Tourist Information

China has yet to realize the value of professional tourist information centers. Those in Beijing are underfunded and poorly staffed.

Websites

There are many sites offering information on Beijing, and China in general. The best starting point is www.beijingpage.com, which is a gateway to many other useful sites. The official Beijing Tourism Administration site (www.bjta.gov.cn) is good for what’s going on in the city. The websites of local event magazines, such as www.cityweekend.com.cn and www.thebeijinger.com, are better still.

Foreign Newspapers and Magazines

Foreign press is hard to come by, with just a small selection available in some of the larger hotels. You can usually get Time, Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, and Asian Wall Street Journal – providing none of them carry articles critical of China.

Local Newspapers and Magazines

The government’s English-language mouth-piece is China Daily. More worthwhile are the many English-language magazines aimed at expats and distributed free around the city’s bars and restaurants. These include That’s Beijing, The Beijinger, Time Out, Urbane, Agenda, and City Weekend; they are published fortnightly or monthly.

English-Language TV and Radio

The state-run Chinese Central Television (CCTV) has CCTV9 as its flagship English-language station. Cable and satellite television with BBC and CNN is available in top-end hotels. The Chinese radio network, has only a few local English-language programs.

Guides and Maps

The tourist information offices offer only maps of the inner city. However, street vendors sell bigger ones for ¥1. Local English-language magazines often include useful maps too. Given the amount of changes taking place, it’s vital that you buy the most recent map you can find. Anything more than just two or three years old will be of little use.

Business Information

The first place to start is the trade section of your own embassy in Beijing. Otherwise there are several trade promotion organizations including the American Chamber of Commerce, the British Chamber of Commerce, and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

Background Reading: Photography

Edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Liu Heung Sing, Portrait of a Country traces the history of China through stunning photographs.

Background Reading: Non-fiction

Mr China by Tim Clissold is a terrific account of how to lose millions of dollars doing business with Beijing. Mao is Jung Chang’s lacerating biography of the Great Leader, banned in China. Foreign Babes in Beijing by Rachel DeWoskin is the memoir of a sexually liberated American girl gatecrashing modern Chinese society.

Background Reading: Fiction

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie is a beautiful novella tracking the lives of two childhood friends enduring Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Wild Swans by Jung Chang is the gripping story of three generations of women living through 20th-century China. Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem is a novel about the author’s journey to Inner Mongolia, where he was sent during the Cultural Revolution.