Intermezzo
October 13th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Check out my post at Pink Pangea. It’s about what I did the night of the Mid-Autumn festival (and it’s rather belated, I know.)
Pink Pangea is a great website where female travelers around the world can share their experiences (good and bad, but mostly good) with each other. I think it’s great to see where everyone else is all over the world, and reading about all these stories has made me add more places onto my wanderlust list.
Beijing, in my opinion, is a very safe city for any gender. I’ve seen tiny women walking alone safely late at night (smaller than me, and I’m barely five feet tall!) Honestly, if you have common sense, you’ll be perfectly safe in Beijing.
There is, perhaps, one thing: Anyone who does not look Chinese is “exotic.” I’m lucky in that as an American-born Chinese, I don’t stick out like some of my American friends. The Chinese are absolutely shameless at staring and asking (or just not asking) to take their pictures, and it gets very annoying. Some people will even pull out phones to take pictures while my friends are walking by them. (I have had someone ask for my picture, but that’s another story, more bizarre than annoying.) This is a form of harassment, but there’s really nothing that can be done besides ignoring it or being obnoxious. (Chasing down the photographer and tackling them for their camera always an option, but you might get in even bigger trouble!)
Other than that, the biggest hazards in Beijing are pollution and crossing the street with all the crazy motorbikes, bicycles and cars. Now those two are really worrisome!
