Beijing in December

December is a mixed time to visit Beijing. Occasionally you get one of those cold clear days but it’s often cold and smoggy. You can smell the smoke from burning firewood as you leave the main roads away from downtown and everything seems gray or mottled brown in tone. Even the festive Christmas decorations on the street (yes, in Beijing), in the stores or the elaborate displays in hotels don’t help much. Inside the buildings the conversations are warm, people are laughing and while there is a global recession it’s hard to tell from the active life in Beijing… at least from the traffic and the crowds in the restaurants. It’s cold and the first major snow has come and gone with only some remains of the stuff still around. I wonder how crowded the Great Wall is with tourists today? Not the best time of the year to visit, glad I brought my gloves.

I’m here for a week, meeting with colleagues from around the world who work with or serve on the boards of Confucius Institutes. These centers, usually located on college campuses are a systematic effort by the education branch of the Chinese Government, the Han Ban, to develop Chinese language skills and spread knowledge of Chinese culture. Controversial at times for obvious reasons, some logical, some emotional.

Dinner Saturday night was in “The Great Hall of the People”. We arrived in a motorcade of buses from the convention center near the Olympic Stadium. We all jammed into the hall through the doors and the limited number of security check points trying to get out of the cold weather and into the bright hall… reminded me a bit of the lines in immigration at Narita. The program was short and the table talk brightened our moods. Our table… Purdue folks and colleagues from Australia, Oregon and the Ukraine.

Sunday evening was a Purdue alumni reception… the talk was of Beijing and Shanghai housing prices, not the recession or the weather. Beijing housing prices have jumped about 40% in the last few years. Optimism abounds among the participants and strong positive feelings prevail as the Chinese economy looks better. Last week the China Daily reported that MBA applications are way up, the top programs are increasing tuition by about 30% and the central government has approved 55 new MBA programs for next year… a huge increase (there are currently 127 approved programs). Meanwhile back in Indiana the talk is of “a jobless recovery… more cuts to higher education”…. Maybe I’ll stay a bit longer… it can be a bit gloomy this time of year in Beijing but there are still the bright Christmas decorations and the shine of new Mercedes… looks to me like a pretty good year for China… I just wish I was further south. Warm weather would be so nice.