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Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Future
A definitive, and highly entertaining, account of contemporary Beijing, the undisputed capital of the twenty-first century.
Within the past decade, Beijing has debuted as the defining city of the now and foreseeable future, and China as the ascendant global power. Beijing is the ultimate representation of China's political and cultural capital, of its might-and threat. For so long, the city was closed off to the world, literally built around the Forbidden City, the icon of all that was ominous about China. But now, the country is eager to show off its new openness, its glory and magnanimity, and Beijing is its star. When Tom Scocca arrived in 2004-an American eager to see another culture-Beijing was looking toward welcoming the world to its Olympics four years later, and preparations were in full swing to create a renewed city.
Scocca talked to the scientists tasked with changing the weather; interviewed designers and architects churning out projects; checked out the campaign to stop public spitting; documented the planting of trees, the rerouting of traffic, the demolition of the old city, and the construction of the new metropolis. Beijing Welcomes You is a glimpse into the future and an encounter with an urban place we do not yet fully comprehend, and the superpower it is essential we get to know better.
Within the past decade, Beijing has debuted as the defining city of the now and foreseeable future, and China as the ascendant global power. Beijing is the ultimate representation of China's political and cultural capital, of its might-and threat. For so long, the city was closed off to the world, literally built around the Forbidden City, the icon of all that was ominous about China. But now, the country is eager to show off its new openness, its glory and magnanimity, and Beijing is its star. When Tom Scocca arrived in 2004-an American eager to see another culture-Beijing was looking toward welcoming the world to its Olympics four years later, and preparations were in full swing to create a renewed city.
Scocca talked to the scientists tasked with changing the weather; interviewed designers and architects churning out projects; checked out the campaign to stop public spitting; documented the planting of trees, the rerouting of traffic, the demolition of the old city, and the construction of the new metropolis. Beijing Welcomes You is a glimpse into the future and an encounter with an urban place we do not yet fully comprehend, and the superpower it is essential we get to know better.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
August 16, 2011
I have read way too many nonfiction books lately that purport to be about a topic, but are really about the author and their experiences writing a book on the subject. The majority of these authors vastly overestimate the inherent interest of their process, and the person who wanted to read a book about the actual topic comes away sorely disappointed. I am totally bewildered by this trend and honestly can't figure out how some of these books got published.
This book is written by a guy who is living in Beijing because his wife has a job there, and is trying to report on the preparations for the Olympics. It's all about the process, and in this case it's totally valid. His difficulties with the process basically are the story, and what might seem like excessively personal details (like talking about his baby) are relevant to what living the society is like.
I think this works because this topic is basically in the tradition of first person travel writing. If you come to this book thinking it's going to be a general nonfiction work of research and analysis about modern China, you're going to be cross, even though it does contain research and analysis. If you think of it as one person's experience from which you can maybe draw broader lessons, like other similar books of western people living or travelling in very foreign places, it's an interesting example of that. It has a little too much description of people's clothes (and of sports, naturally) for my taste, but sometimes he is clever and I learned a lot, about everyday life in China and other things, rather painlessly.
And returning to the rant in the first paragraph, this book made me wonder, did the success of the travel writing genre make people think it would be a good idea to write other types of nonfiction similarly? If so, cut it out, because it's not. What it's like to live in a different society can only be written as a person's experience. The vast majority of other nonfiction topics, we don't want to know what it was like for YOU, we want to know what it IS, OK?
This book is written by a guy who is living in Beijing because his wife has a job there, and is trying to report on the preparations for the Olympics. It's all about the process, and in this case it's totally valid. His difficulties with the process basically are the story, and what might seem like excessively personal details (like talking about his baby) are relevant to what living the society is like.
I think this works because this topic is basically in the tradition of first person travel writing. If you come to this book thinking it's going to be a general nonfiction work of research and analysis about modern China, you're going to be cross, even though it does contain research and analysis. If you think of it as one person's experience from which you can maybe draw broader lessons, like other similar books of western people living or travelling in very foreign places, it's an interesting example of that. It has a little too much description of people's clothes (and of sports, naturally) for my taste, but sometimes he is clever and I learned a lot, about everyday life in China and other things, rather painlessly.
And returning to the rant in the first paragraph, this book made me wonder, did the success of the travel writing genre make people think it would be a good idea to write other types of nonfiction similarly? If so, cut it out, because it's not. What it's like to live in a different society can only be written as a person's experience. The vast majority of other nonfiction topics, we don't want to know what it was like for YOU, we want to know what it IS, OK?
