daily casual outdoor gatherings were the norm back home too.

9. Plentiful Opportunities
Partly because Beijing has such a small percentage of foreigners and partly because Beijing is a constantly changing city, the opportunities here seem endless. Although I’ll admit it can be frustrating that favorite neighborhood shops can close overnight, it is equally exciting to see what will pop up next.

10. The People
I don’t want this post to get too sappy, but it’s true; I really miss the community here.

Because the percentage of foreigners living in Beijing is small, it is so easy to meet and make new friends. You haven’t lived in China your whole life? Instant friendship. You speak English? Let’s have lunch. You have kids in school? We probably have at least ten mutual friends.

Even though moving away is a normal part of life, Beijing has such a tight-knit expat community that is truly irreplaceable. Regularly keeping in touch is difficult, but I know that I can start up conversations with friends I have made here easily and it is like nothing has changed – the sign of a true friendship.

Goodbye for now, Beijing!

Photos: Leah Sprague

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.

Come take part in the Beijing Marathon on October 19th, 2014 this year to raise money for charity!

The Beijing Marathon is everything you’d expect – long, tiresome, requiring training, hopefully rewarding – except for one thing: it supports the Sisters’ Run, a charity event raising money for the projects that the Sisters serve. Although fundraising marathons are common in most countries, they are very rare in China.

The Sisters’ Run began in 2008 when 9 Sisters participated in the Beijing Marathon to raise money for charity. When the Beijing Marathon Committee started the program “Run for Charity” in 2011, the Sisters’ Run became one of the first charities they authorized.

What makes the Sisters’ Run unique is that it will be supporting and literally run by Sisters themselves; every year more and more Sisters participate in the run with habits and matching T-shirts.

Eighty Sisters will be coming from eight Chinese provinces to run in this year’s race. Their goal is to raise RMB 127,288,800 for 30 different organizations, including care for the elderly, orphans, students, lepers, and AID patients. As of June 30, 2014, they have collected RMB 43,704,451 – a great start, but there is still a lot more to be raised.

Official registration begins September 19, but you can make your interest known and get more information by leaving your contact details here. The coordinators will get back to you to confirm your place.

Participating in the full marathon costs USD 100 (RMB 618), and the half marathon costs USD 80 (RMB 495). To run for the charity, you must place a deposit of EUR 100 (RMB 829). If you raise more than RMB 2000, you get your deposit back.

The marathon will begin at 8am at Tiananmen Square. The full race will end at 5pm at the Olympic Stadium.

Participants in the full marathon (42km) must be 20 or older; half marathon (21km) must be at least 16; 9km must be at least 15, mini marathon (4.2km) must be at least 13.

Good luck to all participants!

Find more information on the official websites of the Beijing Marathon, Sisters’ Run, BRICKS Great Wall Appeal, or Jingde Charities.
See previous press coverage of the Sisters’ Run from the Beijinger, CNN, and China Daily.

Photo: Lumdimsum.com via WildChina

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.

This is the second of a two-part series where I share photos of six uniquely-designed subway stations in Beijing. It is easy to zone out while using public transportation, but it is worth tuning back in to check out these murals and designs! See part 1 here.

4. Jintaixizhao (金台夕照）

Line 10

 Jintaixizhao is another subway station that I didn’t expect to have such a unique design. The doors open to a sleek, dark tunnel with light coming from circles on the wall. I am not sure what it is supposed to symbolize, but it is better than your average white subway columns.

5. Yuanmingyuan / Old Summer Palace (圆明园）
Line 4

 A large mural outside of the Yuanmingyuan subway station combines relief sculptures of the ruins found inside the park with a description of the event in Chinese.

6. Beijing Zoo Station
(动物园） Line 4

Although it is quite old, Beijing Zoo is probably the most kid-friendly subway station in Beijing. A ceiling with colorful circles and walls with murals of different animals greet commuters before they head up to the real world.

Post inspired by Nargiz Koshoibekova’s post “The 5 Coolest Beijing Metro Stations” on The World of Chinese

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.

Photo of Jintaixizhao station: Jinjian Liang; Yuanmingyuan Park: Xiaomo via cswomen; Beijing Zoo: Wikimedia Commons; Subway Map: Wikimedia Commons

This is the last of three Fridays where we will feature a lesser-known, often ignored, or just generally underappreciated place in Beijing. See the first Friday’s post here, and the second here.

