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Killing time at DTW

Miraculously, all goes well. I get to the airport, have all the forms I need, get through security (the man in front of my who had several containers of rosin for his cello bow, had to give them up since he was unable to explain them) and blurrily watched several movies on the plane. I sat next to a young man who had spent several years in Hebei and Szechuan teaching English, and who is now going to grad school for a focus in game theory and biomathematics with a reference to evolution-- behavioral and biochemical. I even had something to say indicating vague comprehension of the idea! He said the first half of the year was very tough but by the end it was getting fun, and he would have re-upped but was accepted into grad school.

Nasturtiums in my back yard

At Detroit, there is an actual sparrow in the fake ficus by the coffee shop, singing its heart out. There must be another one somewhere. There are certainly many places a sparrow could call home around here. A real living being seems somewhat subversive among all the plastic, and very pleasing.

In Atlanta, there was, of course, a delay. I met someone on my flight also returning home who talked about her wonderful stay in Orvieto, in Tuscany. Next stop? Really, I'd love to go back to Spain, but preferably not in midsummer!
Flying is spooky. It is as if, once you enter the airport, you are in some kind of space/time/culture warp in which everything is synthetic-- airports, planes, sounds and sights, including the food. Then when you clear security and walk out into the sunlight, you are magically in a different place. Well, here I am, home again, as if I had not left. It's good!

                                           

                                                                     

July 12-- Capital Museum

I am reaching my limit-- tired, hot, and have done the first circle of things. More time would mean seriously learning Chinese, something I have pretty much punted in favor of communication by any means feasible. Often they don't understand me, or when they correct me, I realize my  pronunciation was not even close, or else I'm not sure what the difference was. But except for any sort of conversation, basic communication has worked out pretty well, with generally willing and helpful partners. I had a map issue this morning (subway stations were misleadingly marked, on the wrong side of the ringroad, and it was too hazy to really place the sun); a helpful policeman patiently explained which way to go, which seemed the opposite to me. He saw me sneaking the other way and explained again; of course he was right. Being divorced from text is a little strange, though there is a surprising amount of alphabetic text, and even English. And the internet, of course.

Le dedans du Palais de l'Empereur de Chine à Péking

View of the Imperial Chinese Palace in Beijing, 1750

Today I went to the Capital Museum, a large dark gray socialist piece of architecture that is supposed to be reminiscent of a watchtower. But it is full of light; and jade, and calligraphy, and ceramics, and an interesting if somewhat smarmy exhibit about hutong life in the early 1900s, and an interesting history of civilization which includes an idiosyncratic selection of great achievements: very early hominids, cave painting (in the Sahara, they say?), and so on up to the invention of bakelite. There was a gorgeous piece of petrified wood, a gnarly cedar root, with an opaque and remarkably uninformative explanation about how wood becomes fossilized. The lighting on the jade pieces made them seem to glow from within-- many tiny LED lights around the top edges of the cubical cases,all focused on the piece-- a wonderful effect. And many lovely ceramics. I have an idea how I could make a melon-shaped vessel, by making a string net and hanging a leather-hard round pot in it, then if it needed encouragement, pressing out around the string a little-- like those Italian cheeses. But unfortunately, mostly I was just beat. So hot. 

Tonight, Roger will wake me at 3:00 and I will take a taxi to the airport to go home. I am ready to be home, but anxious that everything works and gets me there as planned. When I get home I would like: to sit out on the deck with a glass of wine; to eat tasty peaches, not the bland ones I have had here; to be in my garden; to have a big salad. I will draw a series of lotus drawings/paintings; think about what to do next. Assuming that I do not, in fact, slide into the ocean.

Li Qun Peking Duck

Today when I got home, I was happy to find a pair of American teachers in residence. They had just a day or so in Beijing as part of a very whirlwind tour before a summer of teaching writing to high school students. We talked about some strategies to wrench students away from the concrete, and planned to meet the next evening for Peking Duck, after their trip to the Great Wall at Simatai, the place I had meant to go but missed. So happy to find companionship for this meal: the time I ate at a *real* restaurant by myself was wretched. In China, eating is a very social activity. Even the menu is designed that way. So if you order one dish, the waiter questions you, though one dish is more than enough actual food. It is not like being by oneself in a cafe here. And the tourist treatment becomes glaringly obvious. Unfortunately, I got back and waited. And waited. And at 8:00 went around the corner for something to eat. They didn't get back until 9:30, after I had turned in. Simastai is quite a trip, it seems. Nothing for it but to undertake the adventure myself!