November 2, 2012
If you're looking for an insight into the life of a foreigner in Beijing, you could do much better than Tom Scocca's book. As someone living in Beijing for the past 2 and a half years, Tom Scocca is the kind of expat that most people don't like. Hiring live-in servants (who he refers to as "the help", in typical arrogant westerner fashion), drivers, interpreters, going to expensive expat doctors to get Western medicines.
I can't say I wouldn't live that way if I could, but it's far from the typical experience of the foreigner living in Beijing. Maybe I should write a book about barely being able to pay my rent in a city where the cost of purchasing an apartment is equivalent to 20+ years of working on the average salary, living in crumbling, roast-infested apartments with 8 other people, the shitty jobs I have had to take in order to scrape by, the difficulties in speaking a language at an elementary school level, and doctors who believe combs made from certain materials will cure your ailments.
As everyone else has said, the book is more a story about the Olympics which takes place in Beijing, not a story about Beijing itself. This seems more like the kind of book I would like to read a few years down the road to feel nostalgic about my time in China, but reading it as someone here experiencing much of the same stuff Mr. Scocca does is just grating.
I can't say I wouldn't live that way if I could, but it's far from the typical experience of the foreigner living in Beijing. Maybe I should write a book about barely being able to pay my rent in a city where the cost of purchasing an apartment is equivalent to 20+ years of working on the average salary, living in crumbling, roast-infested apartments with 8 other people, the shitty jobs I have had to take in order to scrape by, the difficulties in speaking a language at an elementary school level, and doctors who believe combs made from certain materials will cure your ailments.
As everyone else has said, the book is more a story about the Olympics which takes place in Beijing, not a story about Beijing itself. This seems more like the kind of book I would like to read a few years down the road to feel nostalgic about my time in China, but reading it as someone here experiencing much of the same stuff Mr. Scocca does is just grating.
September 19, 2020
If you want to read a book about the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, this is the one for you.
If you want to read a book about Beijing, choose something else.
I was hoping for the latter, and got the former, and disliked it more and more as it went on. I didn't even read the last 5 pages. Take that, misrepresented book!
If you want to read a book about Beijing, choose something else.
I was hoping for the latter, and got the former, and disliked it more and more as it went on. I didn't even read the last 5 pages. Take that, misrepresented book!
November 15, 2011
I really wish Goodreads let us use half stars so I could have given this book the 2.5 stars it deserved.
It wasn't dreadful book, but it wasn't very good either, probably because the author's lack of language skills kept him from being able to give any more than a standard tourist's eye view of the city he lived in on and off during the year before the 2008 Olympics.
A talented travel writer can overcome this limitation. But Scocca isn't an astute observer nor does he have the kind of engrossing style and interesting mind that would compel you to give him a pass. Throughout his sojourn in Beijing it's clear that he doesn't get to know any of the locals beyond a very superficial level--the people he interacts with are cabbies and the people he and his wife hire as servants and teachers.
He doesn't have any new or provocative insights about the China he finds himself in. So we learn a lot about his many frustrating interactions with bureaucrats and how much smog there was, but nothing that couldn't have been portrayed just as well in one longish magazine article, instead of being padded out into a full-length book filled with repetitions.
As other reviewers have noted, the other big issue with this book is that it is almost entirely about the preparations for the 2008 Olympics, a topic of limited interest now, not about Beijing or its people. It's not the book about Beijing and it's culture that it looks like. Unless you want to know a great deal about the various sports events that took place in the various venues used for the Olympics in the year before they took place, you may find long stretches of this book unreadable.
If you're interested in modern China and its unique and constantly changing culture, I highly recommend Lisa Brackmann's Rock Paper Tiger. It's a novel, but Brackmann has spent a lot of time in China and does speak the language, so you will get much deeper insights into the culture through reading her novel than you will from this supposed work of journalism.
It wasn't dreadful book, but it wasn't very good either, probably because the author's lack of language skills kept him from being able to give any more than a standard tourist's eye view of the city he lived in on and off during the year before the 2008 Olympics.
A talented travel writer can overcome this limitation. But Scocca isn't an astute observer nor does he have the kind of engrossing style and interesting mind that would compel you to give him a pass. Throughout his sojourn in Beijing it's clear that he doesn't get to know any of the locals beyond a very superficial level--the people he interacts with are cabbies and the people he and his wife hire as servants and teachers.
He doesn't have any new or provocative insights about the China he finds himself in. So we learn a lot about his many frustrating interactions with bureaucrats and how much smog there was, but nothing that couldn't have been portrayed just as well in one longish magazine article, instead of being padded out into a full-length book filled with repetitions.
