I have lived in Shanghai, while attending Fudan University, and visited Beijing many times. Beijing is by far the most poluted city that I have ever visited. It makes LA seem like Aspen. The air in Beijing needs to be respirated with a spoon. Even on cloudless days, it is often not possible to see more than a few hundred yards before the view blurs into a smokey haze. Beijing is loaded with block after block, mile after mile, of high rise apartment buildings, like the failed projects near Chicago and elsewhere. Of course you realize that actual Chinese food is nothing like the Chinese junk food available in the US. I found real Chinese food often mysterious and almost always disgusting. Chinese culture apparently prefers to be reminded that what they are eating was once alive, thus fish are served with heads, etc. Be prepared for a thousand different forms of bean curd. Yum. Don't forget to visit Tenimen Square, a grey splotch of concrete near the Forbidden City, where Chinese troops murdered hundreds (maybe thousands) of pro-democracy students in 1989.
