Beijing....still China

One thing I was hoping for when we were on this very rushed trip to Beijing was that the Beijing people would be so unexcited at the sight of foreigners that we would pretty much be left alone to enjoy what little we would get to see in only two-and-a-half days. However, what I didn't count on was that (duh) Beijingren would not be the people we would be encountering at the tourist sights except as tour guides and vendors, and the increased number of Chinese tourists would have a decreased number of foreigners to try to engage. According to this blog post from James Fallows, there is a huge surge of tourism by Chinese people inside of China. Domestic tourism is up, while foreign tourism is really down, hampered by the recent restrictions on visas this summer. I showed Randy this post, and I joked that, once again, we are counted as Chinese. The only reason we were able to get to Beijing this past weekend and most of the usual American tourists couldn't was because we are Chinese residents.

So, as we were among the few white foreigners rambling around the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, Myles did his part to contribute to family photo albums all over China. Again. And again.