I'm in Beijing, but this morning my heart is in LA.

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Pingyao: In English This Time

The weekend captured something I haven't really experienced since college probably. Something like a retreat, something to do with camaraderie, something about a place removed from time and everything usual.

It started with a packing frenzy Thursday night, and rushing to get an assignment done by 5pm on Friday afternoon.

Friday

Both accomplished, we piled into a taxi bound for Beijing West train station. We were stressed out about making our train -- Friday traffic is the pits -- and I was already going to that peaceful place where it didn't matter if we made the train or not. But make it we did, and we wound around other travelers and threw our bags onto the sleeper bunks. I can't really remember much about our conversations, only that they were good-natured and the kind you can't get enough of. We ate from plastic carry-out boxes, we nodded our heads in exhaustion, we played Set. I began to see a beauty in my coworker-friend that is equal parts hopeful and hungry for knowledge. Even when the train workers turned out the lights and we crawled into our bunks, we shared ghost stories and talked about l-i-f-e.

Saturday

The morning light was gray, the countryside dreary. The train was quiet except for the clanking of wheels on tracks and people slowly going about their morning business. I was groggy. We got to our stop, Jie Xiu, and almost missed it, but luckily Yang caught it in time. We went in search of breakfast on a lowkey snack street:

• Youtiao (Chinese doughnuts)
• Doujiang (soy milk)
• Soft tofu - 2 sweet, 2 salty
• Xiaolongbao (different from the Shanghai variety - these were more like mini-buns stuffed with ground-meat goodness)
• Jiaozi (dumplings)
• And two kinds of soup noodles with pork spareribs, one with regular noodles and one with clear.

All to be had for the price of 1-2 RMB each. Gawd I love China.


Took a bus to 王家大院 (Wang jia da yuan), this gigantic courtyard mansion in the middle of nowhere, where the Wang family started. It was super oldschool Chinese. John was so good as to lend me his camera from time to time to take pictures of cool things. The place was interesting enough, but probably not as interesting as debating whether Hero by Zhang Yimou is a good movie for what it is, or not. There was a small dog who took a liking to me for no good reason. The garden with its trees stripped bare of leaves was a somber and stony place, but I liked it.

Lunch was super “local," with many different kinds of noodles: knife-cut noodles, knife-peeled noodles, flat noodles, and this amazing dish we all fell in love with - shanxi youmian, or oil noodles, these flat noodles made with, I presume, oil, and steamed in beautiful shapes. It looked a bit like a fungus that might grow on a tree:

After a prolonged bout of bargaining, we got on a passenger van bound for Pingyao. Drank in some canyon-like land formations that would have been stunning if not for the perpetual and pervasive smog-haze. I hear that the area around Pingyao is especially active in coal-burning, for what purposes I don't know, but it makes for some pretty terrible air quality, worse even than Beijing.

We were dropped off at the east gate of the City Wall, one of the most impressively intact in China. Inside, the old town was not petrified like I imagined (I would call the old town in Lijiang petrified; this was just a bit rundown and choked with dust). There were a few gorgeous things to see, like one of the gates inside town:
The place where we stayed, Yamen Hostel, was another story altogether. We felt it as soon as we stepped in the warm, inviting, and laid-back lounge in front, where backpackers lolled about, reading, checking e-mail, watching Brokeback Mountain in the DVD room. It was the kind of place you wanted to hang around forever. We got our rooms and stepped back into the courtyard portion -- the hostel was converted from an old Chinese mayor's residence. It was like stepping into a movie, specifically Raise the Red Lantern by Zhang Yimou. The courtyard looked exactly the same, this magical and storied place, this portal into a past life:

We had a lowkey dinner from the place across the street and tried to watch several movies before giving up. The rest of the night was spent sipping local beer and half-singing songs we knew while ah-kuan (as we've come to call him despite his protests) showed a guitar who was boss. The girls' room was cold that night, our heater busted, but the blanket was warm and I slept well for the first time in days.

Sunday

Woke up rather late to the sound of my cell phone ringing -- Garry! After talking, we got ready to check out and find food to eat. Lunch was similar to dinner, with the addition of a dish called cat's ears, little pasta-like things shaped like cowry shells. We spent the afternoon browsing shops in the old town. I bought lacquer bracelets and contemplated a pair of lions cast with a striking turquoise glaze. Then, to escape the cold, three of us opted for a Chinese-style massage. I've had better, but it was still relaxing (not to mention cheap). Then it was time to catch our bus to Taiyuan, the nearest major city, where our train waited to take us back to Beijing.