As other reviewers have noted, the other big issue with this book is that it is almost entirely about the preparations for the 2008 Olympics, a topic of limited interest now, not about Beijing or its people. It's not the book about Beijing and it's culture that it looks like. Unless you want to know a great deal about the various sports events that took place in the various venues used for the Olympics in the year before they took place, you may find long stretches of this book unreadable.
If you're interested in modern China and its unique and constantly changing culture, I highly recommend Lisa Brackmann's Rock Paper Tiger. It's a novel, but Brackmann has spent a lot of time in China and does speak the language, so you will get much deeper insights into the culture through reading her novel than you will from this supposed work of journalism.
May 3, 2015
As the author says in the acknowledgements, this is a 'work of reported nonfiction' about his experiences in Beijing before, during and after the 2008 Olympics. It doesn't really deliver much in the way of insight.
It is purely a sequence of events in the author's life, described, but not really analyzed -- not even the experience of his young child developing asthma in Beijing's polluted atmosphere. A little more reflection would have gone a long way.
I'd rather have read some of the individual magazine articles this book seems to be built out of, because as a complete narrative it doesn't really hang together.
It is purely a sequence of events in the author's life, described, but not really analyzed -- not even the experience of his young child developing asthma in Beijing's polluted atmosphere. A little more reflection would have gone a long way.
I'd rather have read some of the individual magazine articles this book seems to be built out of, because as a complete narrative it doesn't really hang together.
May 10, 2018
Reading thru this book is like wrapping up in a blanket of nostalgia. I only say that because I lived in China for 3 months in college and have visited several times since. The culture is so rich that even reading about mundane buildings in China can be somewhat interesting. I would say that this book, to someone who has not been to China, would be extremely boring. The author does little to interest you in his story there. Mainly, he writes about his observations and dry facts of Beijing pre and post 2008 Olympics. It did take me a while to read or to pick back up again after setting it down.
February 23, 2019
A fascinating look into the evolution required for Beijing to effectively host the 2008 Olympic Games. In Beijing Welcomes You, Tom Scocca uses wit to retell his experience as an American expat living in China’s Capital city. There was ingenious use of narrative which subtlety communicated the deep challenges of living in a socially and politically oppressive system.
September 3, 2025
Was really excited to read this and learn more about Beijing, but it disappointed bigtime. More biographical of the writer than the city, and it wasn't even very well written, even if the writer is American and some discount should be given for that. Would recommend a YouTube video on the city over this, any one will do.
October 21, 2022
more a memoir about the 2008 olympics than anything truly insightful but then again idk what i expected from a book that started off with “the first important fact to know about china is that it has a lot of chinese people in it”
May 10, 2020
Interesting but now quite dated. The China described in the book is not the China of now. This does capture a brief moment in time fairly well.
October 23, 2021
Interesting account of life in Beijing around 2008.
June 21, 2025
Although sometimes dry in sections, a very cleverly written and objective account that anyone with interest in China should read.
May 10, 2020
This had some interesting parts but I felt it was too long a book for being solely about Beijing’s role in the 2008 Olympics.
Written by a journalist but much of the writing jumped around different topics and I don’t think was editors very clearly.
I got the strong impression the author disliked Beijing and China but at times tried to hold an unbiased view which seemed difficult for him to see through.
Written by a journalist but much of the writing jumped around different topics and I don’t think was editors very clearly.
I got the strong impression the author disliked Beijing and China but at times tried to hold an unbiased view which seemed difficult for him to see through.
October 28, 2011
There are plenty of interesting/funny/horrifying moments in Slate writer Tom Scocca's moment-in-time portrait of Beijing, and that moment in time, the two years leading up to and including the city's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games, is an instructive one, as China went through an insane construction boom and massive clean-up in a somewhat desperate attempt to prove to the planet that it deserves the title of the 21st Century's World Capital. It's interesting in the ways the culture and the political machine tries to find a new balance between tight control and (very slight) freedom; it's funny in its tales of inept, Catch-22 bureaucracy, or in examples of wacky Chinese and expat behaviour (the city's population is TERRIBLE at waiting on line... even if there's only a single person at, say, a ticket window, the second person to arrive will try to elbow his or her way to the "front" of the line); horrifying in its descriptions of traffic jams, and sidewalks covered in spit, and air so filthy it hurts your lungs and leaves grit on your eyelids. Unfortunately, not everything Scocca does turns out to be interesting/funny/horrifying, but he tends to just leave these stories in the book anyway, padding the chapter with lengthy, totally irrelevant physical descriptions of his surroundings, making what should be a quick read (there's no real attempt at historical or geopolitical context here) too often a slog. Three and a half stars would be the more accurate rating.