The place I wanted to try was called Li Qun, and was a famous courtyard restaurant in the hutong not far south of the Forbidden City. (Originally, Peking Duck was invented as an exotic imperial dish.)  It was, needless to say, not even marked, much less named, on any of my maps, but that adds to the challenge. Early in the afternoon, I decided to do some recon to locate Li Qun and make a reservation. I walked around and around without finding it. . . eventually I found a place surrounded by other major buildings, tucked inside and behind, between a hotel lobby and a mysterious indoor garden. I thought that was Li Qun, since maybe construction had changed everything, and the person there seemed happy to agree to the idea. But later when I went back, it was clearly not what I was looking for. I tried asking many non-Chinese tourist types with varying responses. Once a couple enthusiastically pointed in opposite directions. Probably they were both right. Even when people pointed me in the right direction, there were so many identical-looking alleys with disorienting turns.  Boyish policemen didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I found it is pronounced more like Lu Cheur in Beijing. 

This way to ducks!

 Finally, I asked a wiry guy about my age who was leaning on his big white van, being cool: Once he understood what I was asking (I'd had plenty of practice getting the pronunciation right by then) he said he had never heard of it, but whipped out his smartphone and called some Save the English Tourist number. But she did not speak English, in fact, and also had never heard of the place. I tried naming the hutong, to no avail. But wait!  I had the street name and could pronounce it satisfactorily (I wish the guide had addresses and essential info in Mandarin) ; but he couldn't find it on his map app. I showed him the picture in the guide on the off chance it was familiar; it looked like it could be anywhere in the neighborhood to me. But the guy noticed that the picture included a sign with the phone number!So he called, and called again and guided me to the place (down an unpromising alley very near where I was). 

the oven and some ducks

I can only hope that visitors to the US find similar experiences, but I fear it may not always be so. So there was a line, which consisted of people sitting on dilapidated chairs in the alley outside the restaurant. A peek in the door revealed the maw of a huge oven, loaded with burning wood and hung with ducks. Boys wearing toques kept running to the woodpile stacked outside the door for fruitwood logs to replenish the oven. I could not order half a duck: it was one or nothing. Soon enough I viewed my glistening, crispy duck, the cook sliced it (I longed to give him a really good knife) and I got a brief lesson on how to eat it. I got the bones, too: too bad I can't use them.  The place couldn't have held more than 40 or so in 3 rooms.

 The duck was tasty, very dramatic, but I'm not the biggest fan of hoisin and I was alone. Many customers were drinking Coke with their duck! I guess in China, you can have no shame. The tea was very expensive, 48 RMB; and booze was in the thousands. When I was done, they actually boxed up the leftovers, so that's lunch tomorrow! Then when, when I left, I left my journal and the waitress chased me down the block with it. Good thing, I don't know whether I would have found the place again! 

I notice that most Americans, well, most westerners, are traveling in supervised herds. I have to say, my Chinese has not improved and in practice I use only a few phrases, but it isn't that hard communicating basic things. No conversation, of course: silent cab rides.  But the guided tourist trail is pretty Disneyfied and they are missing a lot. It feels totally safe to me-- shopkeepers keep their till in a box on the counter. And while you may get lost for awhile, that's when the possibility for the unexpected adventure arises.

  

Summer Palace and Botanical Gardens, July 10

Welcome to the Botanical Garden!

interesting very large planter!

I am running up against my three -week travel limit and am weary and footsore. But it is also hot here, and the tourist sights are getting sameish. Today I did go to the Botanical Garden. The beds and conservatory were remarkably uninteresting and poorly maintained. But there was lots and lots of green space and people out with their babies and popup tents (many mysteriously named Quechua) enjoying the (hot and hazy) day. There was a pond with waterlilies, and many photographers with big lenses were taking pictures of what, to me, looked lovely but nothing special as waterlilies go. I can understand the impulse to seek out and grab scenes, objects, and ambiences of natural calm and beauty, especially in urban China. I wonder if it is something, like the museums on the National Mall, that most people don't really take advantage of. I sat on a nearby bench and started painting, then they were taking pictures of me too.

the Stone Boat at the Summer Palace

Pavilion for Listening to the Orioles

Later, I went to the Summer Palace. More, more, more pavilions, temples, and so on. The heat made it feel like a trudge. The famous Long Corridor had pictures of peonies, landscapes, enraged knights on horses, women making obeisance to calligraphers, etc. None of them looked special to me, but probably all were painted by someone in the last 20 or so years. The stone boat was pretty amazing. The empress spent gold and energy on that at the expense of the military and other state needs: that sort of thing makes the idea of violent revolution entirely understandable. Appropriately for a summer palace, there was a pavilion for Listening to the Orioles, with a guy selling toy baseballs and birdwhistles out front. But he wasn't shouting,  “Delicious and Nutritious!”. Of course I have pics for Will. One mother saw me sitting on a rock and had the idea of having her toddler pose with me. There were some stunningly non PC souvenirs involving picaninnies cooking each other in large black pots and grinning... who knows what they think really of  white people? I mean, we are hairier than them . . . but richer, and possessing cultural and technical capital they want . . . we must seem in some ways foolish . . . Probably mostly ambivalence, until they can feel clearly superior in all respects.