We had soft seat tickets, because the stupid transportation system wouldn't allow us to buy return tickets from Beijing, and had to try our luck scoring sleeper tickets once we got on the train. This entailed much negotiating on Yang's part, plus a bribe of Y150 per head to one of the train workers. THEN, we had to swim through a sea of humanity to get from car #13 to car #2 - not an experience I really want to repeat, ever again. People were standing, sitting in the aisles, crouching at the ends of cars, smoking, vomiting on the floor (that was a kid). Finally, finally, we got to our designated sleeper spots and collapsed in relief. The rest of the night was uneventful...more talk-talk-talking, sometimes the topics so serious that I felt almost guilty. At 1am we crawled into bed, only to be shaken awake at 5:30am by the same guy who sold us our sleepers.

平遥非常， 特别，超赞 极了！

大家晚上好。 我今天早上从平遥到北京回来， 跟我的新朋友。 我们在平遥两天。 我们坐火车到介休看看王家大院， 让后坐汽车到平遥成。 平遥的天气很不干净。 也特别冷。 但是平遥的古城很有意思。 有很多买的东西。 我们的hostel是非常超赞！ 跟张艺谋的电影一样。 星期七我们买很多东西， 让后坐汽车到太原。 太原很大。 我们吃点晚饭， 让后座火车到北京。

The End.

If Mike Davis can call LA an "urban galaxy"...

...then Beijing must be an urban solar system, and the Forbidden City the unshakable heart at its epicenter.

With more than half my time here gone already, it's high time to take stock. This blog has pretty much been shameless posturing intended to make you salivate and hop the next Beijing-bound flight to partake in the orgasmic culinary cornucopia that is Asia. I'm dismayed by how much it pales in comparison to the work of LA Weekly journalist Jonathan Gold, my personal hero and the first food writer in history to win a Pulitzer. Those who follow my other blogs are probably sick of my love-worship of Mr. Gold, suffice to say that food-porn and weekend play-by-plays alone does not a blog make.

Last week I counted up my remaining weekends and panicked. So much to do and re-do, and so little time. I'm not even making good on my vow to stuff myself silly with Xinjiang food. So I proceeded to plan a day-trip to Tianjin (more later), a weekend in Pingyao. Next weekend is shot as I'll be dutifully taking my uncle around (but maybe I can catch the dawn flag-raising in Tian-an-men and finally get a glimpse of the mummified Chairman. Then one more precious weekend free before my family gets here. I feel like I'm going at a breakneck pace to fit in everything I possibly can, and with the vague notion that I can't afford to stop for a even a moment.

I've come up with a two-liner to deftly deflect any and all inquiries of "How's Beijing?" Biting back a retort to just "read my blog," I tell them, "Beijing is huge. And full of good food." This satisfies most people. If they push for more, I throw another bone: "The air is the suck." This indeed is Beijing in a nutshell for me.

I'm almost afraid to dig deeper for fear of what I'll find. First, the city: proud, ambitious, unapologetic, inconvenient. But also uncompromising, heterogeneous, cohesive and hopeful. And above all, a city of undeniable character. I feel I'm just getting to know it, just getting to develop things I crave about it, and it will be just moments before I have to leave.

Then, the food: abundant, piecemeal, delirious. If I had a nickel for every time the word "delicious" made it into my blog...

The people. They fall into at least two categories, of course: expats and locals. There might be a specially small contingent of huaren (overseas Chinese) like me, people thinking they're coming back to the "Motherland" realizing they'd never felt less Chinese in their lives. For the expats, I feel an unspoken bond of family, strange citizens in a stranger world, whether I've spoken to them or not, whether they're just here for fun, have an unhealthy interest in Asian things, or genuinely love the city. With the locals, I'm finally feeling accepted as a friend (rather than treated just with courtesy and curiosity), though I know I'll never actually be one of them as long as my language skills are on par with those of a 5 year old child. Nor would I want to be. Coming to Beijing has been a great exercise in confirming my Americanness, and in so many ways I'll be glad to be back in the States.

Anyway, all I know is I can't leave it at this. I'll be coming back soon, for sure, for Xinjiang, and Tibet, and Haerbin (from which my slight and gently long-fingered new hairdresser hails). Not for the Olympics, I don't think - I'll pass on the hysteria, thankyouverymuch.
_______________________

That said, where did I leave off? Starting from two weekends ago:

• Climbed some obscure mountain with the teammates
• Got a haircut in Wudaokou.
  
• Had western style brunch - twice, once at Lush and once at Kro's Nest (the first was better).
  
