My European name is Phil, my Chinese name is Jie. I decided to write this blog after I settled down in Beijing, China, and experienced the life of a Beijinger for several months. There is so much to China today, and so little is known!

The information usually available in the West is at best 'filtered', and not very reliable. And I do not mean filtered by the Chinese government. I mean filtered by... corporate and political interests in the West.

Very unfortunate, since China is a wonderful country which is largely unknown to Westerners. Walk for an afternoon in Beijing, and you'll be lucky to come across the path of more than a handful of foreign tourists. Of course, Beijing is not China, like Paris is not France, and NYC isn't America. But still, with a population of over 13 million people, you'd expect the Chinese capital to overflow with tourists.

Not so. 

So, what does that leave us? Wow, that leaves us with an entire city to present to the world! Hence this blog, which will be my personal information kiosk. My non-personal information portal is www.shopping-in-beijing.com, a portal I started with 8 other friends, all Beijingers (either by right of birth, or by adoption) and all Chinese nationals (oops, except one of them who is American of Chinese descent). 

Shopping-in-Beijing.com is a non-commercial website (at least at the date I'm writing those lines) designed to improve your experience of Beijing when you'll take the trip to here. We visited hundreds of shops (yes, literally) to help you bring back the gift or souvenir which will tell you and your kin or friends "I've been to Beijing, look what I got!". www.Shopping-in-Beijing.com also contains maps of the city: it can be difficult to find your way in Beijing if you don't have a good map. Let alone find a specific shop. My friends are talented programmers, and we decided to use digital maps and pinpoint the shops on them. I hope you'll find that practical.

Here, I'll post information which I won't post on the portal. Other shops, walks in Beijing, photos, personal comments. We'll see how it evolves. For now, that'll be more of a scrap book than anything else.

Anyways, thank you for reading, and I hope you'll take the trip to Beijing one of these days. You will enjoy it, guaranteed!