Asian Games Village: A Neighborhood in Beijing (AGV) is a hypermedia archive for Chinese studies. Geared towards high-intermdiate and advanced level learners, AGV contains over 20 hours of video footage and over 1,000 still images shot in the Asian Games Village area in Beijing in the summers of 2006, 2007 and 2008. The principal pedagogical idea for Living in Beijing is that meaningful communication, critical thinking, and a collaborative learning environment are crucial to language learning.?To present an authentic picture of contemporary life in Beijing in action, the project contains footage of recreational programs and street scenes, in addition to one-on-one interviews.?Students are therefore exposed to the Chinese language as used in various culturally authentic settings.
Centered upon the Anhuili Community (安慧里社区; ānhuìlì Shèqū) of the Asian Games Village Subdistrict (亚运村街道; Yàyùncūn Jiēdào) of Beijing's Chaoyang District, or Precinct (朝阳区; Cháoyáng Qū), AGV aims to present an epitome of life in Beijing, through which students will learn about the the cultural and socio-economic characteristics of comtemporary Chinese society. The video clips, all spontaneously shot without scripts, contain not only authentic Chinese, but also the perspectives of the people in the clips.
Anhuili Community of the Asian Games Village Subdistrict has been selected as the focus of the AGV project for a reason. The city of Beijing comprises 12 metro Districts and 2 rural Counties. Located in the northeast of metro Beijing, Chaoyang is one of the 12 Districts. Of the 23 Subdistricts of Chaoyang District, the Asian Games Village Subdistrict is named after the Asian Games held in Beijing in 1990. The Anhuili Commnuity is a block of 392,200 square meters (96.9 acres) in the Asian Games Village Subdistrict. The community is enclosed by Beiyuan Street (北苑路) to the east, North 4th Ring Road (北四环路) to the south, Anli Street (安立路) to the west and Huizhong Street (慧忠路) to the north, as indicated by the lines in the zoomed-in maps below. The small red dot under the sign with the letter "A" in the first map below indicates the location of Anhuili's 79 mid-rises and high-rizes, with a total of 7,400 one- to three-bedroom condominiums.
The Anhuili residential buildings were built to the east of the Asian Games Village from 1987 and 1990. They are some of the first commercial condominium buildings in Beijing, built at a time when the Chinese government just started to experiment with commercial housing as an alternative to housing alloted to employees by their work units.Today, the Asian Games Village Subdistrict has developed into a robust area with shopping centers, restaurants, schools, sports facilities, banks, post offices, hospitals, etc. The Anhuili Community featured in the AGV project is centrally located in the Asian Games Village Subdistrict. In addition to housing the Asian Games Village Subdistrict Recreation Center, the Anhuili Community is also where the Asian Games Village Subdistrict Sports Park is. Much of the video footage were shot in the Recreation Center and the Sports Park, to which many of the interviewees are connected one way or another.
The Anhuili Community took on a fresher and updated look because of the 2008 Olympics. The shops and restuarants along the streets all got a facelift. The residential areas were also greener and more pretty as more grass and flowers had been planted. The National Stadium, aka. the Bird's Nest, built for the 2008 Olympic Games is just 0.5 mile west of the Anhuili commnunity. The oval shade in the second map and the grey metalic building in the third map below are the Bird's Nest.
(Click the maps below to view them in the original size.) (Back to top)
