Beijing’s Ming and Qing dynasty emperors did not allow anyone to build structures higher than those of the Forbidden City, and their suspicion of tall buildings was passed on to Beijing’s communist rulers, at least until the late 1980s.
The Beijing government has also never allowed aircraft to fly over the city center with a few exceptions such as when national military parades were held. As a result, Beijing has always been free of one of the characteristic sounds of many big global cities: the thwack thwack thwack of helicopter blades.
The Olympics have changed that. For the past few weeks, Beijingers have frequently heard the sound of choppers with both police and state-owned broadcaster CCTV markings. This photograph shows a CCTV helicopter in the sky above Jianguomen in eastern Beijing.
On a related subject, the iconic new CCTV building designed by Rem Koolhaas has had its clean lines ruined by the addition of a helicopter landing pad on the roof.
The gossip in Beijing is that Koolhaas was enraged by the late-breaking design change, but CCTV insisted.