Chaoyang District

It was very obvious to me this year that there were just more non-Western foreigners around.

I would walk around Chaoyang District and there was The hotel I stayed at last year, there were a lot more Russians this year.

There were a lot more Africans I would see out of these places.

For example, I saw some in the Crowne Plaza, which means these are very rich, elite Africans, right? that were staying in certain part of Beijing and for visits and stuff like that.

They started brand new.

Now, you know, in Chaoyang, suddenly become one of the best schools, you know, over the past 12 years.

By the way, I took Larry Rosenstock there too.

He was advising that school as well.

And then to the right of...

If you're looking at a map on the internet, for example, to the right of the Forbidden City, that's where you'll find, uh, Chaoyang District, um, you'll find-

Mm

...

But if you're on this kind of line, it would be shortened to, I think, 45 minutes or even less than one hour.

And it will connect eastern Beijing's Chaoyang and Tongzhou and Pinggu districts with Sanhe in Hebei's Langfang City, creating a faster link between Beijing's central business district, which is this Chaoyang district, and residential communities across the provincial border.

So as we said, it is not only about commuting.

It's also about business because while the people from that area and even from Hebei can now travel to the central area of Beijing easily.

So the official data shows that the trip from Yanjiao to Beijing's Tongzhou district on the eastern side takes nine minutes.

Wow.

While rides to Hongmiao in the CBD core, that's in Chaoyang District, into basically the core area of the Chaoyang District here in Beijing, only take roughly 28 minutes as far as I can find in the latest reports.

Some said a little bit over 30 minutes, but still, nine minutes, 30 minutes, that's a lot better than how people used to travel between Hebei Province and Beijing.

The turn of the millennium saw China's urban renewal projects surge.

Beijing's Chaoyang District was turned into glass towers, while underground venues had to move underground literally, to basements or repurposed storage spaces, because municipal zoning laws no longer tolerated open-air concerts.

punk bands adapted by staging street wars inside abandoned subway stations, where the sound reverberated off concrete walls and their DIY ethos meshed with the city's new high-speed transit system.

The clash between an evolving skyline and the raw, unpolished punk aesthetic forced local musicians to develop a sound that was both abrasive and accessible.