was built for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. (RTE, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development, and Air China also hosted the trip.) The hotel’s terraced rooftop lounge offers prime views of the park’s sculpture-like Beijing National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, and the bubble-walled National Aquatics Center — aka the Water Cube — as well as the crowds who streamed into the park each evening, when the structures are dramati- cally lighted. The five-star hotel also offers a window into China’s past: The 234-room property is the only one in the world allowed to reproduce images from the Forbidden City, the 800-building complex in the center of Beijing that was home to emperors from 1420 to 1911. The hotel is built in the stylized shape of a dragon, an imperial and national symbol that is a recurring image in the many murals, frescoes, and textiles that decorate its private and public rooms, including two sumptuous ballrooms and seven meeting rooms. On a tour of the city the day before CIBTM opened, we climbed to the top of the Drum Tower, where daily drumbeats marked Beijing’s official time from the 11th century until the 1920s. From the tower, our guide explained, a meridian extends north and
FORBIDDEN BEAUTY: The Pangu 7 Star
Hotel Beijing is the only hotel allowed to repro- duce artwork from the Forbidden City.
In the marbled lobby, carpets are yellow, a color once reserved
for emporers, and the ceiling murals are carved rosewood.
south from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square to the dragon-shaped Pangu 7 Star and the Bird’s Nest, connecting old and new Beijing in a plan that aligns with the principles of feng shui. We also visited a hutong, a traditional Chi-
nese household built around a courtyard; most of Beijing’s hutongs have been swallowed up by skyscrapers, and many of those that are left are being actively preserved. From there, we traveled in rattan-lined pedicabs to a thriving area of shops, restaurants, and bars in the Xicheng District, where we ate lunch overlook- ing a lake.
That afternoon we stopped at the 798 Arts
District, where more than 100 galleries have been established in a 1950s-era industrial complex — a site that graphically illustrates the changing sensibilities of modern China. In one large gallery, a former factory, artwork that critiqued consumerism and blind al- legiance to dogma were on display beneath decades-old Communist Party slogans painted in red on the cement ceiling. A guide translated one for me: “Chairman Mao is our sun.” n