Beihai Park, July 11

At a certain point, you begin to run down. I spent an afternoon strolling Beihai Park, a string of man made lakes and surrounding parks originally intended as a pleasure ground for the Emperor. There are pavilions and temples and bell towers, each with its requisite souvenir shop and historical plaque.There are at least 4 kinds of boats available to rent: lotus boats, swan boats, boats for larger groups, and rowboats. There was a lovely garden which actually had more appeal than some of the real ones-- shows what a barbarian I am. There were snack bars and restaurants dotted around, arbors draped with wisteria, shady paths. Ducks and Beijingers swam placidly in one lake. There were vast rafts of lotus, blooming beautifully. I took a boat to the island in the center, bought a don't ask-don't tell hot dog on a stick, and walked up to the temple. There was a British couple who, every couple of years, spent 6 or more months traveling. This time, it was a long trip through Asia. He was in construction, and bemoaned the poor quality of new construction and the corruption: he claimed that real estate speculators got loans from the state to raze the hutongs and build new office highrises, moving the residents out to the suburbs. Then, they were unable to rent the office space, defaulted on their loans, and the state paid. The buildings remain empty.

The garden was lovely, and had many enclosed spaces, some with bamboos of different kinds, with doorways at the end calling to be peeked through. There was a teahouse over a pond; the several parts were separated enough to form separate, uncrowded spaces inviting lingering and seeing what was next simultaneously.Among the bamboo, I was the only example of graffiti I saw in China. 

One of the tourist attractions was a photographer setup: your child could really be a little Emperor.

 

Quianbai from Starbucks

And there was a strip of bars, quiet in the early afternoon, with a Starbucks at the end. I was weak, and bought a large brewed coffee, which they had to make to order. A fancy frappucino they could have provided at once! I found a table by the water and started drawing. I even managed to chase away some loud Brits: they were ragging about the outrages of Rupert Murdoch, sounding like a convention of crows. After awhile, I asked if I could practice my English with them and they cleared out within a few minutes largely in order to avoid doing so! Live and learn. It was dreamily peaceful sitting there painting. One girl stopped and watched me for awhile, and posed for a photo.  Overall, a lovely time.

The Swan Boats

Sihuan Market

Sihuan Market

tropical fruit

I set off to find the Sihuan Market, venturing into territory unlabeled on the map. But getting there is half the fun, at least. So I wandered around in yet another guitar and musical instrument district, on a tree-lined main drag, not finding any of the streets on the map, and besides I didn't know their names. As ever, slipping behind the storefronts, you find another world within 30 feet. Wandering the hutongs is interesting; they do seem to have different personalities from each other, or maybe it's just the rhythm of the day? Anyway, I saw a street to the left that seemed to have some action, not just blank gray walls, so I went there, and the sellers of various things got denser over a couple of blocks, until I turned a corner, and there was this huge market.

All this activity had been overflow from the main attraction. Actually, there were at least 3 large covered markets, with satellites. One was fish and meat: every kind of crustacea, fish I had never seen, and a booth with more kinds of tripe than I knew existed.  Well, fish maw opens new venues, I guess. Lamb spines were hanging from hooks, and big slabs of meat in repose, ready for cutting by halal butchers. A quick sweep of the meat market on this hot day was plenty.

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There was a generalized junk market like the ones in Malakoff, with hardware, pots and pans, socks, soap, and so on; and a vast fruit and veg market. There were booths specializing in stone fruit-- apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums and several things in that neighborhood that I couldn't identify exactly; melons of many varieties, many hand-sized; greens of many varieties not including lettuce, spinach, broccoli, or cauliflower, or cabbage as we know it or even napa or bok choy (out of season I guess). I did get some mangoes and little tomatoes for tomorrow's breakfast and the trip, and a knife for the mango. There was also a row of noodle makers, several pickled vegetable dealers, a number of egg dealers (fresh chicken eggs, 2 kinds of preserved duck eggs, and quail eggs), tofu dealers (regular, spongey, smoked, skins, and so on, as well as a kind of rice gel), and a fish, turtle and plant section (for pets); a separate section selling dried pet food; and dry food like beans, cornmeal and so on;and spices (anise, cumin, chile—not too huge a variety). There were many kinds of mushrooms, fresh and dried, familiar and not,  in several booths. But no cheese, no olives, no apples, no chickpeas (but fresh edamame) or parsley. Surprise, they had dill! But no basil, parsley, or other Mediterranean herbs.  Outside there were rows of booths selling all kinds of Chinese fast food. I love a good market.

