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In my learning book Easy Steps to Chinese 4 textbook you can see the sentence:

在北京游览，乘坐什么交通工具比较方便。

For the first part of the sentence, 在北京游览 means "visiting/touring Beijing" but is this a shortcut of 你在北京游览的时候 or 你在北京游览时? Is there any difference between these three sentences? Could I say 在吃饭，我用筷子。 Any grammar reference?

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  • I believe “在北京游览（时）” means "When traveling in Beijing".
    – tsh
    Oct 15, 2019 at 9:35

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在北京游览，乘坐什么交通工具比较方便。
(When) On tour in Beijing, the public transportation system is relatively convenient.

在北京游览，is a general reference, not aimed at any specific 你, so no 你 is mentioned.

Chinese is direct, "在吃饭，我用筷子。" is wordy. Try:

我用筷子吃饭。

You could try entering "Chinese grammar of zai" in any search engine, you will get a lot of results. I got 161 million results!

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  • I have seen a lot of grammar with 在 but not what you said as a general reference. So 在吃饭，用筷子很方便 or would be right¿ Could you give me another example of general reference¿. In that cases would it the same meaning if you put 时or 的时候 at the end of the first clause. Thank you very much.
    – ANTXON
    Oct 3, 2019 at 5:23

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