Helicopters make good alarm clocks

I woke up this morning to helicopters and shouting outside my window. The shouting, which grew all day long, was from a group of people in the streets of Beijing protesting the Japanese embassy due to the dispute over ownership of a group of uninhabited islands.

The street is closed to traffic and close to a thousand, if not more, protesters are marching down the street chanting loudly, in unison and in Mandarin.

As the early rumblings took shape this morning, I had to go to the police station to complete my application for a residency permit. Despite the large crowd, and the helicopters circling the sky, it didn't seem serious. When we returned, less than an hour later, the streets were mostly barricaded and our driver had to be creative; he drove through parking lots, alleys and side streets to get us back to campus.

All week, there have been crowds of people near the embassy. It's been growing slowly and today the marching began. We've heard stories of Japanese cars being turned over in random areas, though that has not been confirmed.

We received an email recommending that we stay on campus unless it is an absolute emergency. I went for lunch.

On our way to the restaurant in Solana -- a place seemingly untouched by the demonstrations, though a ghost town today -- we stopped at the bank next door. Standing on the steps outside the bank I watched as the clusters of people marched the street in both directions and in separate lanes. They continued to chant.

A Chinese man who spoke English approached us, seeing us as foreigners, inquired about our thoughts.

"What do you think of the protest?" he asked.

"Well," I started, knowing I needed to choose my words carefully. "As long as no one gets hurt."

"I think it's illegal," he said to me.

I asked him what the marching clusters were chanting.

"They're saying 'fuck Japan' and 'kill the Japanese,'" he said.

I turned around and saw someone walk into the protest crowd with a homemade sign with a rudimentary drawing of the Japanese flag and the words 'fuck Japan' written on it.

This is all happening on my doorstep. We live down the street from the Japanese embassy. The air is heavier today, it has substance and it's not the pollution. It's anger.

Returning from lunch, police in full riot gear had joined the march alongside the people in civilian clothes and the boys on roller blades carrying Chinese flags.

I've been told not to take pictures. Some stories are starting to filter into the media at Reuters and Yahoo so it is getting attention.

It is expected to grow each day. People are saying Tuesday is supposed to be critical mass as thousands of people are predicted to be flooding the streets on the anniversary of the first day of the Mukden Incident that led to Japanese occupation of parts of China.

The story is being written in the streets.