China's capital looks like an American big city. Tall office buildings. Large shopping malls. Squat government offices. Political monuments. Luxury retailers. Horrid traffic jams.
The casual summer uniform is the same: shorts, athletic shoes, skirts, T-shirts, sandals, blouses. Even an occasional baseball cap.
It is a country which the Communist revolutionaries who ruled only four decades ago would not recognize. As I sat in a German restaurant featuring steins full of beer and platters covered with sausages listening to a Chinese band cover American pop songs I had to remind myself that I was only a short drive from Tiananmen Square and Mao Zedong's mausoleum.