Beijing a city full of changes

A friend was asking where to get a turkey for Thanksgiving the other day. It brought back memories of the good old, bad old days of China when a traffic jam comprised a couple-dozen bicycles, one taxi and a donkey cart and the only coffee around came out of a jar of freeze-dried Nescafe, when, on a clear day, standing outside the Friendship Store on Jianguomenwai, you could see clear across to the driveway of the Beijing Hotel.

It was the beginning of China's economic reforms of the early 1980s. To be an expat in Beijing at that time was like being at "Cheers - where everybody knew your name", only the bar was "Charlie" at the Jianguo Hotel.

The foreign community was a grizzled bunch of jaded, middle-aged men sent by their companies to open up their first branches in China, foolhardy but brave entrepreneurs, fresh-faced language students, diplomats, and the occasional "spook" - the well-traveled cultural attach who was more often found chatting up a curvaceous counterpart at the bar than at his desk.