I have a whole set of rules that make it easier for me to know what not to photograph.  Most people can be crossed-off without further thought because they have committed some kind of unpardonable offense.  Beyond the obvious sins like large logos and monogram handbags, Ugg boots – generally fake in Beijing – and puffy coats generally guarantee exclusion from these rarefied parts.  Still, these two students from the Northeast had cuteness, which tends to get you somewhere in life.

These two, from Xinjiang, are students at the Central Academy of Drama.  They also play in rock bands in old country.  The ideal, these two say, is to be in movies abroad.  Apparently there are about ten or so Uighurs studying at the school.

An art student from Hong Kong on Nanluoguxiang. 香港来得艺术学生在垃圾桶旁边抽烟。

The press pass that had gained me entrance to 20 shows over the course of a week was in the name of the fashion editor of my magazine.   It was confiscated and I did not make it into the final awards ceremony.  These two guys did, though they did not have either a press pass or a ticket.  These two fashion students actually made it into every single show of China Fashion Week SS ‘10 without any documents allowing entry.  They would just sneak in – once or twice on my coattails.  For the final event, they walked past the guards into a side door, even though there were metal detectors before all of the official entrances.

A young accounting student who hopes to get into a more creative line of work.

I seem to keep photographing people with these trousers.

Fans don’t show up enough over the course of Beijing’s hot summers.  Though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuge_Liang#mce_temp_url# wields a feather fan to alter the course of the wind and rains, this one immediately made me think of the famous strategist.

Confucius said good government means the ruler acts as a ruler, the minister as a minister, the father as a father, and the son as a son.  He might have added that all rulers should be stylish rulers, fathers stylish fathers, etc.  This high school student from Hong Kong, in Beijing for several years,  does not try to dress like anything other than a student but does an original, chic, take on student style.  The look is also most Beijingy.

No one would mistake her for a provincial, but did we need further comfirmation that Parisian girls are born with style?  Visiting Beijing for the umpteenth time, staying in the St. Regis, Roxanne could still look good wearing this outfit in her twenties, thirties or beyond.  Most women never reach this in a lifetime, getting derailed by a whole host of ugly trends like distressed jeans and studded belts.  Even at ten, she has the understated charm and ability to meaningfuly accessorize for which the ladies of her city are known.

Seemlessly incorporating Chinese style elements, Roxanne bought her shoes at Qianmen.

A retired teacher, last here in Mao jacket, is now in fetching summer garb.  He lives in a hutong off Nanluoguxiang.

Photo: Weina Zhao

Just having finished university, this young lady from Sichuan is eager to make it big in the center of the empire.

Meng Yue (adores all things Japanese, and her foreign name is Maruko.  From Beijing, she is attending university in Nanjing.  She was with two friends who have the exact same hair color as she does, but her style and feel was a bit sweeter than theirs.

Majoring in International Relations at mighty Beijing University, third-year Emmie would prefer to be studying something related to media.  The main problem, she says, is that international realtions is too politicized a field and one rarely learns anything with real substance.   As is the case with so many others who are unhappily wedded to their courses of study, Emmie ended up in International Relations as a result of her Gaokao score. Otherwise, she has no major complaints about life at Beida.  She gets along with her three roommates and feels lucky that she doesn’t live with five or even seven.

Her two-month summer internship at the PR company Ogilvy will hopefully set her on a more favorable path, which should allow her to work in foreign companies after graduation.  Often, majoring in something like international relations would only lead one to a government job or, at best, work in a state-run company.  Emmie points out that foreign companies in China and state-run companies operate in completely different systems.  Advancement in the latter depends almost completely on relationships, whereas the situation is somewhat more standardized with the foreigners.  Of course, she acknowledges, foreign companies must operate effectively in the guanxi system if they are to succeed in this country and degrees of localization vary a great deal from one company to the next.

I just encountered Adam, a rather remarkable fellow who will be blessing Xicheng district with his gentle but quirky charm for the next two weeks.  He is a Wushu practitioner who is, rather amazingly, just back from teaching this Chinese martial art in Shanxi.  Fluent in Persian, French and English, this LA-born half-Iranian has become quite good at Chinese after just a month in this country.

The all blue, all linen (besides the gator shoes) ensemble includes a sport coat from Armani and trousers from Comme des Garçons.

Sometimes I like to just throw in something random.  I had to check out what was causing all the traffic around the Worker’s Stadium this past Saturday.  It was a concert of a Korean band called “东方神起” (can’t seem to find the English) and the two blocks around the northern entrance to the stadium was filled with young vendors selling cheap souvenirs and other youths laying waste to the area with the packaging of those souvenirs as well as half-consumed junk food.

Up here just to witness it was this young high school student who hopes to be a graphic designer.  Her first time in Beijing, she is staying for a week.  Visiting with two home friends, she does not have friends or relatives in the capital.  She describes Beijing as less developed than her home town, citing the lack of a glass wall between the platform and the tracks on several of the older subway lines.  She has not made the half-hour (but special authorization requiring) journey to Hong Kong.  So far in Beijing she has visited Xidan and Nanluoguxiang, and much prefers the former.