Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Once I became interested in China, I flew to Beijing in 1996 to spend half a year studying Mandarin. The city stunned me.
You have to be willing to totally immerse yourself in China in order to have in-depth exposure to China.
Edward Snowden may not be a Chinese mole, but he might as well be. He's just handed Beijing a major score, while the NSA struggles to pick up the pieces - and the rest of us pay the price in terms of future national security.
I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.
You don't have to spend much time in Shanghai before you start to get all existential about the meaning of authenticity. Did you know that Shanghai is building nine satellite towns, each designed to mimic the architecture and culture of a different country?
I visited the Chinese side last year. The Chinese are in a constant state of military readiness. They have all their nuclear weapons in the area, presumably trained on targets across the border.
I feel perhaps my heart is still in China.
And look at the mess that Russia is; most Chinese don't want to follow that.
If China was like the moon, then arriving in Saudi Arabia was Mars. At least you can see the moon from Earth.
I went to China for a brief working visit, and I thought that Shanghai was interesting, but Beijing totally grabbed me.