Although Beijing’s flat landscape and wide bike lanes make biking very easy and fun, unfortunately, in the hot summer months biking is something only done when absolutely necessary.

But don’t give up on your bike just yet! Spend some time exploring one of my favorite places to go biking: along the leafy streets around Ritan Park. Off the main drag and lined with embassies, the streets here have fewer cars and a shaded canopy of trees. As you can see in the birds-eye-view map below, there is almost as much green outside of Ritan Park as there is inside. The next not-so-polluted day you have nothing planned, go for a bike ride and finish with a picnic in the park.

If I decide to bike before lunch, I usually stop by the Jenny Lou’s that’s within spitting range from the park area to pick up picnic food. For an afternoon bike ride, I like to go to Xi He Ya Ju, a Chinese restaurant in a pretty outdoor courtyard, for sit-down lunch before getting on my bike.

When I went biking around Ritan Park last Saturday, I was reminded again of how quiet it is. Most of the streets are just a turn away from a one-lane road that makes you forget that you are in a huge city. The crickets chirping in the background and the occasional Chinese guard are the only things that remind me I am in Beijing!

I like to systematically go up and down each street, but you can bike around any way you like. Just make sure your final stop is Ritan Park for a picnic lunch!

No bikes are allowed inside the park, but as you may remember from this article, there is plenty to do between the playgrounds, fishing, merry-go-rounds, and shaded pathways.

Jenny Lou’s婕妮璐芳草地店 (Ritan location): Daily 8am-10pm. 4 Ritan Beilu, Chaoyang District (010 8563 0626) 市朝阳区日坛北路4号

Xi He Ya Ju羲和雅居: Daily 11am-2pm, 5-10pm. Ritan Park and Yabao Lu日坛公园雅宝路Northeast corner of Ritan Park, Chaoyang District朝阳区日坛公园东北角

Ritan Park 日坛公园: Daily 6am-10pm (summer), Daily 6am-9pm (winter). 6 Ritan Beilu, Chaoyang District 朝阳区日坛北路6号

Photo: Leah Sprague; Map: Baidu (modified)

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.

I walk by several magazine and newspaper stands every day, but I never stop by. Although I would love to try reading some Chinese magazines – even if I may only understand the photos – I don’t know where to start.

A few Baidu searches and a trip to the neighborhood magazine stand later, I have found five popular magazines that are kid and teenager friendly. Yes, they are all in Chinese, but that makes it part of the adventure!

Name: 读者 (dúzhě)
English Name: Duzhe (literally means “Readers”)
Age Range: 15+
Topic: The most widely circulated magazine in China, Duzhe contains original articles, summaries of popular articles, jokes, book excerpts, and other short pieces. It is often regarded as the Chinese equivalent to “The New Yorker.”
Price: RMB 4

Name: 瑞丽服饰美容 (ruìlì fúshì měiróng)
English Name: Rayli Fashion and Beauty
Age Range: 16+
Topic: Rayli Fashion and Beauty has been one of the leading women’s fashion magazines in China for over 15 years. Rayli Magazine House is the most widely circulated “glossy” magazine.
In addition to their “Fashion and Beauty” issue, Rayli Magazine House has four other strong regular magazine issues:
1. Rayli Fashion and Beauty (瑞丽服饰美容): Fashion for women
2. Rayli Her Style (瑞丽伊人风尚): High-end fashion and lifestyle for “sophisticated girls and lovely women.”
3. Rayli Fashion Pioneer瑞丽时尚先锋): Fashion for women, but with a more “creative” twist.
4. Rayli Home Casaviva (瑞丽家居设计) Home decoration and style
5. LEON (男人风尚): Fashion for men
Price: RMB 20

Name: 菁kids (jīng kids)
English Name: JingKids
Age Range: 13+ (geared toward a parent audience)
Topic: Also part of True Run Media, JingKids is the beijingkids Chinese equivalent.
Price: Free

Name: 中国国家地理 (zhōngguó guójiā dìlǐ)
English Name: China National Geography (not to be confused with National Geographic Magazine’s Chinese version)
Age Range: 11+
Topic: Geography and culture of China   
Price: RMB 20

Name: 三联生活周刊 (sānlián shēnghuó zhōukān)
English Name: Life Week
Age Range: 16+
Topic: Current affairs news and culture magazine, sometimes thought of as the Chinese equivalent of TIME.
Price: RMB 12

Fact sources include Wikipedia and Danwei.

