Ten years ago, City Weekend was born. Back then we were called City Edition, back then we were housed in a small suite of offices in Sanyuan Li near the Yuyang Hotel, back then we didn’t have editors, we had “language consultants.” Ten years, 36 editors and 250+ issues later, CW is still going strong.

The Beginning

In April 1998, City Edition hit the streets, squaring off against popular-with-the-student-crowd Beijing Scene magazine. "We wanted to give expats a forum for honest, truthful information instead of what the government wanted them to know," says co-founder Anne Stevenson-Yang. A journalist by training, Stevenson-Yang pushed the magazine toward hard-hitting China stories, filling the gap between the loamy China Daily and the dogmatic Western press. CW's first cover story, written by Paul Mooney, now the China correspondent for US News and World Report, revealed the real air pollution situation in Beijing. By the summer of 2000, a controversial story touching on the revisionist history of the Old Summer Palace got CW into some serious hot water.

But things were freer back then and the official line didn't stop then-managing editor Jonathan Ansfield from covering one of the biggest stories to hit Beijing that year: the stabbing murder of a young Russian businessman outside a bar on Sanlitun South Street. Ansfield, now a correspondent for Newsweek and part-owner of the Stone Boat Café, braved intimidation by local bar owners and a nest of bureaucracy to report the story. Ansfield recalls: "This guy sits down and tells me: 'If you write anything about this, we will bring the city down on you.' I got on my bike and raced away." The piece was published on an all-black cover, with the headline "Murder in Sanlitun" in red and a photo of a security guard posted outside the bar in question. After it came out, CW was quietly criticized for "damaging the environment for investment".

Ansfield waxes nostalgic about the early days, particularly when the magazine was headquartered in Sanyuan Li. "Picaresque characters," he muses on a brilliant October day at the Stone Boat. "There was Lao Li, the night watchman, who was conducting an affair on top of our desks, and Lao Xie, the driver and distribution boss, who's now the manager [at the Stone Boat]. For a time we had Hong Kong paparazzi lingering outside because this photographer Gao Yuan was freelancing for us. She was Dou Wei's girlfriend when Dou Wei was still married to Wang Faye."

City Weekend stuck to its guns over the next several years, publishing famously controversial stories on “yellow fever,” the politics of fake goods and the real lives of expat housewives. “The problem with muckraking is that you eventually dig your own grave,” Ansfield concludes philosophically. “Fortunately, by that time, there was enough entertainment in Beijing to report.”

Let’s Rock

CW has been covering the local rock scene since day 1. In April 1999, we splash a full-page story on the first Heineken Beat Music Fest, headlined by blues master Robert Cray. Back then Beijing was a beggar’s banquet for international rock. Nowadays, we’re awash in festivals from Beijing Pop to Midi and Modern Sky which went down over October holiday.

Wham may have visited back in 1984 but CW readers know that January 2003 was Beijing’s watershed year for international rock as Suede came to town. The show throws fans into a frenzy, but, as we report, runs a RMB600,000 loss. Lead singer Brett Anderson doesn’t mind though: Four and a half years later, he’s back in town for the Beijing Pop Festival. Since then who hasn’t been to Beijing for a stage spectacular? In 2004 we cover Whitney Houston, the Backstreet Boys (who will return in 2006) and Boyz II Men. We go head to head with Common as he headlines the inaugural Beijing Pop Festival in 2005. In 2006 The Rolling Stones paint Beijing black and Sebastian Bach climbs the rafters at the Pop Fest. In 2007 we thrash in the mosh pit with Sonic Youth, The Roots, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Go Team. We wave our lighters in the air as Bjork, Linkin Park and Avril Lavigne make the scene in 2008. Avril is kind enough to flash her fishnet stockings for our October 2008 cover.

But local rock has always been the heart and soul of the Beijing scene—loud, screaming, sweaty, sometimes beautiful. In May 1999, we carry announcements for a Cold Blooded Animals show at Keep in Touch, a long-defunct venue across from the Kempinski Hotel, the same place where a young Berklee School of Music grad named Jess Meider also sings every Thursday night. Nine years later, Meider’s still in Beijing, performing regularly with the Quattrology Jazz Quartet at the East Shore Jazz Club. In January 2001 we run the first story in Beijing about a hot, all-girl punk band called Hang on the Box. Six years later, we are the first to lament their demise. But who cares when you can still catch Ourselves Beside Me, the band that grew out of HOTB’s ruins, at Yugong Yishan in November. In August 2004, we report which will become a classic Beijing rock line-up at Nameless Highland: Ourselves Beside Me, Re-Tros, Joyside and SUBS. Sounds like last week at Mao Live.

