The Forbidden City still stands at the center of Beijing, its golden tiled roofs and vast white courtyards glittering in the sun like an ancient giant's crown. The Summer Palace has survived, too, at the northwest edge of the city, as has the Temple of Heaven to the south, along with dozens of delicate monuments, old temples, and the courtyard houses in little alleyways (hutongs) that were once the hallmark of ordinary city life.

Add to this Beijing's and China's number one attraction: the Great Wall, Asia's answer to the pyramids and China's paramount monument to its romantic and turbulent past. As the popular saying has it,"You haven't been to China if you haven't stood on the Great Wall."

Beijing's temples, parks, and historic sites all sing wonderfully and powerfully of the dream that was Old Cathay, but in the same hallowed space there's a new Beijing taking shape. Just outside the exquisite walls of Beijing's historic monuments, steel and concrete are steadily replacing silk and carved wood. This transition can be jarring. Beijing is transforming itself before our eyes--reborn as the capital of the most populous (and, potentially, the most powerful) nation on earth. Just since the turn of the new century, the Beijing cityscape has been enlarged almost daily with the appearance of yet another skyscraper. This building boom's cumulative effect to the eye: a fresher, larger, and--for the first time--very modern Beijing.

For some visitors, this reconstruction in the old capital is more a tragedy than a triumph, but in fact, the modern cityscape imparts much energy to the city. Construction projects tromp through this Beijing of the future like mechanical Godzillas, pounding antiquated neighborhoods into oblivion block by block. At dawn the city parks are still filled with Beijingers sleepwalking through their old tai chi exercises, but the surrounding streets are now packed with millionaires as well as street sweepers, with Mercedes as well as bicycles, with enterprising touts as well as destitute beggars. Beijing today is two cities in one, a crazy scroll of skyscrapers and shacks, of Pizza Huts and teahouses, unwinding in a chaotic sprawl.

Beijing is in the midst of remaking itself on a scale that can scarcely be believed, and this rapid modernization against a backdrop of ancient treasures gives Beijing a wild East-West flavor that is exhilarating. It is a city with two faces, both endlessly fascinating to the traveler. With all its celebrated historical attractions, Beijing may well be the capital of China's past, but it is also the capital of China's future, a city dedicated to becoming both modern and international, and it is here that one can see in broad and determined strokes both what China has been and what it means to become.