pickled vegetables

Steaming on, Hongquiao Pearl

After the Temple of Heaven, I was ready to head home, but when I emerged I found I was across the street from the Hongquiao Pearl Market, the tourist stuff market extraordinaire. I had decided that I did not want pearls, ripoff watches,clothes, or bags, but I had wanted to pick up a silk scarf as a gift. Not only can you not make eye contact with a sales person, but you can't show any interest, even a glance, at any of the wares or they will stick to you like, well, you know. It takes planning and fortitude to manage these situations-- not weariness! I escaped with only minor damage due mainly to not having brought much cash. 
They work hard to learn some English to do-- this? Maybe it is limited, scarf-selling English, and not up to conversation. But still. The number of people who have fairly menial jobs for which they need to speak some English is amazing.

Beauty 5 All Salon

It is unkind and presumptuous to pile on with funny chinglish, especially since we don't know enough Mandarin to even begin to make mistakes. But I saw a beauty parlor called Beauty 5 All , a new twist.

And, seen on the street-- a huge hospital called the Beijing Hospital of Femoral Head. Quite specialized! And the best menu item I spotted, Spicy Aborigines.(aubergines, I hope)


It seems at every site, I see the same group of elderly Chinese tourists wearing Burberry-patterned cotton bucket hats. They don't seem to have a tour guide. Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven-- they cover the ground, sweating through the days in good spirits.

minding the store

Below, some more hutong pictures. The one that I couldn't/didn't take because it felt invasive, was through one off these doorways in the evening, I could see a group of men playing cards under a light in the coutyard. It was a very painterly scene, and very evocative of the way things are. Who knows how much longer this life will last? What was most striking was how proximity seemed to build a sense of community that we don't have. Romanticizing that kind of neighborhood can be a snare and a delusion: there are always bad or dysfunctional people. Maybe when you live cheek-by-jowl, you learn tolerance, or at least to not be bristly about things you can't really control.

midmorning lull

 Behind the shops and noodle joints are living quarters. Courtyard houses that once housed an extended family have been subdivided to house many families.













Produce is delivered to the shops, and customers crowd around. There is a smell of breakfast-- soup noodles, frying dumplings, fried bread and eggs.

A Slave to the Moon Guide

I have become too reliant on my Moon Guide, because it is something I can master. I can decide to go to this park or that famous site because it feels obligatory, and because I can't really ask and it is too huge and too hot to just wander at random.  But in Beijing, many of the sites are variations on a theme. Maybe it would be better if I joined some tour groups, but I am resistant. Well, perhaps I am not collecting as many questionable facts, but if I look for places on my own, the proportion of wandering around, possibly lost, leads to interesting experiences. How lost can you really get? Even if you don't know where you are, you are still certainly somewhere.  I get to walk around neighborhoods on the way, as a collateral benefit. Mostly they look a bit worn, even if they are not very old. There is a surprising number of trees; and of course I seek out parks. The big-city parks here are wonderful.

Today I went to a permanent flea market called Panjiayuan in the morning and found they had (this is China) hundreds of booths selling small jade carvings, beads, etc. There were lovely caterpillars on leaves, and a white cicada perched on a brown peanut; the stone's color was stratified and the carver used that in planning his work. These were out of my range! Elsewhere, there were many stalls selling the same tourist pseudoartifacts, and also some lovely ceramics-- small vessels of graceful shapes; gourd-shapes, ovals; and ceramic chips. I did get a pair of matching 'jade' beads to make earrings with; I can add those tiny fluorite beads I already have. And I saw something unique of uncertain provenance-- a chunky necklace of veiny blue oblate beads with 3 different beads inserted, bought it, and slipped it on. Outside, there were various interesting but large objects like birdcages, pretty boxes with inlaid glazed ceramic chips as the tops, and wooden molds like butter molds or the speculaas molds, two per paddle of fish and butterflies.

Through two huge gates, the Temple of Heaven

  Later, I headed for the Temple of Heaven where the Emperor made ritual sacrifices for good harvests and the like four times a year. Big pomp. It is certainly grand, grand, grand, with fabulous, intricate paintings on the ceiling, several separate buildings with regal walkways between, enormous red gates with tantalizing views through the gateways. The use of this space involved many rigid rules and rituals. Commoners were not allowed to even peek at the procession as it wound from the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven on pain of death, and now we stroll along with our Popsicles. Even though there was music played through inconspicuous speakers to set the tone, as a historical/cultural site it didn't come alive for me, as an equivalent western site might. Understanding culture is not just intellectual. Chinese Buddhism seems very different from what I think of: Buddhism as a spiritual practice and way of thinking about the world, really almost secular. This is full of vast treasure accumulation and sacrifices, all about property and power. But of course, Christian religions also do this in various versions. 

