One of the quintessential yet rapidly disappearing Beijing ways of life is the hutong. The hutong is the traditional architectural and communal structure for this style of living and stretches back centuries. Communal living in this style does however often present some harder realities. 
There are a terrific series of posts on Beijing hutongs including lots of photography over at Beijing Visitor
Across Asia the desire to get into the Western tradition of Christmas spirit is quite notable. There are variations from country to country. Thailand as a Buddhist country or Indonesia as an practioners of Islam for instance don't celebrate the day itself. Thus Santa Claus (mashed up with Minnie Mouse above) are ubiquitous right across the continent at this time of the year, but often references to biblical characters such as Jesus or characters from the Nativity are erased. Worth a mention was the countdown on Christmas Eve at midnight. The crowd at the nightclub we visited, really went for it with more gusto than I've seen in many European capitals. Its fair to say that Christmas celebrations are beginning to transcend culture as a period of celebration that city dwellers (in the main) can find accessible.
This young lady was hamming up a little at the bar and shortly after left as if nothing had happened. A sort of faux intoxiqué if you like. I've experienced this behaviour across different cultures, genders and age groups and concluded that reasoning with these folk is the same as trying to reason with a drunk - completely unpredictable. Although they know what they are doing, they can play oblivious at any point. I do like the face in bar action going on here. Its the little touches that can convince. Merry Christmas Everyone.
I've been taking a look around Beijing and as part of that exploration visiting random internet cafes and enjoying the luxury of being able to observe the customers. It's pure gold getting to know what they are using their computer terminal for, how they behave and what is their internet life through free observation.
The usual modus operandi for cyber cafes in Asia (outside of say HK, SG, KR and JP) are that the computers are disparate second hand models still using CRT monitor technology and the places are often screamingly loud (particularly out of school hours) from all the game playing going on. I usually need to wear headphones and listen to music to keep my sanity, if I have work to do, but the place above was unnervingly silent - like walking into a library where the majority of people are studying and not browsing. You can practically feel the thinking going on as if it's an extended digital nervous system. Now this might not seem worth a mention if it wasn't for the sheer scale of the place. The photo doesn't quite do it justice but from where I'm standing on the stairs the length of the room is cavernous and between twenty to thirty rows deep. All of the customers were relaxed and even smoking cigarettes while facing completely uniform terminals and LCD screens with web cam as standard which is more than can be said of many advertising agencies or their clients who haven't cottoned on to the implications of web cam.
