My Adventures in Beijing & Beyond

"Their objective is to get every penny from you..."

2008-01-21T06:39:00.001-08:00

Russell Peters wasn't kidding. I have to hand it to Chinese tour operators, even though to me they present a special kind of torture. They lure you into these package tours with absurdly low prices (in my case, Shanghai-Hangzhou-Suzhou for HKD$2000, just around $260). Then they trap you on a bus and take you to places like silk factories, teahouses, gigantic jewelry stores.

Today I witnessed the latest abomination in Chinese tour scams, something I thought really demonstrated the creativity with which they plot to dupe unsuspecting tourists:

Outrageously expensive "lucky" stone lions!

I didn't understand a word of the guy's sales pitch in Cantonese (which sounded like it was positioned as a history of the stone lion in Shanghai, why they were special, historic examples of their luckiness, and how monks prayed blessings over these particular lions so they were extra lucky--with warnings not to buy the "fake" lion souvenirs so readily available in other places). Curious, I went over to a rather small lion, about the size of my palm, and nearly gagged. Y2300! That is almost $300 USD. I asked someone if they were made of some rare and wonderful material. Nope. Apparently they are expensive because of the monks' prayers that make them extra lucky. Even the tiniest lion, which would fit on a keychain, was about USD$30. I didn't even venture to look at the larger lions that people would use to flank their doorways.

But what really flabbergasted me was that people in our tour group seemed to be taking them seriously. People tell me that older Hong Kong-nese are rather superstitious, but it really surprised me when people started dropping thousands of yuan from their hard-earned money on these lions. One woman bought three of those little guys for around Y300 each, and another guy bought the Y2300 one.

Later, when the tour took us to a pearl factory, no one bought any jewelry at all. Moral of the story: luck sells, vanity doesn't.

Back in business, sort of.

2008-01-21T06:31:00.000-08:00

I am so behind on blog-posting by now that the enormity of what I have to post makes me want to avoid it altogether. But I feel like I need to get this stuff down somewhere, or I'll never remember what it was like to visit all the places I've been visiting the past three weeks. I think the best approach is a non-chronological one, because it would just take too long to get down all the details. Also probably be boring. I also think snippets beat out my usual long-winded accounts detailing every meal and turn. So I'll just do my best, even though I go home in 3 days and a lot of it will be after the fact. But here goes.

Thank heaven for free airport wi-fi.

2008-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, which rivals the Hong Kong airport in cleanliness, modernity, and distance from the city. I can't believe how long it took us to get to the airport from city center, and our cab driver was averaging 110km/hour.

Anyway, I'll write more if I have time but basically after a week in Singapore I hopped a coach bus bound for KL. We spend maybe 2/3 of the day exploring KL and buying gorgeous batiks by the armload. Though ironically I find myself preferring Javanese batik to the Malaysian ones here (I like the method of dyeing but none of the patterns have really jumped out at me). I dropped US $100 on an abstract batik painting by an up and coming artist that looks like something I would see at SFMoma. Better, I figure, than spending $5000 on a painting by an established artist. And I can even wash and iron this piece.

Everywhere I go there is curry, which is not good for a tummy recovering from another (less serious) bout of tummy issues. The traffic and city planny in KL is completely mad. The city is raw. But I kind of like it.

We're heading to Penang now... more later.

Dying...for...internet...

2008-01-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

Don't worry, I'm still alive and kicking, I just don't have reliable access to internet, or it's hella expensive. I'm in Singapore now, just got in from HK. I don't know why I'm in these first-world countries and struggling to connect to the web. My hotel charges an exhorbitant SGD 0.85 per minute. I don't know anyone who charges internet by the minute. This is turning me into a firm believer that internet should be free, to everyone. Geez, man.

More later (if I have time after work and can use the Internet there).

Beijing says: “See you on the flip side, snookums.”

2007-12-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

My last week in Beijing was a little less exciting than one would hope, mostly because it’s impossible with my family to get out of the house before noon (or rather, 2pm in most cases). So on the weekend we end up wasting the whole day, and by the time we get out, all the sights are closing and all we can do is have dinner, get home late, and start the cycle all over again. I had my heart set on the flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen, and seeing Mao’s Mausoleum before I left, but ended up doing neither (and the flag raising isn’t even that early in the winter time… 7:30am vs. 4:30am in the summer).

But I did manage to have some nice dinners, including a splendiferous Christmas feast at Da Dong Kao Ya (Beijing Duck), reputedly the best duck restaurant in the city. It certainly was the fanciest. The duck itself is similar to Quanjude, but notably leaner and crispier because of their special roasting method (which you can witness from the foyer, this army of young chefs in toques, sweating as they hold fat, glistening duck carcasses over open flames).

The other dishes we got were, each one of them, were nothing short of a taste experience, visually artistic and flavorfully complex. Started with some cold broad beans mixed with some delicious mix of black bean paste and tea leaves.

Moved to two types of scallops, one in X.O. sauce and one fried lightly in batter and served over a corn and soy mash relish. Then had tender, flavorful oxtail (boneless, skinless, fatless), a kind of whitefish ball over some green sauce, and halibut glazed in a tangy, sweet sauce. Finished with a dessert of Beijing battered apple chunks glazed in melted sugar and tang yuan (sesame mochi) in a coconut milk broth.

I think I pretty much gained all my weight back, hah hah hah. That reminds me of a story someone told me (who shall remain nameless) that made me much less happy about losing weight while in Beijing. Warning: Don’t read further if you don’t want to spoil your lunch! Apparently he woke up one morning and really had to go to the bathroom. He went, did his business. But when he turned around to flush he saw something in there that really didn’t belong. It started moving. And to his horror he realized it was a 7-inch worm. A WORM! That came out of his BODY! He wanted to get rid of it but figured he should get it to a doctor for medical/scientific purposes, so he fished it out with a fork and stuck it in a water bottle. Even the doctor was grossed out and showed the worm to his doctor buddies down the hallway. Anyway, turns out there was only one worm and after a couple days of anti-worm medicine, he was okay.

Just be careful what you eat and get a physical check-up when you return home!

The rest of the week was pretty much spent re-eating at all my favorite places, except one nite we tried a new restaurant, Tai something or other. Most notable was the large sand pit in the foyer where they kept hundreds of live turtles. Cute as they were, they were intended for food, as I later saw braised tortoise on the menu. Sadness.

Had a good-bye dinner at the Hunan place near work and it was so bittersweet to say goodbye to some teammates and good friends that I’ve grown really fond of these past few months. I started missing them, and Beijing, before I even left. Gave out a lot of hugs and promises to visit next time I come to China (which may be sooner than I originally thought!).

More pictures form my last meal in Beijing, at, you guessed it, the Xinjiang restaurant:

My favorite dish, laghman. I could eat a whole plate of it by myself.

Da pan ji, a signature Uigher dish with spicy, flavorful chicken, potatoes, and flat, wide noodles.

Mutton and broth over Uigher bread.

Did someone say booties were "in" this season?

2007-12-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

Check out these beautiful little boots my mom and I picked up at the "arts and crafts" warehouse on Wangfujing Dajie. These have got to be some of the best souvenirs I've gotten from China so far, even though only a small child, or woman with bound feet, could wear them. At Y48/pair, they weren't exactly cheap, but they're supposedly hand-embroidered. At least one or two pairs will find a happy home on my bookshelf =D.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

2007-12-24T08:22:00.000-08:00

Never felt less like Christmas Eve, so thought I'd share a favorite Christmas hymn of mine.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times did'st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Beijing says: "We will out-Christmas yo' arse!"

2007-12-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

This is a post I've been preparing for a while, slowly collecting evidence and material to really get the idea across. That idea being Christmas in Beijing. Not "the holidays," as it is now known in the States, but Christmas. Yes, Christmas, and the holiday greeting of yore, "Merry Christmas," lives on...in China of all places. Apparently Beijing department stores have caught on to the commercial opportunities of the holiday season but no one told them it was so very un-PC to breathe the word Christmas. And, apparently, there aren't enough emphatic non-Christians in China to tell them otherwise. So the watered-down greeting of "Happy Holidays" is nowhere to be found.

I find this all incredibly fascinating because of everything I've read (and seen) about post-Cultural Revolution China being spiritually void. We talk about Christmas as totally commercialized and devoid of meaning in the States, just an excuse to spend a boatload of money on presents, and get together with family, and assuage our yuppie guilt for the less fortunate by unburdening ourselves of old clothes and canned foods. And maybe some portion of the population holds onto the idea of Christmas as it was originally celebrated--the birthday of Jesus.

But here in China, it's like they take the commercialism to a new level because even fewer people, if any, really believe in Christmas... and the idea of the holiday's origins is only a vague and distant novelty of a notion. To my coworkers and friends, it's just an interesting Western import, like KFC or McDonald's, a fun festival time and an excuse to have lots of sales and go shopping.

And yet Christmas is everywhere! Every hotel, shopping mall, restaurant, club, tourist destination is totally bedecked in Christmas decor. Observe the following.

Exhibit A: Christmas tsotchke hanging from the foyer of the Xinjiang restaurant. Xinjiang. As in, "Christmas Greetings from our Muslim family to yours."