Opera practice

This was not nearly as crowded as the Forbidden City, but still full of tour groups and picture takers-- but also a laid-back park scene in the non-temple parts. A huge park! The gods were presented with a view of jade-- the green surroundings of the temple.  There were opera singers practicing in a pavilion, just as the guide book said, using music notation that was completely unfamiliar, many picnickers, handy snack stands. I sat on a bench and snoozed with some other old ladies, who were also crocheting something lacy and knitting a big black sweater.

  A girl guard at the temple itself noticed my newly acquired necklace and asked me it, including the price. She wrote the Chinese name in my book-- which I think just translates to blue stone--lu song shi-- (turquoise?). She said it was from Tibet and then another man chimed in saying it was a prayer necklace. I took it off for the rest of the time there. Wonder what they were so interested  in? Am I unwittingly participating in some kind of cultural sacking? I can't think so.

This place is huge, full of paths and glades of various trees, walled spaces, big enough to get lost in. It is easy to get to a place where there is no one else.

YWCA Courtyard Hotel/Jing Yuan

The place I am staying-- I've described it briefly before. It does have paying customers. They are generally around for 2 or three days; I am a longtimer here. Rooms of various sizes and levels of luxury range around a courtyard; it is not square since there are various other buildings. There's a covered colonnade where one can eat in the shade that bisects the courtyard and various flowerbeds. A flowering pomegranate! Severely trimmed roses. And general greenness that makes a calm refuge inside this frenetic city. But many of the arrangements are inscrutable.
Roger, the young man who runs things, is always a bit on edge. There is a host of other people who live and work here-- certainly more than there are guests. There is they boy with the bird. He feeds it several times a day, lets it out (the bird is a fuzzy baby and doesn't yet fly; and it can't pick up food from the ground or even take proffered food held at mouth level; it has to be dropped into the back of its open gullet. This bird is very friendly and easily sat on my hand, hopped up my arm, and settled in my hair. There is also a canary, which seems to be primarily decorative. And a tub with a large and small turtle, who are not particularly gregarious.

 Right next door to me there is another boy of about 18 whose room has at least three computers and a number of screens. I know he plays games sometimes, and does something on the computers most of the time; what, I cannot say. There are a couple more boys who I think are camping with the bird boy. And several girls as well, who are maids, servers, and receptionists. There are many fairly invisible nooks and crannies-- places you don't notice until you see someone emerging from them.These various people make Roger anxious, since he seems to set great store by propriety and having things work as expected. The whole business with playing with the bird had him very agitated, and the bird is now banished.

Aside from the daily domestic drama, these people all have stories and I can't know them or talk to them. Of course, even if I spoke Chinese, I would not likely discover their stories. And the waitress and her—mother, the cook?-- at the greasy spoon down the road? And the guy who powers up his 6” by 4' grill every day around 6 to grill skewers of lamb to serve along with edamame and peanuts and beer to the local guys; the boy and mother who make dumplings every morning; the girls impeccably dressed making their way down the alley in the morning; the old security guard at the construction site who recognizes and greets me each morning on my way out? Hard enough to do it in Waynesboro! In a way, perhaps it is easier for everyone to be nice when we know we have an impenetrable wall of privacy that works both ways.

When I got home yesterday after the food walk, I found that a couple of American teachers had checked in, part of a Jesuit program to spend 6 weeks in Xi'an teaching higher order thinking and writing to high school students. We arranged to meet the next night for duck after they got back from the Great Wall at Simitai. Alas, it was not to be; Simitai is far, and they were away for 15 hours, getting back too late. My ambition dashed!

The canary met a bad end via the cat who slinks around. In the morning, nothing but some yellow fluff and overturned water bowls. 

Beijing Food Walk

Hakka Lunch!

After more wandering, I made my way to Qianmen, a grand street that runs just south of Tienanmen Square. A boulevard of buildings of the seat of government, and behind them lies a shopping district. Up to the Drum and Bell Towers to look at another part of central Beijing, (another area rife with intrepid German backpackers-- and hostels) --which includes the leafy guitar shopping district-- and a walk down to the meeting place for the food tour (http://www.hiasgourmet.com/gastro-walking-tours.htm.) There were only two others on the walk that day. The walk was interesting, fun, and delicious! *Boring food list alert * We had stinky tofu with mild cilantro, in a sweet bean sauce; not really very stinky; some baozies, doughy; then an interesting lunch including a blanched beansprout with rice wine and chili, refreshing and crunchy ( I think I'd modify to chili, a tiny bit of sesame oil, lemon or rice vinegar); a stirfry of celery, lily bulb scales, and cashews, very delicate with a light sauce; 1-1-1 duck (one part each soy, sugar, wine), very tasty; lotus root, not very interesting but I can see it as part of a meal; a lovely salad of tofu, smoked dried and shredded into vermicelli-like shreds; some wretched desserts. 

