Dong fu, xi gui, nan pin, bei jian wealthy east, noble west, poor south, cheap north.

So goes a Beijing saying that indicates the basic features of the city's geography as they were commonly perceived many years ago.

Like most clichs, this one doesn't capture the full complexity of its subject today. But it describes in part the division of the capital along the axis that divides east and west.

Only a few years ago, east Beijing's Chaoyang District government chief Chen Gang was quoted by China Daily as saying: "Our goal is to be a Manhattan-style business centre with international financial services as the driving force."

Home to all the foreign embassies and the majority of overseas businesses, east Beijing is where the bulk of the city's expatriates reside. A foreigner may be a rare beast in most areas of the capital, but in the east they are by no means a minority.

Service companies in the area cater to the foreign population, and through word-of-mouth, more foreigners settle there.

"It's a fairly natural development," said Rob Dean, a property manager in Beijing.

Like the myriad Chinatowns across the Western world, Chaoyang provides familiarity to a cultural minority.

"I think there's a comfort factor in living on the east side," said Dean. "That's where the work is."

Mark Binnersley, an editor from England, lived in Shijingshan District on the west side when he first arrived but found it difficult to adapt.

"It was my first time in Asia, and I did not know a word of Chinese, so the culture shock was massive," he said. "I really didn't know what I was getting myself into and went straight in at the deep end."

Before long, he relocated to the Guomao area on the east side to be nearer to other young expats.

"A mixture of homesickness and a longing to speak with fellow Europeans led to me flee (west Beijing) within two weeks of moving there."

Since 1949, foreign embassies have been located in Jianguomen and Sanlitun in east Beijing, after moving from Nanjing, earlier the nation's capital.

Although Sanlitun, which literally means "a village 3 li (1.5 kilometres) away from the town," was given the chance to develop after the founding of the People's Republic of China, it didn't change very much from the 1950s to the '80s.

Before the '80s, west Beijing was considered the centre of progress. Both the central and municipal governments built most of their offices there, and almost all the major universities had their campuses there.

The Moscow Restaurant, where the best Western food in the town was served, the Beijing Exhibition Centre, where ballets were performed and most of the "Ten Best Architectural Examples" built in the 1950s were all in west Beijing.

Wu Heyuan, a 37-year-old businessman, who came from Jiangsu said: "East Beijing developed fast only in the 1980s. Where there are bar streets and office towers (now), cabbages and potatoes used to be grown.

"The western part was believed to be where people with taste should live," Wu said.

But when foreign investment began to pour into Beijing in the 1980s after the country's opening-up, it was directed to the eastern side, where there was greater space for development.

Upper-scale facilities blossomed in east Beijing in the '80s, marking the beginning of the area's continuing economic boom.

Consequently, some locals now view west Beijing differently.

"Every time I travel to west Beijing, I get the impression that I am in a time machine travelling not to the future, but to the past," said Li Hongfeng, 31, of East China's Anhui Province, who set up an art gallery in Jianguomen area in the east.

However, in the eyes of some west Beijingers, the east has disadvantages. Jasmine Lu, a young teacher at the Beijing Foreign Studies University on the west side, remarked: "People in east Beijing are the kind of people who cannot enjoy the goodness of living beside the best universities.

"They are the kind of people who have been the major force in pushing forward China's modernization in the past two decades, but some don't have much depth, and a few can even be vulgar."

But native Beijinger Wang Yulin, 83, who fought in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), pointed out that it is not only east Beijing that is modernizing. Zhongguancun in the northwest, the Olympic construction in the north-central area and Financial Street in the west's Xicheng District are booming, as well. To him, the economics of one region or another are becoming less relevant.

Source: China Daily