Beijing Big Time

Beijing is BIG! Every street and avenue is EDSA level. The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the new malls and hotels - MONUMENTAL! In what were the European Middle Ages, but what was already a glorious era in Imperial China, the Chinese referred to their land as the Middle Kingdom, or in their view, the center of the universe. Naturally, the palaces and fortresses had to match that world view. In the present era, the 2008 Beijing Olympics was China's unofficial coming out party, and a way to show off how rich and gracious they were. But it is no anonymous big city. One of my favorite sights was when, our first morning in Beijing, I saw some adorable schoolchildren, bundled up in their winter wear, doing calisthenics in their school courtyard like little stuffed toys come to life. I would also see glimpses into the Hutongs or traditional neighborhoods and the amahs at their chores.

Beijing is everything, old yet new, big yet still intimate, the past and the present and the future all wrapped up into one enigma.

Hit me baby one Mao time. The iconic portrait of Mao at the entrance to his tomb, at the top of Tiananmen Square.

Mrs. Nene Lim and Mr. Virgilio Lim of the Suyen Corp., aka the Bench group, Mao it up.

It takes a village. The village is a complex of shops and restos that feels like a comic book rendition of the city of the future but realized in glass and steel.

The egg, or their version of the CCP, lies in the middle of a moat, so it looks as if the whole building is afloat.

Angelette Calero and me.

Great Wind of China:  even Siberian winds could not stops us from taking our souvenir shots.

Swords, spears and other weapons actually excavated from digs around the Great Wall.

Bird's eye view of the Herzog and de Meuron masterpiece, the Olympic stadium, commonly called the birds nest.

Street art. Anton Barretto's own performance art.

Cash is King! Communist iconography is turned around and shows that the proletariat of yesterday worship money as much as the so called oligarchs and capitalists that they all claimed they had to overthrow.

Three heads are better one, especially if they are dragons' heads! Ancient Chinese symbol, juxtaposed with the Mao suit and done up in Warhol worthy pop art plastic and acid bright colors, sums up both the cacophony and potential of China now.

At the Ullen's Center for Contemporary Art, I took in a Dior exhibit where they had a massive (of course) reproduction of a lady Dior bag. There were also larger than life installations of discarded garments, a physical yet also philosophical musing on the disposable nature of modern fashion. Also saw the original new look, the fitted white jacket over the voluminous black skirt.

Art giants!  Seen in the streets of the 798 Art District, a warren of abandoned factories, now all converted into massive art galleries and shops and, caged fantasy characters, a critique on government crackdowns and censorship.

Round and round it goes, in the shadow of the Winter Palace.

The center of this pavilion was also the center of the emperor's calendar.

The Mao, the merrier.  All the Mao statues you could imagine, all at the right price.