Although they can be proven false, first impressions of people and places are noteworthy. Here are a few following my first 24 hours in Beijing:
 * China is clearly prospering. The roads in Beijing are crowded with new cars, air-conditioned taxis and nonpolluting buses. The streets are wide and clean, at least where we are staying, and although we may be being watched, the police have a silent presence. All things being equal (which they’re not), Beijing feels more like Tokyo than any other Asian capital I’ve visited, and is clearly a different species than say, Delhi, or Saigon or Bangkok. That is, it’s somehow more Asian’ than southeast Asian.
 *  The biggest surprise? After years of avoiding traveling to China because of what they’ve done and continue to do to Tibet I had developed a prejudice against the Chinese, a sense of their not being trustworthy, an ignorant (on my part) presumption that they were  ilintentioned, maybe even mean.
 The reality? An expected sweetness prevails and is demonstrated by men and women alike.
   We’ve gotten our share of stares, primarily because of Allen’s cane we think, but for the most part people are extremely polite and deferential, and are quick to return a smile.
   While at the Forbidden City today a Chinese woman in her 40s and her daughter approached me as I sat on a bench in the shade and asked where I was from. Her English was good, but halting, and in the course of conversation I found out she was taught English at a middle school, and lived in a city that was a two-hour plane- ride away. It was her first trip to Beijing as well. As we spoke several Chinese people, who apparently did not speak English crowded around to listen and watch. She and her daughter were very gracious and curious, and the mother was surprised to learn I had only been teaching for 10 years and had had another profession before that. She said for people of her age it was Frey difficult for people to change professions, although she thought that might not be the case for younger Chinese. We would have talked longer, but she was with a group and had to go.
 * As they say, and as I’ve found, after India everyplace is easy. Very few people speak English–certainly far fewer than in India–even so there’s a logic to transactions and procedures that transcends language. And at some point it doesn’t really matter what language people speak, if you don’t speak it.
  A few times we’ve been mystified however. Once when a middle-aged man and his mother, I would guess, approached us in the Forbidden City and animatedly spoke to Allen while looking at me. Without a clue as to the gist of their message we just smiled and shook our heads–which may not have been appropriate as they kept looking back at us over their shoulders as they walked away–without smiling back as it turned out.
 * I am sure American’s fracture every language we attempt, but I love the way the rest of the world messes with English.
 To wit, today I saw the following on t-shirts:
 ”Any Option Easy”
 ”NYPD Police -No Guns”
 ”I climbed the Grate Wall”
 And on a portable air conditioner – “Be a civilized tourist – do not drop trash into the machinery.” 
 * The scale of this country’s public spaces impresses. The courtyards of the Forbidden City could hold thousands of disciplined troops or gaggles of tourists as they do today.
 *Although i’m game to eat street food, I draw the line at scorpions and dog. Both were offered at the night market yesterday. The skewered bugs and silk worm cocoons were recognizable, the lamb kidneys, sheep stomach and something’s intestines were not. We settled on stewed tofu and noodles with chopped vegetables and two beers for around US$4 .
 * Chinese acrobats are the bomb. Tonight we went to an acrobat show–”Approach the mystery of Chinese acrobatics!!!” One guy juggled 7 bouncing balls,  a group of women doing backbends and handstands on top of each other almost toppled over,   7 men did forward and backward flips through small suspended hoops, but the kicker was 5 men on motorcycles doing precision tricks at full speed on the inside of a giant metal-mesh globe set on the stage. Death defying Olympic washouts I presume.