It's peach time! And nopales, and sunflower head time, too.

Then, cruising the neighborhood shops-- a revelation, yogurt in little jugs and the information that fruit from permanent stores was OK (tonight's dinner, apricot, peach, and yogurt)-- an imperial dessert that I think was rennet with red beans on top like berries but not. I am still not a big fan of red beans or hoisin. A lovely tour, if a bit of a splashout. Unfortunately, I could not recruit anyone to share dinner, Peking Duck, with me. I did learn to understand more of what I was seeing on my hutong strolls.

picnic dinner

Miscellany: I see mostly boys out and about, and unidentifiable babies. I know they outnumber girls, but not by 4:1...seems like I saw more little girls in Shanghai.

There is an incredible amount of construction going on here. I remember reading that the steel at times was substandard, and likely to start giving out in 20 years. But now it occurs to me that it might be the plan . . . that all the construction is part of the engine of growth, and they will happily rebuild when the time comes; that today's designs might be archaic by then anyway and may be considered stopgap anyway. I wonder if the steel in the iconic buildings is higher quality? There is a spate of articles in FP and the NYT  lately about how the construction boom here is economically unviable, and localities have taken on too much of a debt burden. Beats spending all the treasure in Afghanistan, though.

July 7, Liulichang Lu and Hutongs

A lovely thunderstorm and rinsing rain in the night, and a clear blue sky this morning.

I got up early and set off for Liulichang Lu via subway (Hepingmen) and hoofing. When I got there, everything was still closed on this ubercute, tree-lined and cobbled street just a few blocks south of the Forbidden City. The focus was calligraphy equipment as well as completed paintings and calligraphy. So I ambled down past the end to the hutong beyond. It was full of life and vitality, with all kinds of people running around getting the day underway. Deliveries of produce to the holes in the wall, implausibly loaded carts of bottled water, many little dragons-- tiny dogs shaved except for their heads; kids, guys on scooters, butchers;

There was a noodle making shop half the size of my classroom equipped with a machine that looked like an ancient printing press that I think kneaded the dough and then squeezed it out between a mangle: then the wife rolled the dough very thin with an enormous wooden rolling pin, rolled up the dough into a cylinder, and used a cleaver to shave off thin noodles, give the bunch a quick twist, and popped them into a bag for sale. I saw all kinds of tasty food.

one man had a turntable arrangement for his crepe pan, facilitating the spreading of the crepe batter on a huge round surface. Once the crepes are partly cooked, an egg or two are added, some fried tofu, pickled vegetables, scallion, chili sauce; then it is folded up and delivered, all for 3 rmb: $.45.  There were new varieties of donutty things, not sweet nor savory, just plain and crunchy; and a kind of egg mcmuffiny looking thing. I found a soup joint that for 2 rmb gave me a delicious bowl of soup with triangles of fried spongey tofu. They put a plastic bag in the bowl and put the soup in that. Beats even paper plates. The man next to me was holding a boiled egg with one hand and eating it with chopsticks with the other. It was wonderful to just watch all the bustle. And I don't think I was stared at a lot; odd since I was not in tourist territory. 

Back in Liulichang Lu, I bought brushes and a sketchbook, but not a chop. On reflection, it doesn't make sense to use a Mandarin approximation of a transliteration of my English given name as a chop. I may come up with some other design and get a dentist or someone to put it on the rock I got. But I am looking forward to taking the new brushes for a ride!

There was a calligrapher in a tiny shop there, about 6 by 10 with his work stuck on the wall and a workbench and chair, pots of ink, and brushes. He wanted to sell me a calligraphy scroll for 20 Yuan, 3.00. His living quarters were just behind the shop, and a bit smaller: a bed and chair, and scattered debris. Must be hard in winter. This setup seems common.  

Poking around in an antique/junkshop deep in the hutong, not on Liuluchang, I found a lovely little ceramic turtle. This place was tiny, and had all kinds of things jammed behind a chickenwire fence and on dusty, rough wooden shelves. some were utter junk, and some . . . I didn't know. The proprieter's starting asking price for the turtle was 28,000; oh well. I guess I have good taste anyway. Or maybe there was some order of magnitude error? 

In Beijing, my standard lunch became a Popsicle, which came in a variety of interesting flavors. Sometimes two! It was too hot to really eat, and unwashed fruit is a bit risky. Later, I discovered that those gray ceramic pots I had taken for baiju were actually yogurt: you buy and drink it on the spot; a great pick-me-up. 