Exhibit B: Christmas display in front of Cargo club, plus detail of some odd but strangely cute snowmen. But of course, the one thing you want to see while stumbling around tipsy and half-deaf is a bright and cheery Christmas display!

Exhibit C: Christmas paraphernalia adorning the entire front facade (five floors!) of a department store off of Third Ring Road:

Exhibit D: Gigantic white Christmas tree in the lobby of my apartment, with gigantic banner proclaiming "Merry Christmas." Followed by decorations on the revolving doors:

Exhibit E: Scary-looking Santas and sparkling reindeer in the hallway at 中八楼 restaurant near 新中关：

Exhibit F: Christmas tree at Alba in Nanluoguxiang. Yes, it's got color-changing fiber-optic lights woven throughout! So high-tech:

Exhibit G: More scary Santas at the door of our cafe at work, and full-on life-sized gingerbread house display in the lobby of the office building next door:

Exhibit H: Bored-looking worker at the food court in Zhongguancun shopping mall, complete with Santa hat (in fact, all the workers there were wearing Santa hats, even the women clearing the tables of dirty dishes).

Yes people, I do believe the Christmas spirit in Beijing is even more pervasive and replete than in California. I remember years where, if I didn't happen to go to a shopping mall in December or tune into KOST 103.5, it wouldn't feel like Christmas at all until maybe Christmas Eve.

Here, do you know how they've been answering the phone at the reception desk in my apartment? "Hello, thank you for calling ______, Merry Christmas, how may I help you?" They play Christmas carols in the elevator and in the cafe at work. And probably the most bizarre display of misplaced Christmas spirit was when I entered a mall in Chaoyang on my way to South Beauty restaurant, and was surprised by no less than six Chinese girls flanking each side of the entrance, all dressed in identical short-skirted Santa outfits, who bowed at us in unison and exclaimed, "Merry Christmas!" I hardly knew how to respond and now I wish I'd gotten a picture of them for Exhibit I.

And yet, all of my coworkers will be working through Christmas Eve and Christmas. I will surely take Christmas Day off, but I think I will go into work tomorrow. Kind of sad, and I'm not even sure if there are church services to go to on Christmas Day. Note to self... always try to be home for Christmas from now on. It's just not the same.

Today we put on our tourist hats...

2007-12-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

...took one of my coworker's advice and made our way to Laoshe Teahouse near Qianmen for very typical Beijing food followed by a smorgasbord of traditional Chinese entertainment. Dinner (stir fried snow peas, some delicious whitefish, and jiajangmian) was accompanied by some traditional music and shadow puppet show:

In the foyer was a statue of some Chinese bigwig shaking hands with George Bush Sr.:

Included with the show were some Beijing desserts and my favorite tanghulu, plus tea.

The performance started off with some Beijing opera (from Farewell My Concubine), followed by more singing, a magic show, kung fu demonstration, acrobatics, traditional Chinese dance, some strange dudes whose talent was imitating various sounds like a train, a baby crying, and birds chirping. Below are pictures of the dance and my favorite act, the Chinese face-changing performance.

All in all, a very satisfying entertainment experience =)

Now, where was I?

2007-12-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last updated because I've been wrapping up my final project at work. Wow, what a relief to finally finish it. So now I have lots to catch up on. Starting from last week:

Saturday we went for, what else, Xinjiang Uigher food. Got almost all the favorites, including yoghurt and hand pulled noodles and lamb skewers. My mom really wanted to see the Beijing Wax Museum but it was closed indefinitely, so we went instead to Beihai Park. It had a decidedly different flavor from the other hai's... more chilled out, plus some pretty interesting courtyard mansion/temple thing.

It was seriously freezing, and you could see the ice on the lake, and ducks and koi kind of paddling around miserably.

We hopped a bus (my first time on a bus) to Wangfujing, where they were just setting up the snack street stalls. I just realized I never posted pictures of this touristy but pretty interesting night market, where you can get everything from lamb skewers to silkworms and centipedes. One of the more ingenious things I saw were giant xiaolongbao with straws stuck in them so you could suck out the soup before you ate the dumpling. So brilliant:

And of course the obligatory photo of crazy insects and stuff that normal people would never eat:

Then we went to Silk Market, and wandered around looking at cheap stuff we didn't really want to buy. But I did see this gorgeous Yunnanese headress made totally out of silver. It was like having a garden made of silver on your head.

And I ended up buying a pretty silver necklace from the same vendor. Bought a yam off the street before wrapping up the evening with another night at, yes, Cashbox KTV.
____________

Sunday we went to Prince Gong's Mansion in Houhai, which is probably one of the hardest places to find, buried as it is in the hutong. I'm glad I finally finally got to see it... pretty cool but after a while you realize every Ming/Qing-style mansion in China pretty much looks the same. Some pictures:

Then caught a rickshaw ride along Houhai and had an early dinner at No Name Restaurant. My mom, having been born in Kunming, loves Yunnanese food, especially the rice noodles in broth that she used to eat every day for lunch when she was in college in Burma. She asked the chef to make a special order of suancai zhurou mishen, or rice noodles with pickled mustard greens and pork.

She was so happy about it. We also tried these amazing sweet corn fritters, delicately punctuated by special Yunnanese ham:

Then went to Yandai Xiejie again and found this little boutique specializing in minority-inspired designs, but they owned their own factory and had their own designers to the clothing was pretty unique, unlike any other I've seen in the regular shopping malls. My mom bought a cotton top with Chinese collar, and I bought two dresses, one rose linen halter with hand stitched embroidery along the bodice and another made of blue and white batik in some flowery design. And a kimono-like tunic.

Walked afterwards to Nanluoguxiang. I was determined to find Alba, this tiny coffee shop my friend told me about that supposedly had the best almond tofu he's ever had. We found it and tried it, and yes, it was damn good. I think they add some heavy cream to the almond pudding to make it really thick and rich. Then got some yummy mini buns to go at Hangzhou Baozi.

Monday, took my mom to that amazing Guizhou restaurant near Yuanmingyuan. We had suantangyu, a tomato-based sour hotpot soup with whole catfish and all the fixin's:

Tuesday, bid farewell to Joe and Aki with a quick dinner at Ganges, the Indian restaurant in Wudaokou. Pretty good overall, but I think it's whack they serve Chinese white rice rather than basmati at the Indian restaurants here in China. And the saag vaguely resembles soylent green.

Wednesday, went with the Happy Girls to The Secret Garden, a Hunnanese place close to work that I hadn't been to since my first week in Beijing. It was even better than I remembered. Started with this delectable fatty pork and "wahaha cai," or napa cabbage:

And had some jelly-like potato noodles with pickled cabbage, and yummy rice-based tofu stuffs:

And the crowning signature Hunan dish, fish head covered in chilis:

The rest of us gagged at the idea of eating the fish eyeballs, but that did not deter the intrepid 老P from trying it:

Friday night, after a long week, I went to meet my mom and brother down by Oriental Plaza, before deciding to try our luck at Chuan Ban. Even though we got there at about 8:45pm, we still had to wait half an hour for a table. But it was well worth it and we gorged on all the Sichuan favorites. The laziji proved too spicy for most of us, and at the end it served as fodder for a contest between Lucy and Armin to see who could pick out the most pieces of chicken from amidst all the chilis in a set amount of time. Here they are, each determined to win:

Yesterday, didn't do much. Had an early dinner at 中八楼 again. This time, tried a new dish, stewed beef with Yunnanese mushrooms. It came with some deep fried breadsticks that were delishous. The crock-pot mishen I was not as much a fan of:

Also got a picture of the beautiful peacock lamp along the wall:

At night, my brother and I checked out a different club strip I hadn't explored before, starting with Cargo. I was amazed at how local it was... I'd been under the impression that local Beijingers didn't really do the whole nightlife thing. I was sorely mistaken... there they were, packing the lounge tables at Y600 a pop, sipping their drink of choice, sweet green tea + whiskey, and dancing to super beat-driven house. Snapped this picture of the outside of Richy's before the security guard told me to put away the camera:

Then met up with another coworker at Vic's, and played liar's poker a while before heading to Bellagio for late-night Taiwanese eats. Finally snapped this picture of the sun rising from my apartment window:

Elegy for a "Falafel Joint."

2007-12-13T18:33:00.000-08:00

More LA news. Someone alerted me today that sister restaurants Noura (on La Cienega x Melrose) and Eat-a-Pita (Fairfax btw 3rd and Beverly) were both shut down recently. Noura, at least, has been turned into a upscale French restaurant that serves the best hamburger Jonathan Gold has ever tasted. This is small consolation for me though, because Noura and Eat-a-Pita used to serve, hands down, the best falafel and stuffed grape leaves I've ever had. I didn't even like stuffed grape leaves before I ate them at Noura--most places make them too sour, to squidgy, too small. Noura used this delectably fluffy risotto rice delicately marinated in spices, not too strong, and they were big and fat like babies. I can't believe Mr. Gold missed this, as his review of the new French place reduced Noura to nothing more than a "falafel joint."

me: G! =(
me: they shut down

me: they shut down

G: who!?

me: they shut my favorite falafel restaurrrrrannnnnnt

G: oh where

me: it had the best

me: falafel

G: in beijing?
G: in LA?

me: and stuffed grape leaves

me: i ever hadddddddd

G: aw

me: in LA

G: i hate falafel, but i'm sorry for your loss
me: you hate falafel because you never had it from this place

me: apparently they replaced it with a french place that serves the best cheeseburger jonathan gold has ever had

G: oh nice, lets go there

G: awesome

me: did you know

me: did you know that meat rots in your tummy for TWO DAYS before your body can digest it

G: wow

G: thats awesome.

me: um ok

G: i love meat.

me: i love you.

