The Beijing Olympics: a Visitors' GuideWhat should I eat? How much should I tip? Is that kid peeing in the street?

Check out Slate's complete coverage of the Beijing Games.

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A taxi passes the flower bed outside the Beijing Olympic Athletes Village The best way to get where you're going is to have someone write out your destination in Chinese beforehand and to carry a cell phone, so you can dial the place you're going and have someone there talk to the driver. The latter is perfectly normal behavior.

Under no circumstances should you try to show the driver a map, even if it's in Chinese. Beijing cabbies navigate by loose geographical associations—"it's outside the Dongzhimen interchange, near the Yuyang Hotel"—and map reading just makes most of them anxious.

How much should I tip?
Nothing. Ever. For all the Audi-driving bosses and Fauchon-dining swells, China is still a country that violently overthrew its aristocracy. People drive you places and serve you food because those are their jobs, for which they are paid a wage. Low as that wage might be, the workers are not expecting the customer to add a lordly bonus to the listed price. It's bad manners.

How can I avoid getting ripped off?
Ignore the laminated rate cards provided by airport taxi touts and tourist-spot pedicab drivers. An absurd price neatly formatted is still an absurd price.

In the markets, knock 75 percent off whatever a vendor quotes you. When haggling ensues, stay at your figure. The only way to tell if you're being unreasonable is if the vendor actually lets you walk away.

All goods and services are denominated in RMB. One shameless scam is for someone—say, a pedicab operator—to say the price is "20," and then afterward claim that was in American dollars. Ignore this and pay in the native currency.

Did that child just pee in the street?
Yes, he did. Beijing's campaigns to improve public manners—and the accompanying fines—have reduced the incidence of public spitting and line-jumping. But the littlest Beijingers still follow tradition, and tradition means open-crotched trousers where Americans would use diapers.

When will this filthy air go away?
Have a look at a flagpole. Beijing sits up against the mountains, at the northwestern end of the industrial coastal plain. The summer weather alternates between sultry, dirty air from the south and east and drier, cleaner air from the inland north and west. Even after Beijing imposed Olympic restrictions on factory operations and the driving of private cars, uncooperative weather meant the smog kept coming in waves. If the flags are pointing away from the mountains, hang on—the pollution is on its way out. If the flags are pointing toward the mountains (or hanging limp), hurry up and finish whatever you were going to do outdoors, before it gets worse.

Chinese men in uniformIs that man in uniform anyone to worry about?
It depends on the uniform (and on what you're worried about). Beijing is thick with elite police and paramilitaries, but it's even thicker with superficially imposing parking attendants and low-level security guards. If you see someone turned out in a sharp outfit resembling the U.S. Marine Corps dress uniform, you're probably looking at a shopping-mall rent-a-cop. Dark blue trousers and a light blue shirt with a big badge number on the left of the chest means a normal city policeman; a light green shirt with dark green trousers and gold or red insignia means the paramilitary People's Armed Police—or the People's Liberation Army, which shares the uniform. Either one might be assigned to block you from where you want to go or to clear you away from where you are. If you're a foreigner, failure to comply probably means nothing more than an invitation to come along to a police station for a few hours—" 'for tea' or 'to check your identification,' " as one Beijing correspondent puts it. (Repeated demands to talk to your embassy may shorten the delay.)

A gray-green shirt with green-gray trousers and a shoulder patch reading "Beijing Security" is usually some sort of gatehouse guard. A red armband with a white-and-red Yanjing Beer Olympics polo shirt denotes a member, usually elderly, of the neighborhood watch. But the uniform to look for is no uniform at all. In crowds, keep an eye out for placid-looking men between 25 and 45 years old in Chinese dressy casual—dark slacks and golf shirts or dress shirts—with oversized cell phones carried low by their sides. They're looking for signs of unrest, including protests or unauthorized acts of journalism. Inside the arenas, police will be wearing Olympic volunteer uniforms so as not to dampen the atmosphere. Don't forget to notice the ubiquitous electronic auxiliary force of security cameras—armed with face-recognition and crowd-behavior-analysis software. Smile!

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