The Great Wall, July 6

Beijing subway

Although it is less elegant and less consistent from station to station, car to car, Beijing subway is also very easy to figure out. There are time when it is very crowded, and you have to plan your exit, squeezing between passengers in time to exit the train.  But you must have exact change in coins, so I will have to start collecting . . . the security is also odd in places. Once I noticed that the xray machine must have been just a conveyor belt, since the picture the attendant looked at was not changing. Another time, my water bottle was detected, and I was asked to drink the water before passing; so after that I just carried it through in my hands, visible but not xrayed. Often the checkpoints were not in line between the entrance to the station and turnstile, so I doubt they were much used. At one point, there was a line to buy tickets, and it was an actual, snaking, patient line; something I thought did not happen in China. I guess these cultural changes are happening too, as well as the infrastructure and economic ones. I saw very little public spitting, some PJ wearing in Shanghai, and considerable tummy-displaying by men: they roll up their shirts over their stomachs on hot days. Restaurants and similar venues were not the smoke-filled dens I had been led to expect, either. It is amazing how the government can effect changes like this in a short time: I am thinking of the decades-long effort to curb smoking here.

My navigation challenge for the day: I succeeded in finding Comptoir de France: overrated and expensive, but anyway I found it, and walked a new neighborhood in the process! Practicing an archaic skill, map-reading. I met a South African woman and her about 16-17 year old son near the bus station where I was planning to catch a bus to the Great Wall.  She wailed, “Do you speak English? No one around here speaks English!” in an aggrieved tone. Cringeworthy. The kid seemed OK, and had an iPad. Which, true to form, he used to look at internet photos of where we were rather than out the window. So we figured out the bus thing with the help of helpful strangers; I had planned to go to the wall at Simatai, but wrote the wrong bus # down, and we all went to Mutianyu. Which was fine, as I came to appreciate later. Surprisingly, most tourists here were roundeyes, and  often the few Chinese turned out to be tour guides.

Our wonderful driver

A cab driver pulled us off the bus at Huiru shiqu and after a brief scuffle over prices (my heart is really not in it to fight for the last yuan any more) we hopped in and went the remaining 17 km, for 75 yuan for the three of us. This good man then shepherded us through the ticketing business, and finding the entrance, things that were typically complicated. (Normally, you buy the tickets in one place that is separate and sometimes not in eyeshot of the place you turn the tickets in.) And asked if he could wait to take us back when we were done. He was our guardian angel and made everything easy. Mrs South Africa was suspicious and anxious. She may actually be an OK person, but her preoccupation with avoiding everything to do with actual China or Chinese was offputting. However, I know I myself have failed to show gratefulness and graciousness for help at times when I have been anxious to figure out what was going on, where I was, not being able to communicate effectively etc., so.

There was a cable car up the mountain, which turned out to be an excellent idea because the climb would have been impossible: steep, far, hot. Probably illegal, too, I didn't see any provision for it. You stood on the platform and the cable car whacked you in the back of the knees, you perforce sat down, and off you went. As at Hangzhou temple, the air was wonderfully fragrant, but with something that looked like vitex; also wild crabapples the size of golf balls called haw-- a popular Popsicle flavor. Not at all like any forest I've seen before.  Then, jump off the moving cable car and start exploring.

The wall was...the wall, just like in the pictures, running along the crest of the mountain range. The guard towers had complicated arches and things and interior spaces, that didn't exactly form rooms. I didn't really organize the layout in my head, I now realize. It seemed random but surely it was not. The views of  the wall winding over the mountain were spectacular, and oddly, even though much of this section  is recently reconstructed and there was the cable car, it didn't seem disneyfied. The pictures cannot do it justice because the essential part was the space, the air and its fragrance and weight. Lots of Germans and Americans, some Italians...a toboggan ride down, but controlling it meant I couldn't really look at the surrounding woods closely unfortunately. My companions eagerly collected rocks, but for once I refrained. Anyway, I had this vision of  dumptrucks bringing a load of gravel to scatter around every night so visitors could collect 'real' bits of the wall. 

There was the usual gauntlet of souvenir hawkers at the bottom with the addition of dried fruit sellers where I paid outrageously for some tasty dried cherries and the South Africans posed for pics with some wizened old men dressed in Mongol suits (they were on the wrong side of the wall!) who, moments before had been smoking cigarettes and eating noodles out of styrofoam. Peter, it reminded me of the row of Janissaries smoking Salems after their performance in Istanbul.The driver found us, and we headed back. He had a little altar with small objects on the dashboard; when he saw that the boy was interested in collecting stones from the Great Wall, he gave him the one from his altar.

