New Beijing hotel emphasizes safety, decidedly

Airy guestrooms feature sun-lit shower, LCD television ... and a gas mask

(Nicole Wong photo)

Nicole C. Wong, a Boston Globe reporter covering the business of travel, recently returned from her first trip to China. The fifth-generation California native and current Cambridge resident spent 16 days meeting with locals and Americans living and working in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. Here's part of her Day 8:

By Nicole C. Wong

BEIJING – A lady whose head and neck were completely covered by a crinkled Mylar gas mask just glared at me. What the heck was she doing in my hotel room?

Showing me how to flee for my life.

Her piercing eyes popped off the quart-size canister stashed in my hotel room’s closet. Never seen anything like that in the guestrooms I’ve checked into in North America, Latin America or Europe. My first thought: Pesticide. Did I book a room in a roach motel?

No way, this is the just-opened Aloft Beijing, a hip brand launched over the summer by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. The company unveiled the first Aloft in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., in June, then one in Lexington in July. (See the Lexington one here. http://www.boston.com/business/gallery/newlexingtonhotels/) And two weeks ago, it cut the ribbon at the one I checked into this afternoon, located on the outskirts of Beijing’s university and high-tech district.

This one looked a lot like the Aloft I toured in Lexington. Each airy guestroom featured a sunlit shower and a 42-inch LCD flatscreen television that streams music from your iPod, photos from your digital camera, and videos from your laptop. The lobby pulsated with Skittle-color pillows and nightclubby neon stripes. I made a reservation at Aloft Beijing precisely because I knew what I’d find there and didn’t want to take chances with cleanliness or comfort.

(Nicole Wong photo)

Turns out Aloft Beijing tops its sister sites around the world when it comes to making guests comfortable. Comfortable as they run out of a burning building, that is.

The canister, which Aloft only provides in Beijing to meet China’s standards, contained a “Fire Fighting Filter Type Self-Saving Breather.” (See my photo at top.)

And it came with this handy step-by-step “method of application”:

1. Take out the fire fighting filter type self-saving breather.
2. Tear at the packaging bag of the fire fighting filter type self-saving breather.
3. Wear helmet and pull contractive belt fast.
4. Choose way and flee for your life decidedly.

Fabulous, I was all set to escape. Now if only I could recognize the Mandarin word shouted for “fire.”

Nicole C. Wong can be reached at nwong@globe.com. For information on how you can contribute to the Passport blog, contact the Globe's assistant foreign editor, Kenneth Kaplan, at k_kaplan@globe.com.