• Visited Capital Museum. Got very dizzy in the spiraling tunnel of the special exhibits structure.
• Had a sundae at McDonald's that was way too sweet.
• Compared the Russian food at Traktirr Pushkin to that of my darling Kiev. (Both delicious - Kiev wins because of the opera singers).
• Went karaokeing, FINALLY. It was a karaoke palace, really - a place called Party World with miles of marble halls and ropes of crystal hanging from chandeliers. Full buffet. Oh, it was rich.
• Visited Tianjin: Pleasant train ride, Port Authority Architecture (lots of stodgy old European Buildings), Kiessling's Bakery,mediocre Goubuli dumplings, buying lots of things at the Foreign Goods Market. Missing the famed Antiques Market by just a half hour, but then proceeding to buy more artsy shit I don't need at the old gucheng (Ancient Culture Street). Suffering a 2.5 hour bus ride back to Beijing.
• Partying it up at Vic's for the first time, severely damaging my eardrums, shimmying alternatively to techno and hip-hop, and discovering this amazing local drink that mixes sweet green tea with whiskey.
• Finally checking out the Harvard-like hallowed grounds of Beida University.
• Dining at Middle 8th Restaurant, deciding I'll never get sick of the tender veal grilled to perfection, nor the variety of fruity teas.
• A Beijing-style Thanksgiving dinner that put many a previous feast to shame: homemade dumplings stuffed with shrimp, egg, jiucai (chives) and copious amounts of dill, roast turkey for which our host trekked 3.5 hours to some Texas barbeque place near Silk Market to procure, and various spicy localized dishes.

All right, I think I'm done for now.

"So good-ah, so good-ah!"

Racks of lamb flown in daily direct from Xinjiang.

Tonight was probably one of the best meals of my life. Or at least, in the last few weeks. Which is saying a lot, because I've sure had my share of good food. Tonight it was the Yisila Restaurant, the Xinjiang provincial office associated restaurant, with a fun-loving group of friends with whom I play foosball (incredibly poorly, I might add) after lunch often.

OMG.

I kind of wish I'd been born Uigher or something, so I could eat this kind of delicious food every day. Started with delightfully light, sweet, and tangy sheep's milk yogurt garnished with nuts and seeds.

Then, the very typical Uigher dish da pan ji, literally "big plate chicken," a huge dish of juicy chicken marinated in some magical sauce, over strips of handmade flat noodles.

Next came the yangrou chuar, or grilled lamb skewers dusted in spices, and two "sheep legs," which were pretty much just the bones with some meat clinging to the ends of it. There was a delicious tomato-based beef soup that was thickened with, I think, potatoes, very hearty and flavorful.

And then, the star of the evening, la tiao zi, or hand-pulled noodles. To look at them is not to be impressed, because it just looked like ordinary linguini in a bell pepper and onion sauce. But oh, oh, to slurp them up and chew them is heaven. There is nothing like fresh, hand-made noodles, so chewy and delectable, so unlike anything I've ever had in the States.

I want to cry to think that I won't be able to get this once I leave. I seriously consider taking one of the chefs home with me so I can start a Xinjiang-style restaurant in the states.

On the way home, Armin looked at how silly I was being and he's like, man, you don't need to drink at all, do you, you just eat food and it has the same effect as getting drunk. I was like, yup. I'm high on life, baby, high on life. :-P

"Food is in China, Flavor is in Sichuan"

(Clockwise from top) Marinated port short-ribs, sauteed julienned potatoes, spicy chicken.

"You are so lady today!" That is what a told me the other day, when I walked up in a kneelength, fishnets, and the only pair of non-frumpy shoes I brought with me to Beijing. I took it as a compliment =D.

We went to this newly remodeled Sichuan restaurant in Wudaokou. Yumm. Refrained from ordering the most mouth-numbingly spicy dishes, but there was still liberal use of this strange spice I'd never encountered before in my life: huajiao, or "flower pepper." Named as such because it looks like a tiny flower. I don't really like it, I decided, because it kind of numbs your membranes. Anyway, here's a pretty traditional Sichuan dish that comes in a gigantic basin (this picture doesn't do it justice) filled with oil, not soup as I originally thought! Submerged in the oil is a whole, tender, delicious fish, bean sprouts, chilis, and other tasty things.

And some other side dishes: leafy greens and sauteed lettuce hearts garnished with 1000-year-old eggs.

One happy bunch:

Good Things Come from Xinjiang.

