Most cities in the world have a skyline that is instantly recognizable to even those who don’t live there. Paris has the tall shadow of the Eiffel Tower looming over all the Haussmann buildings below while London has the Eye spinning next to Big Ben. When I went to study abroad in Beijing in the summer of 2008, it was hard to pinpoint “the Beijing skyline.” In fact, in the two months I was there, buildings changed so rapidly that I wondered whether or not I was still in the same city.

There are most definitely landmarks throughout Beijing that are unique symbols of the city. In the center of the city, taking up a huge mass of land, is the Forbidden City: a large and astounding reminder of China’s imperial past. However, few things have remained permanent outside of the walls of the Forbidden City.

With the coming of the Olympics, Beijing underwent a complete transformation that only quickened a process of modernization already taking place. The hutong neighborhoods, full of traditional courtyard homes once a symbol of Beijing, largely disappeared in the years leading up to the Olympics. Although some were preserved and venerated as historical sites, a large portion of Beijing character has been lost in recent years.

As a student in Beijing with an interest in Chinese history, I often found myself running around trying to hold onto what is left of Beijing’s unique culture and history. By the Lama temple, I was able to find some hutongs that seemed relatively untouched, but even these areas felt somewhat stripped of a previous culture that existed there before. Often, within five minutes of entering a hutong, I would emerge and find myself next to a construction site. It was hard to not feel like I was chasing after a past that was rapidly disappearing.

However, as a Westerner in China, I ironically also found myself attracted to the revamped shopping streets in former hutongs. As I enjoyed my meal at a Western café in a former courtyard home, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing out on some “Beijing experience” that was quickly disappearing. As the Olympics neared, large urban shopping complexes opened, as did the bird’s nest and the water cube. I quickly forgot about that for which I had been searching and began to admire the modern side of Beijing I had earlier rejected.

When I left at the end of the summer as the Olympics ended, I tried to picture the Beijing skyline as the plane took off. Although the water cube and the bird’s nest had begun to replace the Forbidden City as landmarks of Beijing, I still did not feel like these were the new silhouettes of the Beijing skyline. I realized instead that what made the Beijing skyline unique was not its handful of landmarks but rather its constant change and dynamism. Although I thought the character and experience of Beijing was quickly disappearing with the transformation of old hutong neighborhoods, I found the true experience of Beijing was the transformation itself.