
The new Beijing West train station.
Where the mojo of MTV and mobile phones has eclipsed the magic of Mao.
If your visions of Beijing are centred around pods of Maoist revolutionaries in buttoned-down tunics performing exercise in Tiananmen Square, put them to rest: this city has embarked on a new millennium rollercoaster and it's taking the rest of China with it.
Beijing's youth is more interested in MTV than Mao; rhetorical slogans from the Cultural Revolution have given way to butchered English splashed across designer-copy T-shirts, and expats, tourists, foreign investors and a mobile phone-toting hip-oisie are mixing it up with the bureaucrats.

Haoyuan Binguan, an exclusive hotel with Qing Dynasty furnishings and colour TV

Chefs and snacks at Dong'anmen Night Market

Tricycle riders ferry passengers through the streets

The Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square at night

Cyclists trying not to get hit by bus in Dongcheng

Cars, looking rather sinister, at New China Children's Toy World, Dongcheng

Card playing in Rear Lake, near Beihai Park

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, Tiantan: built 1420, burnt and rebuilt 1889

St Joseph's Catholic Church: built 1838, now restored, draped with fairy lights

Very large picture of Mao Tse Tung, Gate of Heavenly Peace, Tiananmen Square
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