Last Saturday a coworker, whose dad is a chef, cooked us this amazing spread of traditional Beijing and Sichuan dishes while we waited (for 3.5 hours!) and played Mafia. I can't get over how awesome everyone here seems to be at cooking:

The Feast

Marinated meatballs over napa cabbage

We went to dinner at Hatsune, an expensive and mediocre Japanese restaurant in Chaoyang, where we ordered a full 1.8 L of cold sake (plus a couple bottles of warm sake) and Armin and Aki proceeded to finish the whole thing. Amazing. Sandy, Joe and I helped a bit (a tiny bit).

"The Butterfly Roll":
Snow crab and tempura shrimp inside, shrimp, unagi and avocado on top.

We then headed to Bar Blu in Sanlitun, but it was "closed for reasons we cannot control (we hope to reopen in the near future)." Very cryptic.

So at that moment Aki sees a guy he recognizes. Turns out he's part of this band called the Xinjiang Boys who play flamenco, Gypsy Kings covers, and traditional Uigher music with a twist. They were heading to a bar called Cheers (again, packed to the gills with foreigners, but quite a few locals too) to perform. I'd actually heard about these guys before I came to Beijing - a friend of a friend was a big fan and probably their first groupie. Turns out they they were AMAZING. The lead guitarist was especially talented, with such masterful control of his classical guitar that I wanted to weep. Before I ruined my camera I managed to capture a few short clips:





Unfortunately they don't have a website, nor do they even have a recorded CD. I am seriously considering, if I can find a small recording studio here for relatively cheap, just paying for them to get some of their stuff recorded so I can take their wonderful music home with me to the States - it would be the best souvenir ever.

Anyway, so now the Xinjiang Boys, along with Chinese-Muslim architecture, lamb skewers and hand-pulled noodles, rank among the Many Wonderful Things That Come From Xinjiang Province.

Sunday I went with a coworker friend to 798 Art District, this gigantic area filled with cutting-edge (and sometimes insipid) galleries, cafes, and bizarro sculptures. Contemporary artists in China seem to have quite the obsession with the Cultural Revolution, Communism, and the Cult of Mao. I guess I can't blame them, given the circumstances. Here's some pics we snapped with my friend's camera:

Barbecued sliced beef and broccoli at some 1970s-style restaurant in 798

Pepper Chicken, w/ String Beans in the background

Bizarre but cool sculpture

A bad week, electronically.

Prepare for at least 3 weeks of pictureless entries because I have finally ruined my camera, my trusty little digital camera, a good 10 years old, passed down from my dad to my brother to my dad again, and finally to me, and built like a tank (or so I thought).

I was holding an open drink on the street, looking for a friend, when I saw a beggar on the side of the road. Normally I don't quite trust them (esp in China) but he seemed like he really needed the help, so I stopped. I had my camera dangling from one elbow, my drink wedged in the other, and was fumbling around in my purse for Y5. As I bent down to give it to him, my drink of course spilled over everything, including my camera. And then, I was stupid enough to power it on before it dried. So now it's quite finished.

And then on Monday, I dropped my laptop. The screen is toast. But the hard drive seems to be ok. So, wangqianzou.

This Week in Food: Halloween + A Little Chinglish

Monday: Ganguoju again, for Guizhou-style hotpot (tomato-based w/ a whole catfish) again. They call it suantang yu (sour soup fish). I am an addict. No pictures, sorry.

Tuesday: Korean food at this place that's supposed to be the most popular in Wudaokou, but it turned out to be pretty mediocre. Who ever heard of kimchi fried rice with no SPAM in it? Or bibimbap with no bulgogi? It looks prettier than it tasted:

And the aftermath: the inevitable multitude of small bowls that accompany any Korean dinner:

Wednesday: Company Halloween party (yay ham skewers, fried chicken wings, and rice balls with faces!).

Followed by dinner at the illustrious Kro's Nest Pizza, a smoke-filled joint, equal parts local and expat, with gargantuan but scrumptious pies (check out the large below).

And yes, a "shit-load of pepperoni" and a "shit-load of cheese":

Tonight: Fusion-style hotpot at one of the most swankily decorated restaurants I've been to yet. Check out the shine:

Here is the basic equipment: individual hotpot (so genius!), bowl for letting your soup cool, plate for eating just-cooked meats and veggies, saucer of delectable sesame seed sauce, and chopsticks with natural-chic stone chopstick rest:

The meats:

The veggies:

"Balls Combination":

And my favorite part, the menu that makes absolutely no sense in English (Chinglish lives on in Beijing, my friends!):