Duck (Beijing #2)

No tongues this time (duck tongues, that is). Just lovely Quenjude Peking duck. And a few ducks' feet as well. Food was at the centre of my second Beijing experience.

We had a very busy few days.

Excellent shopping at the Silk Road market - tons of fakes of all different shapes sizes and varieties. Some hard bargaining resulted in Max's pram being laden with jade, a kite, a Buddha head, another fakey Panerai (this one a very, very good copy that I reckon will pass muster at a Swiss customs checkpoint), chopsticks, belts and loads of other stuff.

Bizarrely, in the sweltering heat, Silk Road market seemed to be doing a roaring trade in "Spyder" ski jackets and gloves. I love skiing and as you know I am as vain as Chris Eubank so I was sorely tempted to invest. However, the idea of my knock-off ski jacket revealing itself to be as waterproof and windproof as a sieve at the top of a crispy red run made me shy away. I know this is ridiculous - they are probably made in the same place as the "real" ones. But you just never know.


Up to The Great Wall at Mutianyu in two cars to save Tony, Philippe, Felicia and Kot the pleasure of two hours in the car with Max and Lilli. This being sightseeing Tony style, the itinerary included an excellent lunch stop at the catch-your-own-fish restaurant I visited last time I was passin' through. The food was great. And the Great Wall continues to be great - unanimously voted so by all who surveyed it from our party (see spectacular photos attached) although Lilli and Max were even more impressed by their new sun hats. Clear blue skies meant a much more impressive, even breathtaking view this time and the peacefulness was in stark contrast to downtown Beijing (which takes your breath away through the heavy presence of particulates in the air).

Visit in the afternoon and you will have the place practically to yourself but that does mean that you get the full attention of the tourist tat salespeople on your way up and down. We actually bought a beautiful bedspread by accident. I idly looked over at one hung up and touched it, remarking on how nice it was to Abigail. The sales guy interpreted this as an avid intent to purchase. He wrote down 1500 RMB (£100) as the starting price and I naturally strolled off saying no thanks very much. He followed me at least 30 yards down the road and the price dropped dramatically with every step. Eventually, to get rid of him I offered an insultingly low bid of 200 RMB and he took me by surprise and accepted it. I had to carry the sodding thing all the way back down and as I was doing so it dawned on me that it wouldn't fit into the hand luggage sized cases we had brought to Beijing. Doh!

We were joined for dinner at the Quenjude Duck restaurant by Tony's friend, ex-basketball player (and all round great bloke) Ma Jian who you may remember casts an impressive 6ft 7 shadow. Lilli and Max were in awe. Insert your own rubbish joke here about a 6ft 7 tall man in a duck restaurant. Geddit???

Sunday; to the Forbidden City and the children started to flag after an hour or two in 33 degree heat. The Temple of Heavenly Tranquility was transformed into the Temple of Children Making it Clear That They Would Rather Be Watching Films in the Cool of an Air-conditioned Hotel Room. We left Kot and Philippe seeing more sights and went for a feast at a little place round the corner from the hotel followed by a trip to Haagen Dazs. We ate like kings at the restaurant for 100 RMB. Four ice creams at Haagen Dazs cost 145 RMB. It's just plain wrong.

Abigail, Max and Lilli prefer Beijing to Shanghai. I am outvoted. I think I like Shanghai as much as Beijing but maybe I am taking into account my affection for Shanghai nightlife that was a major part of my last visit. Dunno. I love them both.

Time

My time in China is running out. The project is moving forward at a frenetic pace. We have been in Beijing for 2 days in meetings with potential partners and suppliers. There is little time left but lots still to do. I am finding it hard to concentrate on everything that is going on around me because my mind is firing in different directions all at once. The project is really interesting for me and I have a strong desire to stay here and finish it - to really see it through.

This will not happen - there is a lot more to do and it will not be finished by the time we leave next Thursday night. This is a source of regret but I always knew this would happen because projects don't have neat beginning and end times that you can stick to, because people don't work that way. I spoke to someone on Thursday who said that they had reserached for one-and-a-half years before they set up a programme with similarities to ours. I have been in China for 7 weeks...