On the way back, we passed a field of light violet flowers, not lavender, which had about five white grand pianos and various brides swathed in white gauze with their compliant grooms-to-be scattered around for their wedding pictures. Quite surreal.Too bad the pictures didn't come out.

On the subway, I was contemplating a fat 6 year old who eagerly snatched the first seat available. I thought, this is one who will not get a girl when he grows up; unless he is rich enough to buy one from Thailand, which didn't seem to be the case. Chinese parents have a lot to worry about as well as be hopeful for.

Beijing -- Forbidden City and night market

Pedicab, anyone?

I am in Beijing, in the courtyard of my hotel. It is a remodeled courtyard house of the kind that Beijing was once filled. There are rooms arranged around a central courtyard which is lush and flowery and all is feng-shui-ed. This place is small and hard to find, and surprisingly quiet and peaceful considering that it is 1km from the Forbidden City and immediately surrounded by huge 6-storey shopping centers. There is a night food market nearby. This is a block of street merchants selling all kinds of food, from skewered lamb, shrimp, squid to scorpions, small whole sharks, seahorses and the like; tripe soup, veggie pastries, strange desserts served in half pineapple shells, bubble tea that is actually bubbling like a science fair volcano, all kinds of things. Pretty greasy on the whole though. I think I prefer the paella wagons on Ile de Re, even though they are less dramatic.

At the Forbidden City

On the first whole day, I set out to see the Forbidden City, a 15 minute walk from where I am staying. It rises up immense, and looks just like the pictures.  There are endless surging waves of people, thousands of them (including around here, zillions of Chinese tourists),but things seem to work out, including traffic. It is a different kind of orderliness, and the rules are more subtle than a list of rules, but not hard to do operationally--  just dive in. The Forbidden City is as if all of Capitol Hill and the Pentagon were walled in in one big reservation. There are dramatic huge pavilions, but along the sides there are alleyways where officials lived: behind the doors (which are not open to the public) are courtyard houses. I saw some workers hustling some lotuses in giant pots down one of these alleys, towards the garden at the back; otherwise staff were pretty much invisible. Workers lived outside the Tienanmen gates and came in every morning, out every evening. Though very grand, the built structures seem sterile to me. But it is filled with tour groups, almost all Chinese. It is one big photo op, and sometimes visitors from the countryside to whom I am an exotic creature want to take my picture. Or students want me to pose with them. I learned how to offer to take pictures of whole families with their cameras (so a parent would not be omitted) and then have them take one of me, often with part of the family. And I must appear hundreds of times incidentally in other people's photos-- click, click, click. I have an alibi!
The Forbidden City is set up as a huge walled area with one building after another, in sequence. At the very end are the Emperor's private quarters. In the first big open area, there was an informal basketball court! Must be for after hours play by staff. Souvenir booths sold fans with pictures of Mao, Chou En Lai, and Hu Jintao. And battery operated GI Joes (well, Chinese, of course) that wriggled across the ground shooting; plastic honeycomb hats like party decorations; and all manner of junk. And vast, vast empty spaces-- or rather, areas full of wandering people. Building after building, the whole thing is almost a kilometer long. There are huge pots around the walls that reminded me of the pots the Janissaries overturned to indicate revolution; and the originals (?) of the pair of lions that appear all over the place in Beijing and sometimes in front of fancy Chinese Restaurants here. I hadn't realized there is a male, with his foot on a ball indicating potency, and a female with her foot on a lion cub, indicating fertility and the future of the nation. 

 Some of the roof lines had interesting gargoyles. One of those things that I would know all about if I understood Chinese.  There was an interesting display in one of the halls showing domestic items and telling about the machinations around imperial weddings, relationships among the imperial family and advisers, and so on. It seemed like, as usual in situations where there are concubines who are expected to produce heirs, there was a lot of scheming on behalf of these sons. 
As my time in Beijing went by, and I saw more and more of these sites, they started to seem the same. Perhaps there was considerable destruction during the cultural revolution and it was all rebuilt along the same lines. The Forbidden City is so huge and daunting, it is impossible to really absorb it. At the end, there was a park/garden, and back out into the living city.


There is an interesting scam which I have encountered three times. A couple of young women approach and speak in English-- are you visiting, where are you from, etc. -- practicing English? No, they are art students and their final projects for the year are on display; would I like to see them? The first time they took me to the fifth floor of an office building where there was artwork on display, but it was obviously production line junk, in garish colors. But they went on about the traditions of Chinese art etc. Then as I am politely extricating myself they ask if I want to buy . . . the next time was on the grounds of the Forbidden City; I somehow thought that this scam wouldn't be happening here, but lo and behold, exactly the same artworks on display! I guess anyone who buys deserves it and may even be happy to have real artwork purchased at the Forbidden City.