need somewhere to live?
Unless you really are just passing through Beijing
(in which case see
sinohotel.com for hotels and hostels in Beijing) then you are going to need somewhere to live. Beijing apartment options have significantly widened
lately, and rents in Beijing have fallen considerably over the last few years. Here are your choices . . .
dragon jade villa gardens
If your company, embassy, sugar-daddy or just plain old daddy is paying for your apartment here in Beijing, this is probably where you'll stay. Your apartment (or more likely villa) will be a bit out of town, maybe on the Beijing - airport expressway which runs north-east out of the city. That's no problem though, as you can sit in the back of the limo and work on your Powerpoint presentation as your driver does all the tricky stuff. As for the quality of the apartment and facilities, you're going to have to ask someone else - the rent for these luxurious places would be more than my monthly salary, and the only way I'd get to look around is if I pretended to have kicked my football over the fence.
phoenix almost rich towers
The next rung down on the ladder of Beijing apartments, these cater to white-collar Chinese and ex-pats who were hired in China and didn't get a decent benefits / apartment package, these IKEA furnished apartment blocks tend to cluster in the east of Beijing, notably around Sanyuan Qiao, but can be found scattered all over. You won't get the swimming pools and gyms, but you should get a decent Western-style apartment with most mod-cons and no cockroaches. Expect to pay in the region of 5000Y for a small but comfortable one-bedroom apartment on or inside Beijing's third ring road.
3rd steel factory of Beijing apartments
Until late 2002, Dragon Jade Villa was the only legal accommodation option for foreigners in Beijing, while Phoenix Towers was a bit of a twilight zone - not strictly legal, but nobody was likely to bother you. Standard Beijing apartments were officially off-limits, and while you could find and rent an apartment, especially in areas with many foreign students, it wasn't very unusual to get some unwanted attention from the PSB. However, the regulations have now changed and you can hang your hat here if you want. As this is where a large number of the people reading this (assuming a large number of people ever read this) will want to stay, I'll expand on this in the Chinese housing in Beijing section, where you get to see photos of the Beijing apartments I've lived in.
University Dorms
If you are studying Chinese in Beijing, then one option will be the rooms provided by the university. General opinion is that these are overpriced and unnecessary - unless you are here short-term, look into renting / sharing one of Beijing's apartments.