Kot has arived from the UK and we spent some time together in Shanghai before he jumped on a train to Huang Shan (11 hours), climbed the magic mountain and then hoofed it up here on another train (22 hours this time!) to join us in Beijing. I took him to Shintori in Shanghai, which he loved and tonight in Beijing I have introduced him to Tony and Ma Jian who came to say hi and talk some more about his plans for his latest venture in China. Everyone has a venture in China. Only some people have the staying power to make them happen. Being 6 ft 7 inches tall helps you to make your plans come to life, or at least helps you to get your plans noticed.

It also helps you to get a private dining room at an incredible Beijing restaurant. I ate wonderful new, subtle flavours. New styles of cooking - a huge rib of beef, chicken with spices and walnuts, chunky oxtail, yellow fish and roe deer. The conversation and the beer flowed.

God I love China. Wo bu xiang li kai Zhongguo.

Taxis

Iv'e done some bad things in my life. And I was reminded of many of them this morning during the most frightening car journey of my life, as they flashed before my eyes.

I had to go to Hong Kong on Tuesday for a meeting, and catching the first flight from Pudong Airport meant an early start to the day. The pissing rain had caused enormous puddles on the main highway and as the driver lurched from lane to lane at 110kmh (believe me, it felt fast this morning), aquaplaning and hooting his horn at equally bonkers lorry drivers, I began to think about the safety features of the Volkswagen Santana. Possibly, when China's most popular automobile (the default choice of cab companies) was first manufactured, it was best in class in terms of roadholding, crash test performance or airbag deployment. But I doubt it.

As I looked around my impending C.O.D. (cause of death) I went through a mental checklist;

1) No rear seatbelt? Check
2) Bald tyres? Check
3) Unyielding plastic cage around driver on which to bang head? Check
4) 10 years "maintenance free" suspension/brakes/windscreen wipers? Check
5) Driver underqualified to drive a tonka toy? Undoubtedly.

So poor was his control of the accelerator pedal that I actually checked to see if he had a club foot when I got out of the car, shaking, at the terminal building.

If you are ever in Shanghai and you notice that the cab in which you are travelling has chubby finger marks embedded in the interior door handle, you will know that I was there before you and that unless your driver has taken drastic remedial action, you are in for a wild ride.

As a post script: on my way back from the airport at 10.30pm, the taxi driver for the return leg was driving very slowly. He eventually stopped in the middle lane of the Pudong Highway. Concerned for his welfare, I tapped on the plastic cage around him to attract his attention. No response. I banged on the glass and he jerked himself awake. I swear this is true. It think it was one of those days.

Shiji Park

Loyal readers will remember that I helpfully pointed out in an earlier post or two that Shanghai is big. Really big. Considering just how big it is (quite big actually) there isn't all that much to do in a sort of family way. You can eat (loyal readers may have noticed that there are a number of different restaurants in Shanghai mentioned in earlier posts, too), you can party, you can shop but there aren't that many family attractions here.

Fortunately young children like Lilli and Max aren't really that demanding. They like running around, swimming, making lots of noise and pushing each other over. Throwing an ice cream into the cage every now and again keeps them happy and cools them down. That was a joke.

With this in mind, we went on the metro to Shiji Park today. As far as I can tell, this is the only park in Shanghai really deserving of the name "Park" by dint of the fact that it has real grass in it. It also has an enormous musical fountain that spurts water in time to the music. It features hundreds of nozzles built into the floor, so on a hot day, you can play chicken by with the jets (and presumably with the many varieties of water-borne bacteria that Shanghai municipality serves up) as the music stops and starts.

The fountain had attracted a big crowd. Some of the children were scampering politely around the edge of the fountain. Lilli waded right in, and got soaked to the skin. Spurred on by the enthusiastic crowd, Max followed her in and got equally wet. Lilli proceeded to take off her dress and run in and out and right across the fountain plaza to the crowd at the other side. Both Lilli and Max attract a lot of attention wherever they go here. It is for a good reason that Europeans hold on to the cliche that Asians are always taking pictures - it's because it's true.

It doesn't take much to keep the children entertained. The children kept everyone else in the park happy.

Poster

When I was an impressionable teenager, I thought it was cool to draw the odd hammer and sickle on my rough book at school and wear a donkey jacket - up the revolution / power to the proletariat (of leafy, suburban Mellor)! I even bought a communist badge from Park Hall antiques fair but I can't remember if I ever actually had the balls to wear it at school. Probably only when no-one was looking and obviously prior to them making me Headboy.

