Eric's Beijing Diary

Sculpting in Time had a birthday today. The folks in Wudaokou wanted me to come to the party because it was being held at the new Sculpting in Time on the Beihang campus. Jimmy, the guy in the corner with the sweater is from Taiwan. He came to Beijing to study film. Somehow, he came up with the idea of starting a small coffee bar, and the whole idea turned out to be a lot more successful than he had expected. I think part of the reason for the success is because Sculpting in Time is not a Taiwanese coffee bar in the classic sense. Most of the Taiwanese coffee bars are really a cross between a coffee bar and a traditional Chinese tea house. But Sculpting in time is a study bar, sorta like the study bars on Mill Avenue (like Coffee Plantation) but better, I think. It doesn't hurt that this coffee bar is located in a community with half a million students. The more important statistic, though, I think, are the 12 thousand international students, because Chinese students are used to studying in their dormitories. I don't see many undergraduate Chinese students in coffee bars.