Guanxi
Beijing and Tianjin are different in many ways, as other people have already mentioned. After class today, I was wondering about why in Beijing we felt less at home than here in Tianjin. It may be because we have been staying in Tianjin 5 times as long as we were in Beijing, but it also might be something else. Despite being an extreme outsider to the people of Tianjin, they are curious about us and
don't look to take as much advantage of us as in the more heavily-visited Beijing. Beijing may have a thicker wall between outsiders and insiders because of the influx of visitors to the city, both year-round and specially because of the Olympic hoopla. Thicker wall in the sense of a tighter group of natives as relative to the visitors. I don't know if I'm right but it sort of helps to try to understand the different feeling.
I'm sure in other parts of Beijing it is just like Tianjin, but, on our guided tour we rarely strayed from the company of other foreigners. Tian was a great tour guide, even though we didn't get that much time with him. He would tell us things just before they were announced over the loudspeaker in the bus. I'm glad we got to see many of the sightseeing spots in Beijing and would recommend climbing on The Great Wall.