Anyway, today we went to the Propoganda Poster Centre to see the real thing. A late-middle-aged gentleman named Mr. Yang pei Ming runs it. It is situated in the basement of a block of flats in a residential area very close to our apartment. You would never know it was there unless you have a guidebook. It's his private collection of propoganda posters spanning the decades - from square jawed peasants harvesting yet another record breaking crop of corn, to scary red and black images from the cultural revolution, through to celebratory pictures of non-existent technological and scientific feats of the 1980s (anyone remember the Chinese space shuttle? I thought not)

He keeps the place (and presumably himself) going on the 20RMB per person ticket price that he charges and the proceeds from the sale of the posters to people who used to draw hammers and sickles on their rough books and surreptitiously wear a badge with Lenin's head on it under their donkey jackets. He gets no state / party support to keep the place open (no one officially wants to remember what happened) so when you are next in Shanghai, go and pay him a visit at 868 Huashan Lu.

The posters that are for sale are originals according to Mr. Yang, and they certainly appear to be. They were produced for the local Communist Party Office, in batches of a few thousand. To a greater or lesser extent, all artists had to produce state approved art, and local collectives of artists were responsible for churning out as many images as the party required. Nonetheless, some of the pictures are really beautiful. The early ones are in a kind of folk art style. Things get a bit dark and messy later on (lots of America bashing in monochrome) before coming over all orange and brash in the late 70's and 80's. It seems that even in China the 80's was a taste-free zone.

We picked up a fantastic poster of a Tibetan peasant who has done her good deed for the day by marching many miles to the local state hospital to visit a sick child (not her own - that would be a bourgeois act). The Tibetan peasant has a cheery disposition. The nurse at the bedside is ruddy of cheek and clearly of sturdy breeding stock, and the boy in bed (still wearing his cap, bizarrely) looks to be a picture of health, the lazy little slacker! Oh what a marvellous place to be - a Chinese hospital bed somewhere near Tibet (presumably) in the mid-70s!

I bottled out of asking for a discount on the sticker price so I was probably terribly ripped off but that's irrelevant. It's a great image and I love it. Mr. Yang's place smells very damp so hopefully my inability to say the words "Best price?" will mean the air conditioners will run a bit longer for a few days and prolong the life of some of his beautiful pictures that the Party doesn't want to spend money preserving.

Dinner anyone?

Sunday was a busy day. After knock-off shopping, we went to the unfeasibly busy cloth market to pick up our new stuff from Ken's tailoring shop. Ken's stuff was first class so we decided to go for a beer in Xintiandi to celebrate and then on for dinner.

Xintiandi is very nice - a couple of renovated blocks of old Shanghai. It's cool, upscale and expensive too. Because it is full of expats, I want to dislike it because I am a snob and very dull and predictable in that way. However, I secretly think it's really cool and has a really nice vibe to it. Maybe it was the beer.

We went for early dinner at a great fish restaurant that I keep meaning to pick up the name card from - I have been there 3 times and I still don't know what it is called... It is well worth the effort to visit. You chose your seafood and fresh water fish from the many tanks on the ground floor. I have no idea what most of them are. You specify in what way you want your fish cooked and what combination of flavours you would like. My firm favourites are the scallops, cooked with lots of garlic, some finely chopped spring onion and very fine vermicelli noodles. Oh God they taste good. On the other hand, I recommend that you avoid the tank of water beetles and the one filled with what looks like a writhing mass of... well... basically they look like flaccid penises.

Lilli and Max loved the fish tank full of big exotic stuff (including sharks). I assume that visiting high-rollers pick a big fish for a banquet to impress their mates. Lilli also nearly ran a mile when a crab decided to try and make a break for it from his tank (in order to avoid his certain destiny) and ended up running sideways in her direction.

We decided to leave the frogs in peace on this occasion.

Looking up - Yuyuan Gardens

I particularly like the one on the left. It's an unintentionally witty juxtaposition of an old roof, the top of some godawful new skyscraper that is being thrown up Pudong side of the river (the name of which escapes me) and someone's pointy hat.