the Beijinger

Sep 1-Sep 4

The Beijing International Book Fair 2008

Tianjin International Exhibition Center
(022 2801 2976)

Tianjin is one of those small-scale towns that feel like a quainter version of Beijing. While the city has it's own Central Business District, it's located in what my taxi driver called the bailou qu (the white buildings district) - it is dwarfed by even the shortest of Beijing's CBD office buildings. The quaintness of the city and its contrast with Beijing is further sharpened by the experience of taking the new super duper high-speed train which transports you from the capital to Tianjin in only 30 minutes - at one point when I checked on the overhead electronic board it announced we'd reached a speed of 327km/hr. The train was very clean and neatly kept and amazingly the train stewardness, given that they're only on duty for half an hour, are impeccably dressed and even don an air-hostess hat.

Sep 4
George Benson & Al Jarreau
RMB 380-1,280.
8pm. Beijing Exhibiton Theater (6835 4455)

Jazz legends George Benson and Al Jarreau put on a fantastic and energetic show for a full house last night at the Beijing Exhibiton Theatre. Al Jarreau started the show by singing Elton John’s Your Song, before living up to his reputation of being the Acrobat of Scat and wowing the crowd with his scat routines - including a nice little riff on the word Beijing. He also won applause by dropping a few lines of Chinese into his on stage banter and charmed them even more when he invited them to start scatting along with him.

Beijing-Shanghai Express
A new high speed train service will cut the train journey to Shanghai down to  4 hours when it starts service in 2012. According to Xinhua, the domestically developed train will run at 380 kph, making it the fastest rail service in the world.  But it’s not just Beijing, according to the ministry of Railways’ there’ll be 12,000 km of high-speed track laid by 2020 and the 24 hour ride to Guangzhou will be cut to nine hours.

A great debate is taking place across Beijing’s BBS forums and newspaper columns as citizens weigh the pros and cons of extending the odd-even car restrictions that have been in effect since Jul 20 and, along with a series of other measures, have helped to contribute to the great weather and relatively smooth traffic that the city has been enjoying for the past few weeks. According to officials from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, the city's traffic conditions improved dramatically, with statistics showing that the amount of traffic on major roads dropped 21% and that average speeds increased 27% during the Olympic Games. Traffic conditions have been even better since the “Olympic Lanes” were opened to regular vehicles again.

According to a poll of 5058 residents taken by The Beijing News, nearly 70%  of participants expressed support for extending the restrictions (this is also the rate of support at our own poll over at the forum), 20% of respondents disagreed. Not surprisingly, 82.9% of those without a car supported the proposal, still, an impressive 48.5% of car owners were also in support of making the ban permanent.

Update: Dates for Kanye West's China concerts have been rescheduled, this time with a "100-percent certainty" from organizers China West (which means about a 50-percent certainty from us here at the Beijinger).
The new show dates will indeed be in November: Kanye will be coming to Beijing on Nov 1 and performing at the upgraded location of Wukesong Olympic Basketball Gymnasium. Kanye's Shanghai date has also been rescheduled to Nov 3. Prices are still to be determined.