A Better Guide to Beijing

Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng

Mandarin essentials both for those who want to learn and for those who just want to know something about the language, plus essential vocabulary for travellers. (More specific vocabulary appears alongside relevant entries in the guide.)

Part of the Language section of A Better Guide to Běijīng

The Emperors once forbade their subjects to teach foreigners Chinese on pain of death. Never shy of considering their jurisdiction to be global, they also forbade…

Part of the Language section of A Better Guide to Běijīng

You may not want to learn Mandarin, and you certainly don’t need to learn the language in order to travel independently in China, but for those who’d like at least to have some idea how it works, here’s a rough…

From the Language section of A Better Guide to Běijīng

Here’s a story in Mandarin that’s intended to illustrate a point:

Shī Shì Shí Shī Shǐ.

Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng

This is an alphabetical directory of Běijīng’s metro stations that lists for each one every nearby sight or useful service mentioned in this book, bus links (b) to sights further afield, and other practical information for that station. See…

Essential information on travel to and around Běijīng from A Better Guide to Běijīng

Before You Leave Home
Entry Formalities, Visa Types, Visa Requirements, Visa Applications in Hong Kong, Visa Extensions, Customs
Travel to Běijīng, By Air, By Rail, By Road, By Sea
Arrival and Travel into…

Part of the Travel section of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s Practical A–Z

200,000 vehicles enter Běijīng from surrounding areas every day to join over 5.5 million vehicles registered in the capital, or so local research says. In 2011, although it took China Daily…