In May 2006 we are there for the opening of D-22, the heart, soul and nitrous oxide of Beijing’s indie rock scene. “We want people to come for the music,” we quote owner Mike Pettis as saying. In February 2007, we carry the first review of Mao Live. We gush: “A bricked up bar. Some used furniture. Ten rmb beers. It’s like a jalope with a jet engine in it.”

But as the rock scene stagnates under its own scene-ness, the party is just getting started for the dance crowd.

Let’s Party

In July 1999, Beijing’s partiers are abuzz about the two rival outdoor raves happening on the same night--one on the beach and one on the Great Wall. In the one corner is DJ Weng Weng of the China Pump Factory, in the other, DJ Zhang Youdai of the Cheese collective. Fast forward nine years to Halloween 2008 as Acupuncture’s Spooked party faces off against Yen’s Fetish Ball. Interestingly, Weng Weng is now running Acupuncture, while O2 Culture hosts Yen. And Zhang Youdai? He goes on to help open a string of mega-successful clubs like Cloud 9 and, most recently, ChinaDoll which redefine the local party scene.

A year later, in 2000, we report that a young local techno DJ named Yang Bing has joined Weng Weng’s Pump crew and is spinning every Friday at The Loft. Seven years later he teams up with Swede Thomas Gaestadius to open White Rabbit. The Rabbit immediately becomes the hottest club in Beijing for underground techno with twenty five of Beijing’s top DJs hitting the decks at the one year anniversary party on Sept. 22; and over a thousand partiers coming out to pay homage.

That same year, DJ Dio spins his first Lotus night at Henry’s Lee’s super-hip Club Vogue. In December 2003, Dio and Orange resident Mickey Zhang tag team the decks at the CD Café for the first MORSE party. Thirty-six parties later, MORSE is still going strong. “Beijing’s legendary DJs Dio and Mickey Zhang” (our words) throw the next installment of Beijing’s longest-running dance party on October 25 at White Rabbit. In May 2004 Dio and Mickey hook up with long-time promoter Kiko Su to throw Beijing’s first Yen party. We report that the event easily draws a thousand partiers. Four years later, the Yen Halloween Fetish Party on Oct. 30 at Starlive is one of the unmissable dates on the party calendar.

Blog It

Colleen Gargan, Harvard student turned electronic music junkie, covers Beijing’s best parties for our Beat Blog at www.cityweekend.com.cn. She is the leading edge of CW’s new media mini-empire which, in addition to our flagship CW website, now includes a travel site (Holidayfu.com), a weekly Parents & Kids email update and Guanxi, our mobile database. Truth is, CW’s position as the front-runner in Beijing’s new media game dates back to 2000 when we merged with 66cities.com. Three years later we were encouraging Beijingers to use mobile phones to vote for our favorite Beijing restaurant. Then in 2006, we launched www.cityweekend.com.cn.

“I like to think that with www.cityweekend.com.cn, we helped change the way listing magazines in China were produced,” says former managing editor Collin Crowell who oversaw CW’s shift into the 2.0 world. “We shunned the editor-upon-high model in favor of a grass-roots approach: the reader came first.” Organizers now publish their events online directly reaching Beijing readers; readers now directly share their thoughts about Beijing. The listing for Daniel Urdaneta’s new Nali restaurant Mosto, for example, has already accumulated 10 reviews on the site.

We have a dozen active blogs, everything from Colleen’s music blog to Tania McCartney’s Family Matters blog where she recounts the daily struggles and victories of being a Mom in Beijing. Our most popular post, Jonathan Haagen’s expose on the International Sex Guide titled “Hot Sex,” draws over 5,000 hits every two weeks. The Beijing entertainment scene changes so quickly, only the web can keep up. Follow us on Twitter (cityweekend_bj), you can keep up too.