"Paul, how long did I sleep on the plane?"

"I don't know. It's never terribly clear to me when you're asleep and when you're awake."

Then we arrived. Our boredom and exhaustion left us. We forgot that we were tired. The bus ride to the hotel was enough to keep us wide awake.

Advertisements. They were everywhere, complete with little web addresses at the bottom. American companies are prominent, and Chinese is frequently supplemented with English. American cultural influences are everywhere apparent, but Chinese culture is dynamic enough to take what they need, discard what they don't, and improve where they can. There are few regular telephones here. The infrastructure was never substantially developed. China skipped this development and has gone straight to cellular. As we rode through Beijing this afternoon, someone snapped a photo of our little tour group using his cell phone. We waved. He seemed amused. Phil, my roommate, immediately noticed upon entering our hotel room that none of the lights seemed to work. We discovered a card slot. We inserted a cardkey and that seemed to bring us roughly twenty seconds of power. "I bet you have to leave the card in," I said. This proved to be the winning ticket. If you want your lights and air conditioning to work, you must be in the room. Efficiency.

With labor so cheap, I wonder if maybe China need not worry about efficiency. We wandered about the summer palace earlier today. Evidently, the state has employed people to run about and pick up trash. As soon as I finished my bottle of Sprite, woman with a sort of backpack trashcan appeared and offered to take my bottle.

Everywhere you look in Beijing, something is being built. The horizon is dominated by enormous apartment buildings, usually twenty stories or more. Yellow and red cranes are everywhere busy at work on new ones. I can recall looking from the highway and seeing roughly a dozen or so half-finished apartment buildings all within the same seven or eight blocks. New vertical neighborhoods are springing up.

It's not at all like suburban America in this respect. I wondered about this at first. Without putting much thought into it, I had always attributed the heavily vertical character of Japanese cities to the lack of space and a highly dense population. China does not lack for space. Should I not expect houses then?

But then how would anyone get around? In America, this is not a problem. Everyone owns a car. Gas is cheap. In China, people walk. They ride bikes. They ride bikes. Bikes. Bikes are everywhere. There is no shortage of cars. But cars share the road with bikes and pedestrians. It's a biking culture in many respects. Chinese bikes look like American bikes from the fifties and sixties. All of them do, without exception. Americans bike for fun. Chinese bike to get to work. Utilitarian transportation. Jobs are scarce in China. I don't know many Americans that would long put up with biking to work. But Chinese go about their work with a great deal of pride.

The concierge workers downstairs are exceptionally bright. They speak English fluently. They are very proud to be changing the currency of Americans and carrying out little odd jobs for foreigners.

Imperialism is legally gone from China. It still remains in informal economic ways. This part of Beijing was made for foreigners. One can barely walk three blocks without running into another fancy hotel designed for rich tourists, selling itsems that regular Chinese citizens could rarely afford.

Katy and I were instructed to stay within a one block radius of the hotel last night. We vowed to obey our instructions, and roughly one mile later, we stopped at an "Oyster Bar" for a nice, little candle light dinner. We couldn't find anything else. Conversing with the waitress took some creative work. At one point, Katy ran up to the front desk, asked for the total, and then ran off when she was given it. I don't know what our hosts thought. They were exceptionally polite. I went in and paid them, and we left. I had a rather large plate of spaghetti, Katy chicken and french fries with ketchup. We had no idea what we were doing. We speak not a word of Chinese. But we're Americans. Perhaps the future belongs to China, but the present belongs to us. Cities like Beijing are just our little playground.

I visited the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square today. I'll write more about those little visits later. At the moment, I'm running out of time and need to go. Flying to Chengdu tomorrow. More updates as I get the chance.