Wangfujing Shopping Street 王府井

Chinese people love to shop, as anyone whose gone to any major city in the country can attest. Most of the cities are well organized despite being several centuries old. With the advent of capitalism in China, also comes the rise of the modern Chinese shopping street. Most major cities will surely have one place where all the major shopping centers are. Beijing is no exception.

Wangfujing is Beijing’s premier shopping street. This is where a lot of high end shopping centers sprung up. The street turns into a pedestrian only at night and all the lights come on. There weren’t a lot of ultra modern shopping centers here in Wangfujing itself. Most of the buildings were colonial in nature. While it was quite a sight to be walking along Wangfujing itself. You are instantly brought back to reality with roving bands of well dressed beggars wandering the street. Make sure you don’t catch someone else’s eye here. They work mostly in pairs with and they are mostly female. They would ask if you have some money to spare for dinner since they haven’t eaten yet. From the way they looked it doesn’t look like they are dying of hunger but then who am I to say?

They would probably leave you alone if you spoke only English and just to avoid this situation, watch out of these groups of people. Other than that, it didn’t really feel dangerous, although I’m sure Beijing also has its own share of petty crime especially here in the most upscale area of the city. Although Wangfujing is a nice change from all the palace and temple visiting I have been doing in Beijing, I didn’t really take a liking to this street. The shops here were morely shopping centers and I only saw a couple of malls here. Most of the stuff on sale in the shopping centers were local stuff although there was a smattering of western brands. But there wasn’t really stuff here that I wanted to buy.

To get to Wangfujing Shopping Street, take the subway and get off at Wangfujing station on line 1. The shopping street is in one of the exits.

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