I’m in a Beijing hutong—a narrow alley in the old city—playing Ping-Pong with a monk. It is 1985, and I’m on a photographic assignment for this magazine. Though many Chinese are afraid to be seen with a foreigner, the monk doesn’t care and invites other monks to join us. It is the best experience I’ve had in three months. That night I take a small, dilapidated taxi to the Beijing Hotel, one of the few places where foreigners can stay. It’s 8:30; the streets are dark and deserted. The few cars on the road aren’t using their headlights, I’m told, because the drivers don’t want to burn out the bulbs.

Cars now fill Beijing highways both day and night.

Twenty-two years later I’m in front of the Beijing Hotel at 8:30 at night. The driver of a sleek new Audi taxi pulls up with headlights blazing; he doesn’t seem concerned about burning out a bulb. The city pulses with life. It’s washed in light and jammed with traffic. An attractive Chinese woman approaches a number of men, then comes to me, asking if I need a massage. I don’t need a massage; I need a map—something to help me understand the cataclysmic changes of the past few decades.

China can overwhelm. The shock waves of its growth reverberate in every corner of the globe. That’s what this issue is—a map to help readers navigate the terrain of exuberance and anxiety that is China today.

Photograph by iStockphoto