Top photo by Jens Grabenstein (Flickr)
Duzhe image from zazhipu.com, Chinese National Geography from Wikipedia.

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.

subway [suhb-wey] noun: an underground electric railroad, usually in a large city, with plain colored walls and a streamlined design. Often causes commuters to zone out and turn into robots until they get to their designated location.

I love Beijing’s subway system; it is reliable, easy to figure out, and for the most part, modern or at least newer than most western subways. However, just like most subway systems, the vast majority of stations here look very boring.

Although I don’t mind the plain white columns as I hastily transfer to another station or head up to the “real world,” the rare occasions that the doors open to a nicely designed station considerably brighten up a boring commute. Although typically only the newer stations or stations near tourist sites have fun designs, I have come across a few surprises.

Keep scrolling to see photos of my three favorite stations, then maybe look out the subway door the next time you are in transit!

1. Dongsi (东四)
Transfer Station: Line 5 and Line 6

The Dongsi subway station, dismissed by most commuters as a transfer station or “just another stop,” does not seem like a likely place for anything artsy.

However, the next time the doors open while you are riding line 5 or 6, it is worth peaking up from your phone to look outside the subway car; the artists did a really nice job on the orange poles and Chinese-styled columns stretching across the ceiling.

2. Nanluoguxiang (南锣鼓巷)
Transfer Station: Line 6 and Line 8

Nanluoguxiang is a well-known subway stop because it is conveniently located in front of Nanluoguxiang, the hutong with hip café-and-art-store-lined streets. It makes perfect sense, then, that the station looks like hutongs with its fake gray brick walls and artwork of Chinese kites and shadow puppets.

3. Olympic Green (奥林匹克公园)
Line 8

We can’t highlight some of Beijing’s unique subway stations without including at least one stop from the Olympic line.
The ceiling of the Olympic Green stop imitates the Bird’s Nest, with white branches growing from columns to intertwine above commuter’s heads.

Check back next week for three more interesting subway stations in Beijing!

Post inspired by Nargiz Koshoibekova’s post “The 5 Coolest Beijing Metro Stations” on The World of Chinese

Photo of moving subway: Shawn Clover (Flickr); Olympic station: Michael Chu (Flickr); Subway Map: Wikipedia

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.
 

This is the third of three Fridays where we will feature a lesser-known, often ignored, or just generally underrated place in Beijing. See last Friday’s post here.

Although this is by far my favorite market in Beijing, I didn’t even know that it was called the “Chaowai Convenience Morning Market” (朝外地区便民早市) until today when I looked it up on Baidu Maps. To me, it had always been “that morning market across from Workers’ Stadium.”

Located, as my nickname suggests, diagonally across the street from the southwestern corner of Workers’ Stadium, the morning market is open from around 7am to 1pm. The vendors start pouring in at around 6am or 6:30am in their matching silver vans to set up their red and blue umbrellas, and the chaos is non-stop until they pack up and leave by 1.30pm.

The first indication that the market is still open is the large number of old Chinese ladies in the area. Each one holds plastic bags stuffed with Chinese vegetables and fruits I don’t know the English words for. Or, if they are really serious, they pull along a tote bag with various greens peeking out at the top.

By the time you reach the intersection in front of the market, it is impossible to miss. There is always someone selling something interesting on the street (today was skinned frogs), dozens of bicycles, and enough silver vans on the sidewalk to fill a real parking lot.

I have gotten to know this market particularly well, as today is my third trip here in just one week. Crazy? Maybe. Worth it? Yes. I have been eating mangoes as fast as I can buy them; I just can’t find good mangoes back in the US. The mango vendor recognizes my face now and just smiles, probably as she thinks “those waiguoren (foreigners)” and hands me a bag.

I also like to buy peaches, apples and carrots here, and then I challenge myself to buy a fruit that I have never prepared (or eaten) before. Last time was a dragon fruit, today was mangosteens.

The morning market sells both local and imported fruits, and chances are pretty high that you can find a vendor selling the fruit you want no matter the season. Usually, the closer to the front of the market a stall is, the more expensive or foreign the fruit they sell; the very first stall has a permanent kiwi box, and the stall next door always sells pears.

