According to one estimate, greater Beijing has a population of 12,400,000 and Buenos Aires one of 13,500,000.  Beijing is the capital of China and one of three municipalities in the country.  The municipality is encircled by Hebei province.  Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina and constitutes a federal district, which lies within the province of Buenos Aires. There are many very large cities in China, like Shanghai, Tianjin and Hong Kong, but Buenos Aires is the only truly world-class city in Argentina. 

The first difference that one encounters is that in China hotel rates for foreigners are regulated by the government, so that you may have to pay nearly as much as in the US, whereas Chinese people can rent rooms very cheaply.  In Buenos Aires, room rates are discretionary.  The result is that the modest traveler can expect to pay $30 a day or more in China for a room that would cost $15 in Argentina.  Cheaper rooms are to be had in China, but it takes a lot of legwork to find them.

As for food, prices are about the same, which is around one-third to one-half US prices.  You can eat a minimal meal in either city for $1 and a good one for $2 or $3.  Of course, it is always possible to find expensive restaurants if that is to your liking.  In Beijing, you can get a roast duck for as little as $5.

The two cities have subway systems approximately equal in length, between 50 and 75 miles in all, but the Beijing subway is much more beautiful than the Buenos Aires subway.  Fare is about 25¢ in either city.  Buses cost 5¢ to 25¢ in Beijing, depending on the route, but in Buenos Aires, they cost a flat 25¢.  A phone call is 4¢ in Beijing, 7¢ in Buenos Aires.

Downtown Beijing is stunning with its numerous high rise buildings in Oriental motifs, and has many, many fashionable neighborhoods.  Buenos Aires is characterized by throngs of buildings with ornate colonial architecture, but has plenty of modern high-rise buildings too.  Actually, it is hard to think of many cities that are as beautiful as Buenos Aires. 

A drawback to Beijing is that the major streets are laid out on graph-paper, so to speak, with squares of about a mile.  In the squares, there are only hutong, which are barely drivable alleys that often tend to be filled with stalls and clutter.  Buenos Aires is laid out more on a block system, like a US city, with perfectly drivable side-streets.

Beijing outclasses Buenos Aires, and maybe even New York City, in the matter of department stores, with about 20 multistory full-block stores scattered about town.  Though Buenos Aires has tens of thousands of stores, they are mostly shops and malls.  There is not a single major department store, say like Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s, in Buenos Aires.

Beijing has many open-air marketplaces for clothes, produce and other odds and ends, but Buenos Aires prefers shops, many of them tiny.  Street vendors are common in Beijing, rare in Buenos Aires.

Both cities are the hubs of rail and long-distance bus service.  Beijing has four or five major train stations and Buenos Aires at least two.  You can take a train all the way across China for under $100.  You can take a bus in Argentina from one end to the other for a little more than $100.  I flew into Beijing Inernational Airport once and Pistarini, here in Buenos Aires, once, but I wouldn’t venture to compare them, except to say that they are both way out of town, which is a nuisance.

Buenos Aires is a better place to earn a living.  The average worker here makes $500 a month or so, but the average worker in Beijing makes about $80.  You can live on $500 in Buenos Aires.  That’s about what I’ve been spending the last four months, if you don’t count the side-trips that I took.  But living on $80 a month is living at the doorstep of starvation.  You can see Chinese poverty too, in the gaunt, haggard faces of so many people in Beijing, and in their faded, threadbare clothes.  But there are hundreds of thousands of Beijingese who manage to do fairly well somehow.

Chinese people are friendlier than Argentines.  Whenever I got on a train in China, I’d meet every body in my car by the time we got to our destination.  In Argentina though, no one ever strikes up a conversation on the bus.  In fact, they have the rude habit of looking away if your eyes happen to meet, as if to say, “Don’t expect to talk to me.”

Beijing gets very cold in the winter, with subzero temperatures and heavy snowfalls sometimes, about like New York City.  Buenos Aires is more like Los Angeles, annoyingly cool six months of the year, but never really ice-cold.  It never snows in Buenos Aires.

Of course, we all know that China has an ancient history and a tradition of scholarship and literature, so if you like museums, landmarks, art, books, souvenirs and memorabilia, Beijing is very interesting.  Buenos Aires, barely 400 years old, has gathered much less moss, though the locals are very proud of Argentine traditions like the tango and drinking mate, a brew made from a local herb.

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