A Western visitor to Beijing or any other major Chinese city today will have little trouble finding familiar sights from home. American fast-food restaurants and coffee shops, vast hoardings advertising German cars, boutiques selling the latest Western fashions…

Contrast all this with the impression that struck visitors 40 years ago, at the start of the reform and opening up: Crowds of people dressed in similar, drab clothing, streets crowded with the ubiquitous bicycles… The transformation has been astonishing, and points to a fundamental change in lifestyle among China's urban residents.

But is the change healthy? Certainly not, some would argue, citing the explosion in obesity among Chinese children, the cause of which is readily ascribed to Western fast-food. Others would argue that the initial rush to embrace a Western lifestyle, brought on by the opening up, has given way to a more sober assessment of its good and bad points. As Zhou Tao, founder of the American-style BLT Restaurant in Beijing, points out, the city now has a thriving Western-style fine dining scene, since, “Now Chinese people know fast food is not really Western food.”

This more sophisticated appreciation of foreign lifestyle choices is going hand-in-hand with an acknowledgment that some aspects of the traditional Chinese lifestyle were abandoned a little too hastily. Dr. Johan Stjernholm, a quantum physicist, is delighted with the re-appearance of crowds of bicycles on Beijing's streets.     

Education is one area where some people would like to see a return to a more traditional approach. Critics suggest that too much time and importance is being devoted to teaching English at schools, to the detriment of the study of Chinese language and culture. Xia Peng, the founder of English language school Youlinyouke, has come up with an innovative solution.

In a sense, such an approach to learning is a sign of a more mature attitude towards lifestyle choices - one that recognizes the advantages to be reaped by combining the best that China and the rest of the world have to offer.