Old Beijing in the shadow of the new

The Filipino band was doing its best to channel the Black Eyed Peas. The lead singer's locks were as long as Fergie's, and her dance moves just as animated. Though she was tiny, her voice was big enough to boomerang across the Beijing nightclub. All eyes were upon her.

Well, all eyes except mine. I was more entertained by the audience. On the dance floor, a heavyset Westerner was trying to moonwalk. A man in lederhosen and two women dressed like Heidi walked in and immediately joined him. Another man, wearing a sombrero, was ordering shots at the bar. No one seemed to think their attire was odd. Nor did anyone seem flummoxed by the middle-aged couple gyrating on top of a table against a pole, not even when one of the pair took a tumble.

It was Friday night at Swing, a club on Sanlitun Bar Street. And the party was certainly in full swing. Strolling through Sanlitun, one of Beijing's most popular destinations for shopping, drinking and dancing, you wouldn't think you were in the capital of a country considered one of the most rigid and xenophobic in the world.

This isn't the Beijing Mao Zedong envisioned. No longer an introverted, sober capital most defined by the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Ming Tombs, today's Beijing is a booming metropolis on a building, boozing and buying binge.

A lot of it is thanks to the 2008 Olympic Games. When the city was chosen as the Olympics site in 2001, the government poured billions of dollars into construction projects and neighborhood revitalization. Many worried the businesses and buildings would empty out once the athletes and world attention went away. But China is now the second-largest economy in the world, behind the United States, and second in the sale of luxury goods. Conspicuous consumption remains high among a certain segment of the population. Neighborhoods continue to evolve or sprout virtually overnight. Driving around Beijing, I was amazed at the number of construction cranes everywhere.

"It's got an energy about it," agreed Chandler Jurinka, a native of the Washington, D.C., area who has lived in Beijing for six years and runs localnoodles.com, an online city guide. I struck up a conversation with him outside a Starbucks at Sanlitun North, the latest mega-shopping and entertainment complex to open in Beijing. 

MEMBERS ONLY

Not far from us was a "coming soon" sign advertising Alexander McQueen, Christian Louboutin, Juicy Couture and Marni stores. A wine shop called the Wine Gallery had a second floor for "members only." Inside were rows of bottles from more than a dozen countries ranging in price from $30 to several hundred.

"Seedy bars, that's what this place used to be," Jurinka said. "Just in the last three years, they've made all this." All this is Sanlitun Village, a prime example of Beijing's evolution from dowdy to dynamic. It's made up of Sanlitun North and South, and since its construction a few years ago, it has become a playground for expats and hip, young and fashionable Chinese. The village's bold buildings were designed by Japanese and American architects, including Kengo Kuma, SHoP and Lot-ek, and they tower over everything else in the neighborhood. The architects arranged the colorful glass structures in a maze to evoke the feeling of the old Chinese hutongs, traditional neighborhoods made up of alleyways and courtyards that are quickly disappearing all over the city. 

BACK TO THE FUTURE

As I walked from Sanlitun North to Sanlitun South, I could see what Jurinka meant. In between the complexes is a street that has somehow managed to escape the cranes. The buildings are dirty and gray and house a sex shop, a tattoo parlor, a video store called A Little High and takeout shops. Crates of empty beer bottles lay on the ground. Some windows displayed hookahs. A man sold yams from his bicycle basket. I felt as though I'd gone back in time.

But just a few minutes later, I was in Sanlitun South, with its glistening two-story Apple store. I'd returned to the future.

In the capital's Houhai lake district, many traditional hutongs still remain. Lots of Chinese complain that too many foreigners have opened up restaurants, bars and shops in the hutongs. But Houhai's residents have managed to embrace modernity while holding on to parts of their past. As fascinating as I found the new, sleek Sanlitun area, I was happy to explore a part of Beijing that retained elements of the old China. 

CHINESE-ONLY MENUS

One night, a group of us, expats and tourists, strolled through the district's narrow cobblestone passageways, some lined with small restaurants with Chinese-only menus, where locals dined on food I didn't recognize. Just a few blocks away, we walked past restaurants advertising American and other non-Chinese fare. Shops sold antique tea sets alongside contemporary clothing.

We visited a siheyuan, a traditional Beijing-style dwelling consisting of four structures surrounding a courtyard. In the past, these belonged to working- or middle-class Chinese families. Now, Chinese live in these homes alongside foreigners and wealthy locals.

After sipping Italian wine in the courtyard of one siheyuan, we stopped by a food stand for stinky tofu, which was a bit too stinky for my taste buds. Then we crossed the bridge over the lake to satisfy a craving for Peking duck, passing by many restaurants with outdoor seating that overlooked the water to settle on the tucked-away Quan Ju De, which had no outdoor seating and lacked the ambience of the other restaurants.

But the duck, steamed broccoli and bok choy made up for that. Most of the diners were locals speaking Chinese. Not even the waiter spoke English. 

CONTEMPORARY ART

Later that week, my friends and I found yet another neighborhood that's transforming itself overnight. The 798 Arts District, once a 1950s industrial complex for the production of military electronics, now boasts dozens of contemporary art galleries, coffeehouses, bookstores and boutiques selling quirky Mao T-shirts alongside motorcycle helmets.

More than 300 Chinese and foreign contemporary artists are in residence or showcased in 798. We walked along several of the tree-lined streets, popping in and out of the galleries. I particularly liked the cavernous 798 Space, which featured arches painted with Maoist slogans and an amusing painting of a man's hairy back on one wall.

There was art on the sidewalks, too. Local teenagers posed before a massive bronze statue of a grossly overweight naked man. A dirty London telephone booth, which I assumed was meant to be a work of art, stood outside one of the boutiques. Several stores hawked postcard paintings of President Barack Obama dressed as Mao.

Here was something I hadn't expected to find in Beijing: a sense of humor.