G: lol i love you too

Unfortunately the shawerma there was not great, and same went for the grilled chicken. But beyond the food, I remember both restaurants for their unique and cozy atmospheres. I had many an industry dinner and drinks on the back patio at Noura, around the super cool fire pits where blue fire snaked across intricate designs carved into the sand. So nice on a warm summer night.

And Eat-a-Pita was the sort of place so covered in ivy that you'd totally miss it if you didn't know what you were looking for. Going through a wrought-iron gate you'd find yourself in this peaceful little shell of a covered brick courtyard, with a charming little fountain in the middle, plants everywhere, and the murmur of relaxed and happy diners.

And now they're gonnnnnnnneeeeeeee. Where o where will I find my stuffed grape leaves now?

Beijing says: "That's how we do bidness 'round here."

2007-12-12T23:17:00.000-08:00

On the way to work today, my cabbie got in a tiny, miniscule, diminutive little accident. I should have identified him as trouble the way he was driving, really impatiently, cutting people off here and there. Right in front of 商品 Off-Price he was trying to squeeze by a bus when it lurched forward and clipped his side mirror. Or maybe he clipped it; I'm not sure, I didn't even feel it.

Pissed, he swerves around it, blasting his horn for a good 30 seconds, then swerves in front of it, stops, and, in the middle of traffic, he yanks on the parking break so he blocks the bus--the engine is still running--gets out of the car, walks to the bus and starts yelling at the bus driver. I can't understand a word he's saying. Nonplussed, the bus driver gets out and follows the cabbie to the right side of our cab to inspect the damage.

I watch as the two men argue in the street, cars weaving around them, and some other dudes come out of nowhere to join the argument. From what I could tell, the damage must be tiny because I can see the cabbie rubbing it with his thumb. I'm like, are you kidding, you are stopping traffic and raising hell for a one-inch scratch on your car!? I look around for other empty cabs, thinking I might just jump out of the car and flag another one down because I don't know how long this argument is going to take. But something keeps me from fleeing the car.

After like 10 minutes -- during which time, by the way, the traffic in front of us has not moved because the traffic light is so dang slow--two of the men pull out these big wads of cash and hand them over to the cabbie. I look: they are mostly Y10s and Y1s, totaling MAYBE Y100, USD $13. I couldn't believe it, but this seemed to satisfy the cabbie, and he gets back in the cab and starts driving again.

At the end of the ride, he apologizes for wasting my time and gives me a Y2 discount. I'm like, great. I'm down 10 minutes but up by a whole $0.26!
________________________________

My mom got to Beijing today and for her first meal I took her to one of my favorite restaurants, 中八楼, this beautiful, minimal-modernist, zen-like and theatrically lit Yunnanese place near the apartment. It was my fourth time there, but my convalescing tummy could only take the mildest food and with every bite I prayed it wouldn't act up again. I downed tons of this excellent chrysanthemum-apple-chamomile tea, and my mom enjoyed the spicy chicken on top of thin slices of lotus root and a bed of taro mash:

And then, the star of every meal at this restaurant, the grilled veal accompanied with grilled apples and special mushrooms flown in from Yunnan. So tender and flavorful:

I'm on the BRAT Diet

2007-12-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

Bananas
Rice
Applesauce
Toast

Except, no toast. So I guess I'm on the BRA diet. These are the foods About.com recommends for settling an acutely upset stomach. I like how having stomach issues gives me an excuse to eat stuff made out of super processed grains.

After downing four vials of Po Chai Pills or 保济丸, and sleeping a lot, I think I'm finally on the mend. That is, my stomach is actually holding things again rather than letting everything (including water) pass right through. I even had a banana last night, and made myself what my mom always made for me when I was sick as a child...rice porridge and carrots. I also, for lack of real applesauce in China, picked up some mashed apples in the baby food section of Carrefour.

Going to Carrefour, by the way, is an experience I don't want to repeat anytime soon, especially when I'm sick. It's a madhouse. It takes forever to find what you're looking for. And they make you walk through the whole store just to get to the grocery section, and then after you've paid they make you walk through an entire mall to get to the exit. It's so overrated.

Snow Day

2007-12-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

I stayed home from work today trying to battle my tummy issues. Tummy on strike. I don't really blame it, given all the abuse it went through this weekend.

But I did go out, once for medicine at the pharmacy, and once to Carrefour to pick up stuff like bananas and stuff to make porridge with. To my surprise and delight, I saw that it snowed last night. First snow in Beijing for the year. I mean, not much snow to speak of, probably less than 1 inch, but still exciting =)

I have no idea what this says. But it makes a cool picture. If you can read Chinese and it happens to be a bad word, please let me know and I'll take it down.

Rumblings

2007-12-09T14:21:00.000-08:00

Ugggggh, my tummy doesn't feel so good. It must have been a combo of some old rice I had Saturday morning, plus the stinky tofu and suan nai. And then, greed of greeds, I had to down all that spicy and sour Sichuan food yesterday. Now it's 6am and I'm suffering. I am not a happy camper.

Comings and Goings: Just another weekend in Beijing

2007-12-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

One thing that's a little sad about Beijing is how inconstant and ever-changing the expat community is. It seems we're always welcoming someone or saying goodbye. This weekend we bid farewell to John with a Friday night dinner in Nanluoguxiang. It was Indian food at Mirch Masala, perhaps more "americanized" than the Indian food in America even. That, coupled with the plethora of foreigners, made it feel just like having a meal out back in the States.

There are a number of adorable boutiques on that street, including one where I practically wanted to buy the whole store -- it specialized in antique minority clothes and jewelry, with lots of cute accessories made from typical minority fabrics (Dai, Miu, etc.). I settled for a cowbone cocktail ring and a little hand-stitched pouch. We whiled away some time at a cozy little coffee shop called Guitar Bar, appropriately bedecked in old rock n' roll paraphernalia (and hella expensive drinks). Then, because all roads lead to Sanlitun on the weekend, we spent some time enjoying music from the Xinjiang Boys at Cheers (again) before capping the night at Bar Blu.

Saturday, I planned to wander around by myself but ended up meeting up with a couple friends at the Jishuitan subway stop. We walked all the way from there, along Xihai and Houhai, where the sun was starting to dip behind the trees and the light was perfect. Snapped this picture of ducks slipping and sliding over the barely frozen water:

Also had my very first taste of suan nai, this really traditional Beijing yogurt drink sold in almost every small grocery store in these little ceramic pots sealed with paper. I wish I'd discovered it earlier because it was sooooooo delicious -- some of the freshest, most natural-tasting yogurt I've ever had.

Followed this with stinky tofu and a pastry filled with sweet red bean paste.

Then walked to Nanluoguxiang, again, and wandered around a bit, stopped for some lime and honey water at Fish Nation, before poking into Hangzhou Baozi for these delectable little steamed miniature buns filled with juicy meat. (Here's a picture of the lady making them.）

Then returned to Wudaokou for dinner at Isshin, after which I wandered around myself for a bit and bought a couple hats from the Wu boutiques.

Sunday, today, we set out for Chuan Ban, or the restaurant associated with the Sichuan regional office, known to be the best Sichuan restaurant in town. We gorged on chicken swimming in chili oil:

Some sweet and tasty green beans, and suancai yu, this amazingly tender and delicate white fish swimming in a broth flavored by picked mustard greens.

Topped with some of the fluffiest corn pancakes I've ever had, which we dipped liberally in sweet condensed milk.

Afterwards, discovered this awesome shoe store called Hot Wind, where the shoes were plentiful, super cute, and best of all, CHEAP. I scored some gray suede pumps for Y249 (around $33) and lime green ballet flats for Y99 ($13!). Then wrapped up the evening with karaoke, again, at Cashbox "Party World" KTV, again. Yes, I am addicted.

Beijing says: “We teach you beetches how to KTV!"

2007-12-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

Ohhh, so 有 (you) feeeeeling. One of the slight misuses of English I noticed is that when I'm really excited about something, whether it's Xinjiang food or karaoke, my coworkers will tell me, "You're so high!" And I know they're not talking about drugs, but it never ceases to amuse me =)

Tonight I went with the Happy Girls (otherwise known as ztang, wenwen, 老 P, and carol) for what was my third time at Cashbox Karaoke (inexplicably labeled as PARTY WORLD outside). The last two times I was photographically disabled, and so could not do this glorious experience the justice it so rightly deserves.

Just to make one thing abundantly clear: Karaoke-ing in China puts anything I've ever experienced in America to shame. Shame, I tell you. And here is why.

First, the outside. Not sure if you can see it, but yes that is a Ferarri parked outside. Again, inexplicably.