August 3, 2013
A book that’s supposed to be about Beijing’s transformation for the 2008 Olympics, but is more about Scocca and his family living in Beijing as expats during that transformation time. Scocca does cover the build-up to the Games first hand, from the construction of the venue and urban renewal plans to Beijing’s anti-pollution measures and weather control schemes. But he spends too much time talking about what it’s like to live as an expat in Beijing when all this is going on, how hard it is, and how different everything in China is compared to the US – which is fine, except that it probably belongs in a different book. It’s too bad, because there are a lot of good stories in here about Beijing’s Olympic makeover, and while Scocca keeps putting himself in the way of the story, he doesn't do it to the point of being egotistical or whiny. But he does do it enough to distract from the story I’m trying to read. Maybe it’s because, being an expat myself, he’s not telling me much I don’t already know. Still, I ended up fast-forwarding through the book.
July 28, 2012
Based on the cover, I originally thought this would be a book about consumerism and how China is taking over the world.
Turns out, it's a kind of adorable story about the author and his wife living in Beijing while it transforms into an Olympic host city. They even have a kid along the way.
Let me back-track a little. My obsession with Asian popular culture forced this book into my bag at the library. I don't think if I knew it would be about the Olympics, I would have picked it. But, the writing is good and I really felt like I spent the afternoon traversing Beijing with Tom. The growing pains, the cultural shifts and sheer immensity of the city; all things I enjoyed watching over his shoulder.
I still like to get caught in Indiana traffic and yell out loud "WHAT IS THIS? BEIJING?!"
Turns out, it's a kind of adorable story about the author and his wife living in Beijing while it transforms into an Olympic host city. They even have a kid along the way.
Let me back-track a little. My obsession with Asian popular culture forced this book into my bag at the library. I don't think if I knew it would be about the Olympics, I would have picked it. But, the writing is good and I really felt like I spent the afternoon traversing Beijing with Tom. The growing pains, the cultural shifts and sheer immensity of the city; all things I enjoyed watching over his shoulder.
I still like to get caught in Indiana traffic and yell out loud "WHAT IS THIS? BEIJING?!"
July 17, 2013
A play-by-play account of the author's time in Beijing leading up to the 2008 Olympics. The book is surprisingly domestic for a travel tale, with much attention to events on TV and interaction with the housekeeper. Perhaps its the language barrier which prevents the author from enlarging his view beyond the close confines of the expat community, English classes, and Olympics press events. He notes carefully the pop stars at the Olympics promotions, and the inconveniences of the bureaucracy attempting to modernize itself, even the poor English on the new tourist signs, though there is hardly anything surprising or unusual about these things. I was hoping for more insight into the history of Beijing and its future from a someone in the midst of its current changes, but the book hardly ever delves beyond the everyday experiences of the author.
February 26, 2012
I was a little disappointed when reading this book. I thought it would be more about economic and social changes in Beijing, not so much a personal account of events happening in Beijing in the years prior to the Olympic Games in 2008. The narration becomes tedious at times. I think there is too much unnecessary detail in many parts of the book. I have to say that there are some chapters that are really funny, especially the one when the author tries to obtain a driver's license and the ordeal he has to go through to get it. This reading made me realize that I was lucky to get to know Beijing in 2001, as the city is no longer the one it was 10 years ago. Traffic and pollution is even worse now, by any account.
May 22, 2016
What I disliked about the book is that it is not personal enough. I would love to have heard about his wife's experiences working for the Clinton foundation over there. I really liked the story about his child being born - it gave an insight into the good and bad things about living in China.
He also sees conspiracies where there are none. There are few countries in the world that you would be allowed into a building project without a hard hat. That's not censorship, it's not wanting to be sued in the event of an accident.
The complaining about the cleaner rankled with me too.
He strikes me as a bit of a complainer.
What i did like about the book is the introduction it gives to Bejing and how it prepared for the Olympics.
He also sees conspiracies where there are none. There are few countries in the world that you would be allowed into a building project without a hard hat. That's not censorship, it's not wanting to be sued in the event of an accident.
The complaining about the cleaner rankled with me too.
He strikes me as a bit of a complainer.
What i did like about the book is the introduction it gives to Bejing and how it prepared for the Olympics.
November 11, 2011
This was pretty great. I love Tom Scoca's writing, I think he's really terrific, sharp and critical without being cruel, and I love writing about ex-pat life, so this would've had to have been really awful for me to hate it. But it's not! It's delightful.