Although some of the fruit is foreign and you do see the occasional waiguoren here, I haven’t encountered a vendor who speaks more English than “Hello” or the first ten numbers. Nonetheless, all the vendors are very friendly and I love talking to them in my limited Chinese. This morning as I stopped to stare at a wide, flat, and hairy bean I had never seen before, the vendor took time to explain to me how to prepare and eat it.

Stalls pushed to the back walls of the market sell items ranging from clothing and shoes to toilet plungers, as well as a wide variety of spices and rice displayed in white sacks.

Snaking around the walls of the market is a sad, short row of practically empty meat and fish vendor stalls, a couple more clothing stalls, and a flower stall. Further behind the market is a jianbing stand, noodle stand, and a mom-and-pop bakery with an impressively wide selection, all with open kitchens.

The final stall is an outside restaurant with cheap plastic stools where a man is twisting a long piece of dough in the air with his hands, no doubt to make some fresh noodles. By this point there are no foreigners whatsoever and every face turns to me – what is a waiguoren doing back here?

I smile, make a mental note to come back for breakfast sometime, then head to the colorful fruit market around the wall to buy some more mangoes.

Chaowai Convenience Morning Market 朝外地区便民早市
Daily 7am-1pm. Intersection of Xiasantui and Gongti Nan Lu 下三条附近
See it on the map here.

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.

Every summer during the years I lived in Beijing with my family of five was always the same: leave for the USA with five suitcases and five carry-ons, and come back with ten 50-pound suitcases and 15 carry-ons.

I think most expats in Beijing go through a similar experience at the end of each summer. Yes, it is important to embrace living in Beijing and realize that you can’t replicate your home country here, but let’s be honest: there are some things that you just can’t live without. If Beijing doesn’t do it well or simply doesn’t have it, expats resort to carrying an odd, but very necessary, assortment of items across the globe.

Our summer trips back home also gave me yet another reason to be grateful for my family of five: TEN suitcases allowed on international flights – yes!

Here is a glance at some of the many things that could be found in those stuffed suitcases:

40 pounds of frozen meat
No, that is not a typo. Foreign meat is so much softer and of better quality than the meat produced in China, so we stocked up as much frozen meat and fish as possible. Thank goodness our luggage was never lost…

2 pairs of every shoe in two different sizes
With growing kids, you have to be prepared for the entire year. The checkout clerks always looked as us like we were crazy, but hey, you do what you have to do.

Tide with bleach
As it is definitely one of the most expensive products at Jenny Lou’s, Tide is like powder gold.

Cheesecake
Leftover from my summer birthday, we froze the cheesecake and thawed it in February. Nothing like a slice of Cheesecake Factory heaven in the middle of Beijing’s dark winter months.

Foot-operated 15 gallon garbage can
You can get advice from every single expat who has lived in Beijing, but only once you arrive here do you realize exactly what you need. For my family, it was having a big, foot-operated garbage can for the kitchen. None of those tiny, under-the-sink waste bins for us!

Happy shopping everyone!

Photo by KRISTEN TAYLOR (FLICKR)

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.
 

In addition to the Chinese government and US embassy, the International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) is now on the list of organizations that measure Beijing’s air quality. IBM announced on Monday, July 7, that their research laboratory will be partnering with the Beijing Municipal Government on a 10-year project to measure and decrease Beijing’s air pollution.

Although IBM has 20 years of experience with weather, Beijing’s pollution presents a difficult case because its pollution comes from so many different sources. IBM aims to apply and build upon their advanced technologies such as optical sensors, cognitive computing and existing data to create a system to predict the path of Beijing’s pollutants 72 hours in advance.

The ultimate goal of IBM’s ambitious project, known as ‘Green Horizon,’ is to help China create a plan to reduce pollution throughout China and adopt better environmental practices throughout their industrial industries. Newsweek reported that Xiaowei Shen, director of IBM research in China, said in a press release that “You not only have to build a model that can predict. You have to provide a decision system so that people can take proper action.”

Beijing has already spent over USD $160 billion (approximately RMB 984 billion) on decreasing the dangerous Particulate Matter (PM 2.5) particles by 25% by 2017.

Information via China Daily, Newsweek, PR Newswire, and  IT ProPortal.

Photo by RYTC (FLICKR)

Leah Sprague is a high school senior and beijingkids’ intern for July. After living in Seattle for two years, Leah is super excited to be back in Beijing, where she lived from 2009-2012. When not at the office, Leah can be found biking or subway-ing around the city, soaking up everything before she leaves again in August.