I'd never really thought about how safe I feel in Beijing until recently when, as I cheerily wandered home alone in the early hours after a party, it suddenly struck me that I would never do this back home.

Prior to moving here, ten years of living in London had been great 'stranger danger' training.

All about prevention rather than cure, I quickly learned to avoid eye contact whilst travelling on the Underground and to use tunnel vision elsewhere, walking purposefully and as if constantly on a mission.

I love London but as in most major cities, you do need your wits about you. So the contrast and change of pace in Beijing was refreshing.

That is, once I'd acquired the necessary bravery to cross a major road -- the company that relocated us passed on a useful piece of advice on this, "Walk confidently and never hesitate. No-one wants to mow you down, they're just trying to get somewhere!".

Watching my son and his mates running around a park or playground, I am able to chat with friends and not feel like I have to watch the kids like a hawk every second, worried that someone's going to lure them away or scoop them up and and run off like the sinister child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Max and I had our first 'stranger danger' chat whilst preparing for a trip home. It wasn't something I ever felt I needed to do here (I'm not advocating this -- wherever you are, you should, it just hadn't crossed my mind until that point -- even if your son does believe he's a real superhero!).

And so, I was really taken aback when I recently bumped into a neighbour who'd just suffered a bit of a shock on her way to her apartment in our compound.

As she waited for the lift, she'd been aware of a guy waiting next to her but thought nothing of it.

When they entered the lift, he moved closer towards her and started acting provocatively. Her first reaction was to roar right in his face and luckily this frightened him and he couldn't get out of the lift quick enough, leaving her alone but shaken.

As she later commented, had she been in her native South America, she'd have been much more conscious of the people around her. But here in Beijing? No way.

Her guard was down and she was completely taken by surprise by this unpleasant incident.

Luckily, such occurrences are rare in Beijing.

In the three and a half years we've lived here, apart from a couple of purse thefts and a road rage dispute that ended in fisticuffs, nothing bad has happened to anyone we know.

And this seems to be the general consensus. The topic has been raised quite a lot recently, as friends and neighbours gear up to move on to pastures new, realising that both they and their kids might need to become a little more street wise in their next host country.

As for those of us who remain, long may Beijing stay as it is.