Emily and the Beanstalk in Beijiing

Beijing will dwarf anyone who enters the place. From its overwhelming buildings to its tall entrances, I felt like an ant when walking around the place. Compared to Shanghai, Beijing has maintained its culture which has gone far way back. With a vast amount of land to spare and a smaller population than Shanghai, Beijing prides itself in large and magnificent architectures. Being a tourist-friendly country, people come from far and near to visit of the greatest Wonders of the World, the Great Wall of China and the towring Forbidden City.


As I was there on business for only 2 days, I did not get to visit those two well-known places. I only got to see the world's largest LED screen illuminated onto a very long ceiling located in front of a shopping centre called 'The Place'. On its surface, brands like Coke. Adidas and other sponsors of the Beijing Olympic Games pays hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising space just to get eyeballs for their brands. I have never seen such a huge ceiling that could earn so much money but it works well as people from all over Beijing flocks to this area not only to shop but also to view this magnificent ceiling, thus increasing the revenue of this centre. Here is the country which advertising budget will eventually surpass that of the United States due to higher consumption power and the sheer quantity of the people in the country. And I am here to keep track of the rise of this superpower.

As it was such a rushed visit, I left promising to see a lot more of the province esp the Great Wall of China where people are still living on daily income of less than USD1 a day.