Beijing // China
Journeyed destinations
- Beijing Olympic Center
- CCTV Headquarters "Rem Koolhaas"
- Daxing Airport
- Leeza Soho "Zaha Hadid"
- Wangjing Soho "Zaha Hadid"
- National Grand Theater of China "Paul Andreu"
- Temple of Heaven
- Forbidden City
- Great Wall of China
- Jingshan Park
- Wangfujing Street
05/Feb/2025
Beijing felt like a living scale of human ambition and quiet kindness. People were unexpectedly warm, taking pictures with me (which I thought they might misunderstood me with someone I don't know), but it wasn't!! They were coming to you and started chatting, and I felt like it was part of the city’s daily rhythm rather than an exception. I moved through spaces that felt impossibly different from each other. At the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven, history didn’t feel distant; it felt structured, almost breathing in slow layers of stone and silence...
...From Jingshan Park, the city stretched endlessly in every direction, as if it had no intention of being fully understood. And then the Great Wall like its more than a monument, long thought carved into mountains, refusing to end.
Modern Beijing spoke in another language entirely. The Beijing Olympic Center still carried echoes of collective energy, while the CCTV Headquarters by Rem Koolhaas looked like a question the skyline was forced to accept. At Daxing Airport, people flowed through space like organized departures of different lives, each one temporary but intentional. Leeza Soho and Wangjing Soho by Zaha Hadid bent the city into motion, as if glass itself had learned to move.
At Wangfujing Street, surrounded by light, noise, and endless movement, I realized Beijing doesn’t try to balance its contradictions. It simply lets them exist side by side, ancient, futuristic, crowded, and strangely kind, without explanation. Yes, life is like that, or maybe I should learn from this city, you are unique, but that's a city, you are human.
Chapter 8 - Reza in Beijing // 09 Feb 2025
