Until China's last imperial dynasty was toppled in 1911, Beijing was divided into walled rings, with the emperor in the center, his court in the second ring, and officials and ordinary people in the third. Today's villa neighborhoods succeed in keeping foreigners isolated and in banishing the normal chaos of Chinese urban life. In Beijing's older neighborhoods, residents live a communal life surrounded by a cacophony of activity. Peddlers hawk their wares. Women do laundry in a courtyard shared by several families.
Old men rattle down alleys on carts loaded with everything from watermelons to charcoal.
All over the city, people cram by the dozens into low-lying brick houses without air conditioning or bathrooms. Others live in drab concrete apartment towers that rise high into the smoggy sky. Some foreigners seek the hurly-burly of Chinese life. By contrast, Dragon Villas offers North American suburbia. Compounds include restaurants, swimming pools, karaoke rooms and grocery stores stocked with foreign goods.