Beijing's Moment

Or something like that. I didn't believe him anyway.

This was the same guy who insisted that the grasshopper kebabs were good with salt.

* * *

Despite cultural differences, there are certain human universals. One is that gritty art districts will eventually attract pleasant cafes, chic boutiques and reputations for being overrun by yuppies and tourists.

This is the story of Dashanzi, also known as Factory 798, a place I absolutely loved.

Dozens of galleries, restaurants and trendy shops populate what at first appears to be a postindustrial nightmare, a warren of skinny smokestacks and hissing pipes that lies just off the highway to the airport.

Dashanzi's art was hit-and-miss -- some artists have apparently balked at the tourist influx and settled elsewhere -- but the atmosphere never faltered. A former electronics factory, Dashanzi has ceilings made of heavy concrete arcs that still bear Maoist slogans. Light pours in through slanting banks of windows.

The photography galleries pulled me in, and I found myself studying images of modern Beijing shot by an artist named Qiu Zhen. They showed the photographer holding hands with a mannequin bride -- its face blurred or hidden -- that represented Beijing itself.

"She" was a hazy place that was "hard to get hold of," according to the artist's statement. The city was "a place between reality and dream."

I particularly liked one photo that showed the couple holding hands on construction scaffolding, Beijing tumbling out below them. It seemed to capture the contradictory, kinetic spirit of this city of grimly communist architecture, magnificent palaces and men walking birds in cages. Even when it was winning me over, Beijing seemed a little beyond my grasp.

"I love this city," Qiu Zhen wrote, "but I also live in it with panic."

I knew exactly what he meant.

Ben Brazil last wrote for Travel on Chiapas, Mexico.