You walk in through these large glass doors and enter this gold and white, sparkling, totally marbled lobby with high flying ceilings. It dawns on you that you have entered not just a Party World, but a karaoke palace. You feel sufficiently humbled -- you are a long way away from the cramped, dim, dingy, brothel-like establishments of downtown Sunnyvale that won't even serve peanuts, let alone alcohol.

Yes, it's totally over the top, enough to rival the most audacious Vegas casino in its use of gold on absolutely everything. It even sold its own paraphernalia, some no-name dudes from China's version of American Idol:

We waited around for almost 30 minutes for a room. And trust me it was not for lack of rooms - this place was 6 floors, with something like 50 rooms on each floor. I guess it was just a hoppin' Thursday night. When we finally got it, we were ushered into a gold-plated elevator...

down a lavish hallway...

...and into a comfortably small but annoyingly warm room, well appointed with sofas, flat-screen TV and fully automated song selection system.

One of the highlights of karaoke-ing at Cashbox is the free, sprawling buffet included in the price. Just when you think it couldn't get any better, they throw FOOD at you. Not literally. But you could have made-to-order noodles, finger foods like fries and onion rings, fresh squeezed juices, customized hotpot (with some addictive sesame sauce), a variety of Chinese pastries, regular dishes like Chinese broccoli and fried rice, and all the sugary drinks you could possibly hope for.

Yes, that's tomato-and-egg over noodles on the bottom left. Yummm. All this plus about 3 solid hours of singing, to be had for the lowly sum of ~Y100 per person. It's enough to make the most humanly imperfect being drop to her knees and cry out, "What did I do to deserve all this?!?"

I'll post some clips on YouTube later, esp one of the girls rapping to 中国话. But for now, some highlights:

The girls rapping to 中国话.
Wenwen and my duet, "When You Believe" by Mariah and Whitney.
Armin serenading us with "The Pretender."
About 10 songs from the girl trio S.H.E.
Armin and ztang's duet, "A Whole New World."
Us encouraging the girls to join us on Madonna's "Material Girls," and wenwen protesting, "Oh noooooo, we are spiiiiiiiritual girls!"
The girls teasing 老 P for putting them to sleep with her suuuuuper sad love songs.
Many "so 有 feeeeeeeeeeeling" duets by ztang and carol.

Man, I can't wait to take my mom here =D.

Just how shameful is my Chinese?

2007-12-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

Living around the Wu, 五，or 5, as we alternately call it, you run into quite a few foreigners, 外国人， or simply 老外, most of them students at Qinghua learning Chinese. There are a lot of students from Korea, too. When I get into a cab and tell the driver how to take me home, about 3/4 of the time they will ask me, 是韩国人吗, or, "Are you Korean?" At first I believed they really thought I looked Korean. It was just annoying to have to explain, almost every day, that no, I am actually overseas Chinese.

Then, the other day, I got it again..."Are you Korean?" “No," I replied, for the umpteenth time, "I'm Chinese-American. My ancestors are Chinese. We don't speak Chinese at home, that's why my Chinese is so bad."

The guy turns around and says, "Well, when you speak Chinese, you sound Korean! You better study and practice your Chinese well so you don't sound like a Korean! Korean people are rude!" At least, that's the interpretation I understood. Something tells me his meaning was a lot more acrid. The worst was, he wouldn't let it drop, and kept lecturing me for the remainder of the cab ride.

To my Korean brothers and sisters, I apologize on behalf of Beijing cabbies.
______________________

Anyway, Tuesday night we went again to Kiev for more Russian food goodness. I took a chance on the borscht and it was perfect. The spinach rolls were not as exciting, but pretty:

Yesterday we went to 一品小笼 for xiaolongbao for the second time in four days. It was decent, but unremarkable as the first time and I missed the delicate perfection of my beloved Din Tai Fung. The dumplings:

And more noteworthy, the dumpling-shaped lighting fixtures (so cool!):

儿's and "er"s

2007-12-03T20:47:00.000-08:00

One thing people have trouble with when they come to Beijing is the Beijing accent, especially heavy in cab drivers who tend to slur their words in addition to a liberal use of the 儿, as in, 你去哪儿 (ni qu narrrrrrrr）? It makes comprehension that much more difficult for the non-native speaker such as myself. More confusing still is that not every word ending in an "n" sound gets turned into an "er." The word for gate, 门 (men), turns into 门儿 (men-er, or mer) . Same goes for hospital, 医院儿 (yiyuan-er, or yiyuar) and skewers, 串儿 (chuan-er or chuar). I can't even think of cases where you don't add an 儿, and still haven't quite figured out when to use it, so I just end up using it all the time. But I know it’s wrong. It is equivalent, says my Lonely Planet guide, to a Chinese person coming to the States and speaking in a thick Creole accent all the time.

Anyway, and I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but it made me think of a recent discussion I had with Garry and his roommate about “er”s as they relate to positions, titles, and identities. For instance, someone asked if Chris would consider himself a “surfer.” His response: “I surf, but I’m not a surfer.” So, what kind of “er”s did apply to him? Teacher, yes. Gardener, yes.

It reminded me of how, in Hollywood, some people would completely embrace the label “writer,” while others would turn their eyes away, sheepishly, and echo, “I write, but I’m not really a writer yet.” So when does one do so much of a certain verb that one earns the “er”? In the case of writers, I assumed you could only really call yourself a writer when you are actually paid to write, (and I would look archly at anyone who claimed to be a writer who had not yet sold a script… this sort was generally considered “aspiring writer,” as in, they aspire to someday be paid some monetary sum, however small, for their labors).

There are other things that you can do without being paid, and still earn the “er,” like gardener or dancer or mother (who does, I guess, a lot of moth-ing har har). Anyway, again, kind of a stretch, but I guess one could look at the Beijing 儿 in a similar way, like you know you’ve really arrived when you know how to use the儿’s correctly. I guess I have a long way to go.

___________________

Anyway, the lowdown on last week:

Monday: Back to Isshin for some yummy Japanese staples like pork katsu with curry, salmon sashimi and tempura-fried soft tofu.

Tuesday: Went to some delectable Sichuan-style place that looked like some very rich man’s mansion, with koi pools galore and many a grand staircase inside. The food included some special fish flown directly from Sichuan, a long slimy little thing that was rather tasty, but gave me the creeps.

Wednesday: A fancy Taiwanese place in the Gate 8 (新中关) shopping mall. Delicious beef. Pretty solid on the stir fried cabbage with bacon too.

Thursday: Huge dinner party at my favorite Xinjiang restaurant where we gorged on 拉条子 (hand-pulled noodles), 大盘鸡 (da pan ji), 羊肉串(lamb skewers), 酸奶(yogurt), and mutton over Muslim bread soaked in delicious juices.

Friday: Good gracious. Super late dinner at South Beauty in Chaoyang, another Sichuan place. One amazing dish involved dunking thinly sliced beef in a big bowl of hot oil until it was cooked. Meatball, “delicious chicken,” and other staples were also great. Swung by the bookstore, Bookworm, to have a peek. Then we went to Sanlitun under the pretense of going to Bar Blu, but my real intention was to see if the Xinjiang Boys were playing at Cheers that night. THEY WERE. Oh, it was glorious. We stayed until like 3am just dancing and singing along to covers of the Gypsy Kings and 4 Non Blondes. Then, someone had the brilliant idea of heading to Cashbox KTV, the karaoke palace. Yaaaaaaay, 24-hour KTV!

Saturday: Somewhere between the stuffy confines of Cheers and the numbing cold air outside, I got sick. Plus tummy issues. So I spent most of the day in bed. Sadness.

Sunday: Went to the Lama Temple for a brief stroll, marveled at the 6-story-high gilded Buddha. Headed to Xidan for some shopping, but didn’t get anything. I never cease to be amazed at the Chinese’ capacity for shopping. Gigantic malls everywhere, full of stuff. Sheesh. Then proceeded to take 3 subway lines plus a taxi to the Lido Holiday Inn, to visit my uncle.

Tonight: Met up with a new friend (who happens to work for Jet Li, har har) at the Starbucks in Houhai. I got a tiny gingerbread latte for the unreal price of Y29. That’s like $4. I don’t know who can afford this stuff. It was freezing tonight, but we proceeded to wander around the hutong looking for No Name Restaurant, this Yunnanese place I’d read about. We had to stop for directions. It was freezing. Finally we found it, tucked away in a back alley. It was a pleasant surprise, gorgeously decorated with mirrors, great lighting, koi ponds, mosaics, fancy lanterns:

Food was really good, but not quite on par with Middle 8^th. Liked the Chinese greens sautéed with fragrant smoky ham, and Yunnanese fragrant rice with cubed potatoes, apples, and mushrooms, and lemongrass grilled fish:

There was a random kitty hanging out around the tables. Not terribly hygienic, but super cute. Here he is, toyin' with the koi:

Lastly but not leastly, two Google tools I have come to know and love: Google Pinyin, and Google Translate. Hallelujah.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program...

2007-12-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

...to tell you that Rambo is going to Burma.

Yes, Burma.

I'm not sure what I think about it. See the trailer here.

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

2007-11-28T18:02:00.000-08:00

Why Los Angeles is the greatest city in the world.

New Beijing Resource

2007-11-27T23:37:00.000-08:00

For the longterm expats out there:www.bjstuff.com

Pingyao: In English This Time

2007-11-27T21:10:00.000-08:00

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！

2007-11-26T05:05:00.000-08:00

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"...

2007-11-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

...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!"

2007-11-14T06:36:00.000-08:00

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"

2007-11-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

(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.

2007-11-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-11-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-01T09:33:00.001-07:00

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!):

Islam: I could be in it for the food.

2007-10-29T20:27:00.002-07:00

Sunday, we made our way to the Xi'an Great Mosque, a lesser-visited attraction in Xi'an, but one of the largest mosques in China. (Other more popular sights include Big Wild Goose Pagoda, City Walls, and the Forest of Steles Museum.) I'm so glad I chose this as my one Xi'an city site, as it was totally beautiful, a peaceful respite from the obnoxious honking and shouting from outside the mosque walls. The architecture was distinctly Chinese, but with Islamic influence. There was a gorgeous garden in several sections, a minaret:

Beautiful carvings everywhere:

And a grand worship hall that gave me a great sense of reverence:

Afterwards we wound our way through market stalls selling local (and maybe not so local) handicrafts. I dropped $20 on two pairs of intricately cut-out shadow puppets, and then another $30 on two beautiful Vermeer-esque oil paintings, portraits of Chinese minority-tribe women. There was something haunting and gorgeous about the paintings, and I knew if I didn't buy at least one, I wouldn't be able to think of anything else.

We then wandered down the Muslim Quarter, this bustling place filled to the gills with street food vendors, handicrafts stores, and a lot of hustle and bustle.

It was here that I cemented my everlasting love of Chinese Muslim food. I could eat it every day: sizzling lamb skewers, hand-pulled or knife-cut noodles, beautiful and tasty breads, and much more.

One dish to note is a local favorite called yangrou paomo, involving a savory lamb broth over which you break little shreds (or in my case, cubes) of bread, garnished with clear noodles and wood-ear fungus.

Also delicious hand-pulled noodles:

Upstairs, after we went to the bathroom, we discovered a small back storage room claimed as home by a gigantic macaw parrot! She was a very good parrot, who didn't squawk much but kept gnawing on the door:

We bought lots of edible goodies, including fried dried persimmons, dragon-beard candy with peanuts and walnuts, and lots of delicious fried things stuffed with savory meats and veggies. Oh, it was glorious.

City of Western Peace?

2007-10-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend we went to Xi'an. Started with a day off, during which I slept in, and then went back to Kiev for some delicious Russian food and Ukrainian opera-singing. Took Garry to Houhai, where we were immediately accosted at every turn by rickshaw drivers wanting to give us tours of the hutong. Finally, we caved, agreeing to pay Y60/each for a 1 hour drive around the hutong. It turned out to be pretty interesting, but we didn't really get to go inside any of the notable sites like Prince Gong's Residence.

Wandered for a bit around Yandai Xiejie, poking into some pretty interesting shops selling stuff from Tibet, Yunnan, and other minority provinces. Caught a cab home, then packed frantically to catch the 9:36 train to Xi'an.

We went with the hard sleeper. Anyone who owns a Lonely Planet guidebook probably knows about the 4 classes of train seats in China. The hard sleeper is probably the ideal, and I found it a really pleasant way to travel, even if it was an 11-hour journey. You get a bed shelf with pillow and blanket, and you basically just sleep the whole way, and when you get up in the morning, you've arrived. It was reasonably comfortable, not too crowded.

We got picked up at the train station by a nice girl who spoke decent English and took us to Ludao Binguan, the hostel I'd chosen from Lonely Planet's glowing recommendation (Y188/night for a standard room). It was clean but definitely not fancy - no bathtub even, just a shower head attached to the wall, so you basically just showered in the bathroom. Weird.

We took our time getting breakfast at a mediocre dimsum place, then caught bus #306 (Y16 roundtrip, lots better than the USD$50 they charge on organized tours) to the Huaqing Hot Springs and the Bingmayo, or Terra Cotta Warriors. The hot springs is really a palace build around a bunch of hot springs. It's as lavish as the Summer Palace in Beijing, but perhaps more beautiful because the old architecture looks more authentic (as in, has not been "renovated" and painted garish colors):

For Y1 we got to feel the hot springs for ourselves at these fountains:

PG-13 statue of some well-endowed Chinese concubines (something you def. don't see every day):

One of the springs backed by mist-shrouded mountains:

We then hopped another buss to the Terra Cotta Warriors, the highlight of any Xi'an trip. They were, in a word, awesome. We went a bit backwards in viewing them, but I thought it was the best order: Pit #2, then Pit #3, then Pit #1, the grandest of them all. It started with just the excavation site, where all we could see was pit after pit of broken statues, some recognizable, others just shards of pottery. It was awe-inspiring but more than once I thought it looked creepily like a mass grave:

Pit #3 is quite smaller than the other two, and almost courtly in its layout and feel. I thought it was funny how they left some of the warriors headless, all lined up in neat rows:

Finally, Pit #1, which most people see first, and even then we went in the exit, so we literally saw everything backwards. It was a gigantic building, as big as a hangar, full of terra cotta warriors in full battle formation. Quite the exhilarating sight.

The day was cold and miserably rainy, so after these two sights we decided to go home and turn in early. It would have been a fine day though, except as I walked past the train station in the cold, wet night, I felt something behind me, and whirled around to catch a thief (a kid really, probably 13 or 14 years old), who had unlatched my knapsack and was in the process of taking my wallet! I couldn't believe it, I was so shocked, and all I managed to do was yell, "What are you doing!?" as if he would really understand me. He just looked at me and walked away. Of course I wanted to yell at him in Chinese but my vocabulary failed me.

Oh well, at least he didn't get to any of my valuables (incl. my wallet, phone, and SLR camera!).

Great Wall all over my @$$.

2007-10-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

I decided to get all the uber-touristy Beijing things out of the way in my first month, so I took the day off yesterday to visit the Great Wall. I asked around and everyone told me NOT to go to Badaling, a fully renovated section of the wall crawling with tourists and hawkers trying to squeeze every dollar/pound/yen/euro/RMB from them. We opted instead for Simatai, purportedly one of the more “authentic” Great Wall experiences.

It took just over 1.5 hours to get to the parking lot, and then another half hour (walking…slowly…) just to get to the Wall from the parking lot. I’m sure there are enough people who have expounded on their Great Wall experiences, and so suffice to say that it was not easy climbing up, but it was a heck of a lot harder coming down.

6 watchtowers took about 3 hours, as I’m considerably out of shape and the Wall was steep. The first watchtower was a great milestone, empty and windy as it was. Only a few patches were somewhat level, and after the third tower, there were no side walls, so one misstep could potentially send someone tumbling down into the valley below:

Halfway to the sixth tower, we decided to head back.

On the way down, I resorted to sliding down on my butt, hands and feet, crawling like a spider while the other tourists stared and chuckled in amusement. I didn’t care. The closer to the ground (or stones), the safer I felt. Finally, to get all the way down the mountain, Garry and I decided to take a chance on "The Flying Fox," this rope-and-harness contraption that would send us barreling over the lake adjacent to the wall. It looked hellsa unsafe/scary, but we'd seen someone do it earlier that day, and both felt this need to do something crazy. So we paid the Y35 each and got our tickets. No one else wanted to do it. So the ladies strapped us into our harness and told us to "sit!" And off we went--it was faster than I expected, but much more awesome than I expected, too, flying through the air with nothing but a fabric strap holding me up from certain death--or at least, a cold swim--below.

It took 2.5 hours to get back to our apartment because of traffic. =P But at least we could enjoy some stunning autumn color-changing:

Bananas in more ways than one.

2007-10-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

Friday night my boyfriend arrived from California (via Tokyo) and I went to fetch him from Beijing Capital Airport. The drive was very quick, but it was so late when we got back that few things were open. I had spent some time that evening poking around thebeijinger.com for late-night eats (you'd think they would have created a separate category for this!). But when we showed the cab driver where we wanted to go, he was like, (in Chinese) "No food there! What do you want to eat!" And we told him, really, anything as long as it was tasty, maybe jiaozi (dumplings).

So he took us to this little hole-in-the-wall place that only locals obviously go, and, of course, the menu was totally in Chinese characters. We stared blankly and helplessly at it while the server, a doll-like thing with an easy smile and dimples, gave us all these choices that we didn't know anything about. I think she was asking, 'What kind of meat do you want?" "What kind of vegetable?" "Do you want pan-fried or steamed?" At the time, I didn't even know the Chinese word for "steamed" so we were in a world of trouble. Ordering 3 dishes was an ordeal, and she kept laughing at us, but in the end the lamb pan-friend dumplings and steamed egg-and-chive dumplings were great, as was this salad made of raw napa cabbage.

Saturday, got up not so early and missed breakfast, then went straight to Tiananmen to meet a friend. By the time we got there it was too late to get into Mao's Mausoleum, which I have identified as the one thing I can't leave Beijing without seeing (weird, I know--I've wanted to see it ever since I took a Cultural Revolution class in college). Walked around the square, which is ENORMOUS, walked north to the north gate and the Chairman's benevolent portrait overlooking the whole scene.

The Forbidden City is also ENORMOUS. I can't get over how many millions of stones must have been laid out by the hands of hardworking Chinese laborers. I was disappointed to find that the most important buildings were under intense renovation, but the Imperial Garden was totally lovely.

Afterwards, grabbed some snacks at Wangfujing Snack Street, where we had lamb skewers, some kind of puff pastry like thing, a kind of Uigher bread stuffed with lamb and leeks, and this amazing invention: a pile of french fries with fried egg on top. And when we ordered it, the guy dunked it in hot oil to be fried AGAIN! It was delicious. We gawked at the availability of starfish and other strange sea creatures impaled on skewers.

Then, still hungry, we made our ways over to Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant in the Dongcheng district. It is tucked away into some back alley that is really hard to find except for the crude, stick-figure drawings of ducks on the walls and arrows leading us further into the courtyard.The duck was delicious, though probably on par with Quanjude.:

Went to Tom's Shop for DVDs afterwards and bought:

Lilo & Stitch
Pan's Labyrinth
Paris J'taime

Dropped by The Tree again for drinks before meeting up w/ coworkers to check out Block 8 (some fancy schmancy club that was inexplicably un-busy for a Saturday night). Ducked out early to go to sleep.

Sunday, got up relatively early with the intention of going to the Summer Palace. However, the Beijing Marathon thwarted our plans, and we had to settle for Yuanming Yuan, the Old Summer Palace which turned out to be pretty cool in its own right--a huge park with lots of lakes and trees. The most interesting part though, were the ruins of the old summer palace of Emperor Qianlong. The emperor had built many Western-style buildings which were all burned to the ground by the "8 Countries Army" - basically a force of many European countries + Japan, and I think the Chinese still feel some serious rancor towards the Japanese for this hairy incident, among others:

My favorite part was the maze the Emperor has built for his guests and concubines:

Afterwards we went to this nearby restaurant serving, I believe, Shandong food. It was a kind of hot-and-sour hotpot made of some tomato based broth, onions, ginger, etc. We steeped a whole catfish (yummy!), lotus root, seaweed, and tofu. It was eaten with many delicious condiments like ground peanuts, fresh garlic, cilantro, scallions, and some kind of nutty paste I couldn't identify.

Spent the afternoon at the new Summer Palace, the one overrun with tourists. Saw the Empress Cixi's chambers, then strolled along Kunming Lake:

Then clambered up some seriously steep stairs to the Tower of Buddhist Incense, this gorgeous temple perched atop a high cliff. From the top, we saw the Thousand-Handed Guanying statue, and a beautiful Beijing sunset in the distance.

Ode to the '90s and a bottle of Jack Daniels

2007-10-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

The other night, went with a couple Beijing coworkers and had sushi and ramen at Isshin, this little place tucked away in a back alley of Wudaokou. Food was solid, though not extraordinary. Had potato salad, fried tofu in shoyu, 3 kinds of rolls and spicy miso ramen.

Last night, I joined Aki for Quiz Night at Lush, this Wudaokou joint stuffed to the gills with Americans and other foreigners (mostly students at Qinghua). I went in prepared to suck, because I'm never really good at these things. Had a pretty boring-tasting chicken burger and fries, but the ketchup was too sweet, as was the ranch sauce I asked for.

We sat down with a group of girls because there wasn't enough room to get our own table. All of them were from the college of William & Mary in Virginia, and all were studying Chinese at Qinghua. They were soooooo young, class of 2009! Sheesh. We decided to do the quiz as a group, naming ourselves "Quizmas."

Anyway, at 8pm, the quizzing began. There were 15 groups total, with more than 100 people total. The theme was "the 1990s," and there were five rounds: Movies/TV, History/Events, Countries, Popular Fads and Music. I was like, hmm, ok, I was a child of the '90s, so maybe we'd have a shot.

We ended up kicking ass on the first round, scoring 12 when the other teams averaged 4! The most memorable question was something like, "What 2 movies have the highest number of obscenities per minute in the 1990s?" I knew one of them HAD to be a Tarantino film (I guessed Pulp Fiction, which was correct). Our other guess was Goodfellas, but the actual answer was the South Park Movie. Other questions included stuff like "What was the popular hangout in 90210?" and "What actor said he was "the first post-Heston non-biblical action star in sandals.'?" (John Cusack--I was so sure of the answer because that's when I'd developed my crush on Mr. Cusack, watching every movie he was in and reading every article I could get my hands on).

The second round we scored a strong 11 points, correctly naming the Unibomber, Amy Fischer, Loreena & John Wayne Bobbit, the year of the Columbine massacre, etc. The one we missed was the Solar Temple sect that committed mass suicides in Canada and Europe.

We went a bit downhill from there, scoring 8 points on the countries (most of them obscure Eastern European), then 6 on the Fads (luckily the girls we were with were young enough to remember the Furby and Beanie Babies really well). The guy asked what the name of the Akita in Rent was, and from which story the dog leapt to its death as Angel played his drums (I was convinced it was 21st, but it was actually the 23rd). Finally, the music was the hardest as we had to name the artist and year it was released. But it was great to hear some old 90s hip-hop like Snow's "Informer," En Vogue's "Never Gonna Get It," 2pac and Dr. Dre's "California Love," and even Us 3's "Cantaloop."

Anyway. WE WON! First place! I couldn't believe it, I never win these things. But here's the proof:

And the bottle of Jack Daniels we won as a prize:

And my comrades-in-arms (excluding myself, as I was taking the picture):

Hou to the Hai

2007-10-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

It's late so I'm going to make this quick.

It was another beautifully clear day yesterday (I guess Sundays are good for un-smoggy air). Went to church at BICF. Impressed with the international-ness of it, met a very nice couple from Camaroon, one getting his PhD at Tsinghua and the other in the midst of her fourth year at Beida medical school. I would expound on some of the embarrassingly unapologetic racism in this city but that would be opening a can of worms. Hopped a cab and headed to Houhai, where we dined at S'Silk Road, a Yunnanese restaurant right on the lake. Very pleasant.

Silken tofu in chili oil with 1000-year-old (preserved duck) eggs

Walked around Houhai for a bit, marveled at the tourist-trappiness of it all, considered taking a rickshaw ride, got teased for being such a "high-maintenance" guest b/c of my queasiness about squatty toilets and desire for more efficiency and convenience. I say that my issue with squatty toilets is not that they are gross but that it is nearly impossible for me to maintain my balance without missing completely and... well, I guess that is TMI. Ducked into a Tibetan decor place, where the stuff was obviously well-made by hand and very beautiful, but very pricey.

Ate stinky tofu for the first time - raw, it smells rather like a great quantity of pee that has staled on the sidewalk. Freshly fried, however, and dusted with spices and hot sauce, it is quite delicious:

Got tired of walking around in my cheap Silk Alley hiking boots, so we decided to get foot massages. Hour-long. Second only to food, massages and other spa-like services rank among the very pleasant things to be had in Beijing for absurdly low prices (in this case, 60 Yuan). We entered a room that looked like one of our friend's parent's living room, dimly lit with comfortable couches to sink into. We were each given a tea soak for our feet, during which we got a brief backrub, and then our masseuses got down to the business of working the soreness out of our tired feet. We were, how you say, spoiled.

Afterwards, dinner at Bellagio, this fancy place with amazing decor on the top floor of a really posh Japanese mall. They are known for their Taiwanese food, but to be perfectly honest I couldn't tell the difference. We had a number of yummy things followed by delicious desserts of shaved ice, fruit and coconut ice cream. Mmm.

Fried baby oysters and basil

Broiled spareribs

Blended mango with shaved ice, coconut pulp, and pomelo bits on top

Today, not much, just dinner at this place called Gangguoju in Wudaokou, where the gimmick was stir fries cooked on a burner at your table. We found the food amazingly spicy, though tasty, and not particularly filling. But it was cheap - we got like 9 dishes for 161 Yuan. Only drawback for me was that the stir-fry we got was not exactly chicken, but all the random, gristly, boney, gross parts of the chicken that you normally don't want to eat. Half the time I had no idea what part of the chicken it was, but I'm pretty sure I chanced across some of the head, and there was most definitely a foot in there (no, I don't like chicken feet. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. I know what you're thinking--I'm not really Chinese. Sue me).

Suspicious chicken-parts stir-fry

The other things we ordered were really good:

Soba noodles in chili oil and chilis, with boiled peanuts in the background

Went shopping at the Lotus Center (kind of like a Chinese Wal-Mart), browsed the clothing shops (Chinese fashion = another can of worms I don't want to open) and spent almost half an hour trying to decide what kind of shampoo and laundry detergent to get, as I couldn't read the labels and it was anyone's guess what they meant.

Not Snoopy but "Sno Opy."

And lastly, some random pictures I took around Houhai.

Paddle-boats on the lake, taken from the bridge.

Strange still-life at the side of a store.

Mural on a door.

One week and I'm developing love handles.

2007-10-13T07:32:00.001-07:00

This is gross. Tomorrow morning I'm going to get up early and go swimming or something.

Today, slept in until 11:30am, then met up with the dudes to go to lunch. We just walked to the Zhongguancun Shopping Plaza and ate at Ajisen ramen shop, which I've had in San Gabriel in California. Except here, a solid fried udon could be had for 25 yuan ($3.25):

Plus, we could splurge on extras like marinated cucumbers and fresh kiwi juice:

Or gyoza:

And Japanese fried chicken. Yum.

Afterwards we headed to Silk Alley Market, which is also like Canal Street, except indoors and more selection. We spend the entire afternoon there. I was aiming to buy a lighter weight autumn jacket, but instead I got roped into buying a dress for too much--200 Yuan ($28). But I guess I got a decent price for a pair of hiking boots and Pumas (450 Yuan for both--$60). Hmm now that I do the math, it seems I got ripped off. And then some underwear, 6 pairs for 60 Yuan. Good lord, I am terrible at bargaining! I think I need to lay off on the shopping. Or get better at simple arithmatic. * sigh * I am much better at eating.

Afterwards we went to the Sanlitun area and sought out this chilled out pizza joint called The Tree. It was expat central, man. I think I saw one group of locals. But no matter, I enjoyed the thin-crust cheese, pepperoni and roma chicken pizzas we got:

And just outside was a very cheerful-looking poster encouraging tourism to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. Oh the irony.

Down the street was a very cool DVD shop (legal? bootleg? who knows?) where I scored:

Before Sunset (10 Yuan - $1.33)
Becoming Jane (10 Yuan)
The Science of Sleep (15 Yuan)
The Namesake (15 Yuan)
A cd album called Just Me by Tiffany--yes, of "I think We're Alone Now" fame. Several years ago she had released a comeback album that I really liked, where the music was now moody almost like Sarah Maclachlan. So I figured, what the heck, for 20 Yuan it was worth a listen.
The Revenge Trilogy by Chang-Wook Park. There was a very beautiful, elegant boxed set for 60 Yuan, and I was on the fence about it, until I asked if it had English subtitles. When I discovered it didn't, I was sorely disappointed. But I ended up getting all three films boxed separately for 10-15 Yuan each.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Oldboy (hands down the most intensely screwed up movie I have ever seen in my life. You think you're inured to violence and then this just takes it to a whole new level. Beyond violence of astounding creativity, it has enough craziness going on thematically that it leaves you feeling pretty tainted in spirit. But, of course, the director's cinematic virtuosity is so impressive that it leaves you mulling over it for days afterwards.)
Lady Vengeance

Liked the stage-y lighting inside The Tree.

My lungs, they hurt. My head, it aches.

2007-10-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

NOTICE: The gov't has managed to find and disable Gladder, the only way we foreigners were able to scale the Great Firewall, so I can no longer access my blog even though I can keep posting to it. So if you have comments feel free to e-mail me directly.

I'm not quite sure how anyone survives here long-term. Pollution has settled in at what I assume are normal levels for Beijing, or Gray-jing as Aki calls it, and it's really getting to me. Gone are the breezy, clear blue skies of last weekend. From what I gather, it's all downhill from here.

Tonight, after a full week of Chinese food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I felt the strong need to branch out and get some non-East-Asian food. There was a cool looking Russian place in our Time Out Beijing called Kiev Restaurant, and since it was in the Haidian district we figured it'd be pretty close by. With traffic, it still took about 25 min to get there.

There were some middle-aged Chinese businessmen smoking and shooting the shit outside this neon-emblazoned shack-looking thing, and nowhere did it say "Kiev Restaurant."

But as soon as we stepped in and saw the portraits of Caucasian-looking people lining the staircase, we knew we were in the right place. It was underground, what looked like a German beer hall, and we were ushered to a free table by a very polite Chinese waiter in a Russian embroidered shirt. Soon after we sat down, this band of portly Russian men strutted out in military uniforms and sang some very stirring opera:

I was nervous about getting enough pictures and video, but I shouldn't have worried, because 5 minutes later the whole group came out again in a very boisterous traditional song (gotta love his little dance moves and sailor outfit).

Meanwhile, we ordered up a storm. Starting with Beijing beer and a very good stout. One of our party is painfully meat-and-potatoes, so he ordered plain ole' garlic bread and meat sauce spaghetti (at least the menu had something for everyone). The rest of us got really excited about the more traditional Russian/Ukrainian food. We had:

Grilled Beef Kabobs

Potato latkes topped with mushroom and dill

This delicious lamb stew with carrots, which came topped with this doughy thing that trapped all the heat and steam inside. Don't poke it, Aki!

And then, we couldn't help but giggle at bad Engrish peppered throughout the menu, such as this:

"Cheese Backed Associated Meats"

Necessity is the Mother of Friendship...

2007-10-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

...or so I've found in just the past week, in which other expats and myself have latched onto each other, creating this little English-speaking island amidst a sea of Chinese speakers. Coming from Orange County, I never in my life thought I would feel more comfortable around non-Asians than I would around Asians. But here I find myself gravitating towards the foreigners simply because it's easier to express myself with them. As Richard Rodriguez kept harping on in The Hunger of Memory, culture really lives in the language of a people. And I have never felt this more keenly than now.

The other night I met up with another college friend and we went to the Quanjude, the famous Peking Duck restaurant where the duck is specially smoked in fragrant wood chips and an expert chef comes to your table and carves out perfect, delicate little slices of duck skin and duck meat. Our duck was number 44,951 to be served by this particular branch of Quanjude. Here was our chef deftly slicing choice bits of meat from our duck:

And the fixin's included very neatly sliced scallions, cucumber, duck sauce, sugar and garlic, as well as special thin pancakes made of some kind of root vegetable, and lettuce leaves. We also got some vegetable dishes on the side, specialty juice mixes, and the weirdest of all, duck tongue captured in this crystal gel substance. Once you get over the weirdness of eating duck tongue, it was actually pretty good. Next time we have to try the tree frog ovaries.

Lastly, for dessert we had a dish my friend said was a specialty of Beijing, and I can't remember the name but it was __ __ Pingguo, or chunks of apple battered and fried, then covered in this hot, sticky syrup. It came with a bowl of water into which we had to quickly dunk each caramelly piece before the whole thing congealed into a rock-hard mass:

For lunch today, some team members and I went out to a place called Secret Garden Cafe, where the decor was very posh and we had some fiery hot Hunan food (Hunan being the province where Mao Zedong grew up). The most notable dish was fish head in soy sauce and red and green chilis:

After work, we followed the lead of a guy who has been working in this area for a while and went to this food court at the Zhongguancun Plaza and Shopping Mall. There we were greeted by a rich variety of Chinese, Indian, Korean, and other foods I couldn't identify.

Armin got some kind of flavorful, spicy noodle soup with braised pork, pickled mustard greens, and egg (12 Yuan). Joe got some kind of very spicy chicken stir fried with chilis. Aki got a plateful of pork and chive dumplings. And I got this chicken, vegetable and rice stir-fried and served in a lotus leaf for flavor. Mmm good, and so cheap, at only 14 Yuan (less than US $2).

Joe's spicy chicken

Aki's dumplings and my chicken-veggie stir fry

A sampling of Armin's noodle soup

Dirty South + Sweet Pad

2007-10-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

As in, southern Chinese food. I need to start remembering to take business cards because these restaurant names are impossible to remember. It was kind of comforting to be eating somewhat more familiar southern food with Joe's industry marketing team at some restaurant across the street from Wahaha in Wudaokou. Pictured above are (clockwise from upper left) napa cabbage and mushrooms, chicken in clay pot, and braised tofu with wood-ear fungus, shiitake mushrooms, and peanuts. We also had some pineapple shrimp, some kind of oyster pancake made of egg and other gelatinous substance, bitter melon stir fried, and curry-flavored Singapore vermicelli.

And then, the crowing dish of the night, our dessert. No, it's not Pizza The Hut from the Spaceballs movie, but a gigantic (1.5 foot-high) mountain of shaved ice smothered in sweet mung bean and red bean, oozing with condensed milk, and little chewy rice-ball kind of things at the bottom. Very impressive:

I can't resist posting some pictures of my sweet pad, in hopes that someone will see it, and be compelled to come visit and stay with me here in Beijing. Here goes.

The kitchen, stocked with wok, silverware, dishware, stemware, and dishwasher!

A lovely little welcome gift that was waiting for me when I arrived.

The rather posh living room.

Plasma TV #1

Bedroom (Plasma TV #2 off to the side)

All-glass bathroom!

Look at how neatly the maid lined up my stuff! You should have seen what a mess I left in the morning...

Warm Huanyings and Pet Peeve(s)

2007-10-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first day in the office. Kicked off w/ a tasty Chinese breakfast in the new(ish) cafe - congee + pickled things, eggrolls, fried rice, etc. Everyone is warm and welcoming, which makes me a little sheepish that I wasn't a more gracious host to visitors when I was back in the Bay Area. I shall resolve to be better when I get back. Anyway, it was rather uneventful as people were trickling back in from their 1-week National holiday, and I was supposed to be "settling in."

I'll get to the interesting stuff. After work a handful of us walked a couple blocks to Wahaha Restaurant, a place specializing in Shanghai and Hangzhou cuisine in the heart of the Wudaokou district, for dinner. Pretty fancy schmancy decor and set-up, but for RMB343, we dined like kings on:

Lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice

Traditional "pork in pot," some of the fattiest, most succulent soy sauce-drenched pork you ever tasted. We Americans protested at all the fat, and our Chinese brethren encouraged us to try just a bit. It was delicious of course, but I almost fainted when I saw the oil starting to congeal on my plate.

Beef slivers stir fried w/ green chilies
Boiled dumplings
Stir fried broccoli
Bread-y dumpling-like buns (no idea what they are called)
Some steamed fish that was labeled "yellowtail tuna" on the menu but was delicate and flaky, almost like butterfish, and oh so flavorful

Then sat around chatting about typical marriage ages in the US vs. China (30-35 and 25, respectively), where we've traveled and where we'd like to travel.

Lastly, a pet peeve. When people pronounce Beijing with a "zh" sound, as if they were speaking French (the "j" sound in "je ne sais pas" for instance). It's not French, and it's not "Beizhing," peoples! It's a harder "j" sound than "jam" even, maybe more like the "g" in "geriatric." Anyway, this is perhaps more annoying than people who pronounce Sichuan as "sheshwan," which is a little more excusable since many restaurants spell it "Schezwan." Sorry if I'm splitting hairs, but I had to tell someone =)

It's Autumn in Beijing

2007-10-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

It has been, from what I gather, uncommonly gorgeous in Beijing the last couple of days. Saturday rains swept away smoke, dust and pollution, to reveal blue skies, windswept clouds and even mountains in the distance. It was perfect fall weather:

First things first... landing at Beijing Capital Airport, going through immigration, customs, getting my bags, and hailing a cab all went mercifully smoothly. I stuck my head out the window and felt my nose prickle at the sort of smoky mugginess I've come to associate with Asia, but the road into town was lined with rather grand-looking silvery-green trees.

The executive suite where they're putting me up is, by any interpretation, totally sweet. Flat-screen TVs (yes, plural), delightfully firm mattress, stocked kitchen, plus a pool and gym downstairs, and breakfast served every morning (downstairs, not in my room!).

Saturday evening I met up with other expat coworkers (one from Dublin, another from London) and went to find food at Nanluoguxiang, which is apparently an up-and-coming neighborhood close to the over-commercialized tourist haven known as Hohei. It looked almost exactly like St Mark's Place in NYC, except a bit grimier. Quite a few foreigners loping around, but nothing was too crowded or obnoxious-looking. We settled on a bustling little establishment that had pictures and English translations on the menu. We ordered:

Cucumber spears smothered in a garlicky sauce
Boiled dumplings, pretty standard
Pan-fried dumplings, same as above except fried and thus more delicious
"Delicious chicken" - cold boiled chicken swimming in a pool of chili oil and some pickled things, topped with sesame seeds and green onions
Stir-fried rabbit with chilis - this dish probably killed off a fifth of my oral membranes, it was so ridiculously spicy. mouth. on. fire.

Stir-fried Rabbit and Chilis

"Delicious Chicken"

Sunday we met up with my college friend who has been living in Beijing for a year and he took us to Pearl Market, which is pretty much an indoors version of Canal Street in New York, with stalls upon stalls hawking everything from fake purses to tiny USB drives holding 64 GB (!) of memory.

I got my first lesson in the fine art of bargaining. It's a whole ritualistic dance here, where you show a bit of interest, and the shopkeeper latches onto you, and you either walk away or ask, "How much?" and the bargaining begins. The first number they give you is ludicrously high (say, USD$100 for a backpack). You are supposed to counter with an offer 1/8, or even less, of what they said. They will scream bloody murder and say "Noooooooooo," as Russell Peters would say, the longest "no" you ever heard in your life. Eventually you settle for a price both parties can live with, somewhere around 1/6 or 1/5 the original price, but if you are adamant and/or employ the Walkaway Technique (as in, "100 other stalls in this market sell the exact same thing, I will go to someone else!"), you can usually wind up paying much less.

It was stressful, man. I bought two fake Coach wallets and a purse for about USD$46, and I think I paid too much.

We grabbed a snack at Monet Cafe, which looked like a tourist trap but had some pretty tasty bakery items, then crossed the street to the Temple of Heaven Park. The park was huge and full of Chinese families, old people playing Chinese poker, street performers, and women dressed up in some rather loud, unnatural-looking minority costumes. The Temple itself was large and impressive, painted in rather ornate blues, greens, and metallic golds. Highlights:

Old people playing what my coworker described as "Tai chi ping pong."
Little kids scrambling up to the Echo Wall and yelling loudly at one another to see if the sound would travel the way they say
Standing at the center of the universe at the top of the great stone altar.
Water calligraphy on the southern walkway:

Delicate Ming architecture such as this:

Afterwards we went to Worker's Stadium and took pictures of the very patriotic statue there:
Then we went across the street to a Xinjiang Muslim Restaurant, where we had:

Stir-fried morsels of lamb and bread
Lamb skewers
Hand-pulled noodles in a tomato-y, bell peppery sauce
Eggplant with some kind of sweet ground-beef gravy smothered on top
Snow pea shoots stir-fried quite simply and deliciously

At around 7:30 they brought out the live entertainment, and we watched Uigher girls bellydance and sing (traditional?) songs. Sorry I accidentally shot a lot of pictures in RAW format which means I can't even open them on my laptop...so you'll have to wait 3 months for those.

MAAS - or, I Heart Technology

2007-10-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

First, "MAAS" is the logo printed on this green button they gave me when I asked for wheelchair service at Cathay Pacific. Having twisted my ankle over six weeks ago, and still not healed, I figure I legitimately qualify as handicapped. I have no idea what MAAS stands for (May Ask for Assistance Soberly?), but it must be pretty sweet, because it affords you priority seating (even before the kiddies!) and gate to gate service.

It also earned me a lot of quizzical looks, probably because everyone else using this service was at least 70 years old. I wore my big-girl ankle brace and rolled up my jeans to make it even more obvious. At any rate I was glad for it, because I would otherwise have been hobbling the immense distances between gates very soberly indeed.

That said, I am so totally in love with technology, particularly Asia's brand of technology. Not only am I updating my blog using * free * airport wifi (never mind the exorbitant fees they charge in American airports), but I watched FOUR full movies on my personal video screen on the flight over to HK from SFO. If you're curious, they were:

License to Wed (I couldn't help it. My former bosses produced this movie and I had to see how it turned out)
Live Free or Die Hard (yippie ki-yay [mother father]!)
50 First Dates
Mulan (one of the few Disney selections they had, and I figured I'd get myself in a right mindset for my final destination. Who'da thunk I'd get all weepy when she prepared to leave her home to defend her family's honor! How embarrassing.)

View of the space-age-looking seats on the plane:

* Cough, Cough *

2007-09-28T16:11:00.001-07:00

Erika was so kind as to share this photo at our team meeting today, knowing full well of my breathing issues:

Gee, my lungs can't wait. =P

January Plans

2007-09-25T18:34:00.001-07:00

The nature of my very sucky 90-day single-entry visa requires that I plan my China exit strategy now, instead of playing it by ear. So far, here's what it's looking like:

Dec. 28 Leave Beijing --> 2-3 days in HK --> 2-3 days in Singapore --> 5-6 days rent a car and drive to Melaka, then on to Kuala Lumpur, then possibly Penang and Johor Bahru --> back to HK for 4-5 days, with a day-trip to Macau --> back to the States.

This excludes the possibility of Korea and Japan, which really makes me sad. For someone who travels internationally as seldom as I do, it's hard to suppress the urge to go everywhere: India, Phillippines, Indonesia, Thailand, western Australia, even Brunei and Mongolia (FYI - according to the travel nurse at Kaiser Permanente, Mongolia has one of the the highest rates of rabies in the world).

I am already dreaming of delicious SE Asian food and buying batik cloth by the armload. If your travels brings you anywhere near these areas, please let me know and I'd love to meet up.

10 Days to Go.

2007-09-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

I should be busy with quality reviews and peer reviews , but why do things I HAVE to do when I can waste time on a blog that shouldn't even be active yet? =P As my cubemate will attest to, it took me forever just to settle on a name. Other candidates included eatingeggrolls.blogspot.com and slimdoesbeijing.blogspot.com (seemed a bit inappropriate).

I hate to admit I'm a rabid blogger when I put my mind to it, so I hope I'll be able to keep this pretty frequently updated. These last couple of weeks have been crazy with end-of-quarter business and buying things like Advil and jeans (believe it or not, I have only had one working pair for the last year or so). Things I'm excited about:

Corporate apartments in Beijing
Energetic office in Beijing
Mind-numbingly good food
Meeting interesting people
Seeing interesting things
KARAOKE-ing

Things I'm worried about:

My terrible language skills
Doing a good job
The pollution (I'm asthmatic)
Harsh Beijing winter - though if it's anything like Boston, I guess I'm prepared.
Forgetting to take something important

That's that. More later.