Modok has some safety tips for Beijing visitors. He has a top-ten list, including looking out for fake Maobacks and not following the art students in Tiananmen square. And he says:

5. Beware of lady bars. I am personally quite wary of anyone who approaches me on the street to solicit me for anything, especially on a bar street, but I have heard many a sad tale from those who have fallen prey to the 鈥渓ady bar鈥� scheme. Inevitably you are taken to an extremely over-priced bar that may or may not have any 鈥渓adies鈥� and liberated from all of your cash.

6. Beware of offers for tea. As innocuous as this sounds, many people have been lured into having innocent tea with some charming young ladies, only to be charged hundreds of dollars for a single pot! Rule of thumb, unless you are used to being approached by charming young ladies and asked out on a regular basis in your home country, be very wary if it happens to you in Beijing.

I’d also add that that Houhai girls who keep asking my boyfriend and male friends to “drink beer” with them are probably running the same kind of scam. While the girls asking for “English practice” are just hitting on them.

Via Eye of Modok

I just discovered the We Pick Beijing blog while looking for the address of our favorite duck place. I found it, and a lot of Beijing restaurant reviews, on their blog. It’s nice to see people enjoying Beijing without either the newbie culture shock or the old China hand comments. The informal tone is like having a friend tell you the highlights of their trip, andit’s worth a look if you’re planning a visit to Beijing. (I’ll probably take their recommendation for Cafe Sambal as well!)

This popped up in my GMail feeds as “Oddly Enough” news. It’s worth sharing, but none of it really strikes me as odd, since we’ve been hearing rumors about the new visa regulations and the need to carry one’s papers at all times for a while now.

The organizers of this summer’s Beijing Olympics Monday reminded foreigners coming to China for the Games to behave, warning them that everything from protesting without permission to sleeping outdoors was banned.

The extensive list, written only in Chinese and put on the organizers’ official website (www.beijing2008.cn), also said that purchase of Olympics’ tickets did not guarantee the holder would automatically get a Chinese visa.

Entry would be banned to anyone who was intent on “subversion” upon arriving in China, those with mental illnesses and sexually transmitted diseases and people who wished to engage in prostitution, the rules read.

“Foreigners must respect Chinese laws while in China and must not harm China’s national security or damage social order,” the rules say.

The stability-obsessed government, determined to ensure the Olympics go off without a hitch, has in the last several months tightened controls on visas, residence permits for foreigners, and places of entertainment.

The handbook warns the estimated 500,000 overseas visitors who are expected to come to Beijing this August that China is still a country with many off-limits areas and beholden to bureaucracy and public security organs.

Insert my usual rant about how such a heavy-handed approach will only reinforce the stereotype of China as a repressive, authoritative regime.

Via Reuters

We went up to see the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest the other night… Really impressive!

Coming to Beijing for the games? Check out the Beijingology subway guide. This site talks about the current and planned subway lines, which explains the weird subway numbering system. Right now, there are lines 1,2,5,7, and 13, and I was sort of hoping the Beijing engineers were only using prime numbers. There will also be an airport express line opened before the Olympics.

Edit: My boyfriend says 1 and 2 are not prime, I say that the definition of a prime number is an integer whose only factors are one and itself, so that makes 1 and 2 prime. What did your fourth-grade math teacher say?

This This WSJ blog discusses Olympic hotels and visitors.

One reason for the low booking rates could be the recent changes in China鈥檚 visa policy and subsequent fall-off in tourism to the country. Another could be that people are waiting for hotels to reduce their jacked-up Olympics room rates of five to 10 times the regular prices as the Games draw closer.

I really feel that China is shooting itself in the foot with the visa changes. New policies make extending a Z or F visa (working visas) harder and harder, which is making it difficult for a lot of long-term expats — who love China and have a lot more invested in China than Olympics visitors will — to stay in country through the Olympics.

These new policies are hard to pin down, and as China fails to publicize a coherent standard of visa extensions, the whole process becomes covered in internet rumor and friend-of-a-friend horror stories. This adds to the view of China as an arbitrary, dishonest bureaucracy, eager to grab foreign money in increased visa fees and eager to give foreign visitors a hard time.

Via China Journal