Beijing Diary(4) by Chrissy

August 2009

Friday morning was nice and calm. We hopped in a cab and went to an area that I didn’t even know existed. It is called the 798 Art Zone, and it is blocks and blocks of buildings that used to be factories or other industrial sites that have since been turned into art galleries. You could spend days looking at all the art. We roamed from gallery to gallery enjoying the art on the inside, but unfortunately I was unable to take pictures of any of the fine art we saw. However, there were numerous statues outside that I could photograph. All were beautiful or very strange.

When I was in Beijing in 2006, Dad and I got a lot of stares for being westerners. These stares still come, but not as frequently in Beijing, probably because of the Olympics. Many Chinese tourists in touristy areas even asked me to be in pictures with their children. This only happened once this trip before today. One of the exhibits in a gallery was a hunk of clay where people were encouraged to make their own art. A little boy was playing with the clay and his mother used hand gestures to indicate that she wanted me to be in a picture with him. I knelt down to take the picture, and then she instructed me to move closer to him, grab some clay and pretend I was playing with the clay like the boy. I hope she was pleased with the picture she created.

Lunch was at a place called Café Pause where the clock was paused at 5:30. The day before there was a 100 day old birthday party for a baby girl. The waitress, who spoke English, was surprised when I asked about the party, because she had no idea that I had noticed a giant poster dedicated to the infant. Evidently celebrating the first 100 days of a baby’s life is very significant in China and Korea.

Since we were being joined by Jamyoung, Eigyoo and Hyangji in Shanghai, YK said that we should have some western food while we could. We had a club sandwich that had an egg in it, pizza, and penne pasta with chili and chicken.

We continued exploring gallery after gallery, when we were done eating. The use of space was so creative that we would walk down what looked like an abandoned alley, and then there would be this modern gallery out of the blue. I look forward to exploring these galleries the next time I visit Beijing.

When I travel, I always bring a couple of things with me. One of these things is a deck of cards. I did not pack a deck of cards this trip. So, I set out to buy one after enjoying the galleries. In Beijing, instead of bringing a product up to register and paying for it, many of the stores do things a little differently. When I found the deck of cards I wanted, I got a receipt from the deck of cards lady at the stall. There are many people throughout these stores to finding someone is never a problem. Then you take the receipt to the cashier, whom you also give the money, and she gives you back a claim receipt and a payment receipt. Then you have to go back to the stall and find the lady to give her the new receipts to get the deck of cards. Seemed like a lot of work for something so small.

In 2006, the group went for a quest to find a particular well known Peking (Beijing) duck restaurant named Da Dong. We were unsuccessful and had to settle for another duck place. Since then, YK found the restaurant, and we had dinner with Aihua and Xuesong there. We ate a whole duck, which was carved tableside. In fact, there were four people carving ducks all around me. We also had beef tongue, which was actually pretty good, and a number of other dishes. Again, we ate a feast.

Lastly, we had Chinese whiskey. Xuesong wanted to get drunk, and had brought with him two additional bottles of whiskey that were given to him by a university professor at a communist officers’ university. Two former students, who became high party communist leaders, had given the professor the whiskey bottles. Xuesong’s plan was to order one bottle at the restaurant and then replace it with one that he brought in so we could have the better alcohol. However, even though the original whiskey bottle was special, the other more expensive “communist” bottles looked so different they would have stood out, so we saved them for later. Both Xuesong and Aihua laughed when I asked if I could take the original whiskey bottle home. I think it would make a lovely vase in the guest room.

Since we were going back to the apartment to drink the whiskey, it was clear that though Hyun had bought anju earlier in the day, we did not have the customary little whiskey drinking glasses. I went on a quick quest to find some at the supermarket, but found shot glasses instead. I bought 7 even though there were only 6 of us that evening, because I anticipated that we would use them in Shanghai with Jamyoung, Eigyoo, and Hyangji. On the walk back to the hotel, I realized how odd it was that I bought 7 glasses when 8 would have not only made more sense, but would have been a Chinese good luck number.

I met up with everyone else at the hotel room, and they were eating the anju and waiting patiently for the glasses. We opened both bottles so we could compare. After a couple of glasses of whiskey, the doorbell rang. Xuesong had dipped into the No. 9 Café next door, where he had gotten a snack earlier in the day, and ordered delivery because he was worried about anju. So, in addition to the anju that Hyun had got, we had two complimentary drinks, a salad, a plate of fruit, soup, and chicken and potatoes. There was not enough room in our stomachs to eat all that food. We sat, ate, drank, and chatted until the blue bottle was empty. Xuesong suggested we save the other bottle for Shanghai, and so we did.

Beijing Diaries(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)