Of course there's a great deal to giggle about, all the Engrish and the bureaucratic obfuscation, but it's a vivid portrait of Beijing a little before, during, and just after the Olympics, and his meditations on China and the U.S.'s relationship to and with China are interesting and thoughtful.
You should read it! It's great and Tom Scocca is great and I miss his blog and his media criticism in the Observer and The Awl.
Of course there's a great deal to giggle about, all the Engrish and the bureaucratic obfuscation, but it's a vivid portrait of Beijing a little before, during, and just after the Olympics, and his meditations on China and the U.S.'s relationship to and with China are interesting and thoughtful.
You should read it! It's great and Tom Scocca is great and I miss his blog and his media criticism in the Observer and The Awl.
October 7, 2011
What promised to be an interesting book about Beijing before the Olympics in 2008 and during it fell flat for me after sloughing through 100 pages. Tom Scocca arrived in 2004 (his wife had gone ahead of him) eager to experience a new life by learning how to get around, dealing with their residence, watching both destruction and construction,trying to conquer Mandarin so he could attempt to talk to the people, figuring out the rules and regulations...
I found the above mentioned to be more interesting than the sports and intricacies of the Olympics itself. The reason I stopped reading was because I was bored and I thought the writing was plodding.
I found the above mentioned to be more interesting than the sports and intricacies of the Olympics itself. The reason I stopped reading was because I was bored and I thought the writing was plodding.
December 31, 2011
Certainly not any of the claims in its subtitle ("definitive guide to Beijing...truly the capital of the 21st century"), this book is still a good set of personal anecdotes from 2007-2008. The author does a good job of commenting about the pace of changes going on around him as he observes Beijing's transformation for the 2008 Olympics.
This book was mostly valuable to me because it talks about sections of pavement and neighborhoods that I was seeing in real life at the same time. That was pretty cool.
This book was mostly valuable to me because it talks about sections of pavement and neighborhoods that I was seeing in real life at the same time. That was pretty cool.
August 30, 2014
Scocca provides a good description of Beijing in its run up to the 2008 Olympic games. The book is half memoir/half reportage, and he has a number of worthwhile insights and nice turns of phrase. But the book is not reaching for any grand analysis of where Beijing is headed, as implied by the subtitle. And I found my attention wandering toward the end, especially during some of the overly detailed descriptions of the games themselves. If you want one book on Beijing, I would recommend Last Days of Old Beijing instead.
August 10, 2016
Incredibly detailed and textured, like reading someone's journal, if that someone was an American expat in China with an Olympics fetish. In the end, this is the story of a place and time, not so much of people. That sort of story is difficult to tell. More context--was Tom Scocca doing anything but tracking the Olympics at the time?--more characters, might have made this more satisfying. Still worth reading but near collapse under the weight of its own details.
November 24, 2013
The book has an intriguing setup: expat's-eye view of Beijing and China as it prepares to host the 2008 Olympics, watching the city's makeover, noticing what changes and what stays the same. But it feels like the author never fully delivers on the book's potential as we go along for a pretty slow wander with Scocca. 2.5 stars.
May 16, 2012
The author relates his experience in living in Beijing in the years up to and during the 2008 Olympics. The story not only shows how China prepared for the world spectacle but gives the reader a gllimps of how Beijing is an ever changing city; not only physically but ideologically as it struggles with its blend on Communist Capitalism. A very interesting and entertaining book.
Read
March 2, 2013At times insightful, at times a bit quotidian (mundane daily). Still, it helped me understand the frighteningly fast-paced changes happening in Beijing and China - and prepared me for my visit to the erstwhile "Middle Kingdom", which my maternal family ruled as the Qing (Ching) Dynasty since 1644 AD. And, now I know I made the right decision regarding the schools of choice for my children :-)
March 25, 2014
Easy read about the development in Beijing during the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, written from a Westerner's perspective. The book stays fairly observational and doesn't give much in-depth commentary...having been to China the information the author presented wasn't all that surprising, but at least the narrative kept me fairly entertained.
October 3, 2014
An often insightful, sometimes funny look at Beijing before, during and after the 2008 Olympic Games. The book suffers from not having any pictures because some of the architecture created for the Olympic Games was spectacular. By reading with my phone nearby and googling interesting sounding buildings, it added a lot to the book.
January 2, 2015
This book was poorly written. Nonetheless, it was very very informative. Understanding through the writing of someone else what China was before the Beijing Olympics and what it was trying to live up to and become...albeit short cuts and all, not thinking of how the earth will suffer and continues to suffer as a result of China's carelessness.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews