a better tomorrow

Not there was really any other direction in which things could go, but since our first day in China, shit has gotten way better, in fact, you might say that in general, shit has gotten kind of awesome.

In hindsight, Japan might have been the worst place to come here from - as Maya and I have said a few times over the last few days, our culture shock probably would have been a lot less if we'd come straight to Beijing from NYC. Where Japan is ultra polite, clean, orderly, modern, China is brusque, crusty, and chaotic, existing in some bizarre neverland between the 1st and 3rd worlds, between western freedom and old-regime oppression. While we've gotten more comfortable in this liminal state, there's always an underlying sense of danger, which, as the American doctor who gave me my 3rd Japanese Enchephalitis vaccination shot this morning (in a ridiculously sleek and sanitary western-style clinic) pointed out, is kind of what you want if you're going to travel as Maya and I are. Kind of.

Fortunately, that sense of danger is now just a little bit more in check. Regarding our living situation, we spent our first two nights crashing with Fish in his luxurious executive suite (on the second day we swung by the good ol' Fangyuan to check out a day early, and miraculously, they not only gave us cash back for the night we weren't staying but didn't mention or charge us for the shattered bathroom shelf). Then on Friday, we moved to the 7 Days Inn that Eveline had booked for us. That has turned out to be pretty much all you could hope for out of a budget hotel - think Motel 6 but in technicolor, with really hard beds, barely anyone who speaks English, and water that stops running periodically for a few hours so they can refill the tanks.

As for the city at large, here are just a few of the awesome, crazy, and/or disturbing experiences we've had in the last few days:

Revisiting Tiennamen Square in the daylight.

Exploring the gorgeous, disarmingly sprawling Forbidden City...

the highlight for me being the Imperial Garden in the City's north end, which is full of amazing craggy stone scuptures and structures, intentionally carved over long periods of time with dripping water. Here Maya stands in front of the stunning Duixiushan, (Gathering Beauty Hill) a small artificial mountain of twisting rock, complete with caves, fountains, and on its peak, Yujingyuan, the Pavilion of Imperial View, to which the Emperor and Empress would ascend every year (but unfortunately no tourists were allowed).

Discovering even more insane animals-on-a-stick at roadside stands. Here are some scorpion and seahorse kabobs (the latter of which Fish sampled - "Tastes salty and crunchy," he reported after the little thing was deep-fried to a blackened crisp), and behind them, a vendor who took obvious pleasure in grossing out tourists - in the back of the stand were rows and rows of live scorpions impaled on skewers; whenever he had an audience of already aghast whities assembled, this sadistic little fucker would blow on the poor critters and have them (and quite a few tourists) all squirming madly.


Passing Hooters Beijing in our cab one night, which was a strange enough sight in itself, but then we noticed the large billboard advertising the place, which featured three Chinese Hooters girl in the restaurant chains' signature tube-tops and orange shorts, each one of the fine young ladies more flat-chested than the last.

Walking around the Temple of Heaven, where, for some reason, they had enormous speakers blasting out classical music everywhere (though not as loudly as this photo would suggest).


Discovering the George Orwell novel Animal Farm for sale right out in the open in a big bookstore in the Waifujing mall.

Climbing the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. (That's Fish there on the far right, stepping into the fucking photo - way to go, man.) Words and pictures really cannot capture the absolute majesty and scope of the structure and its misty mountain setting.

Hurtling down the, believe it or not, toboggan/flume-ride that takes you over 3,000-feet from the Great Wall to the foot of the moutain! You really have to experience it to even begin to understand - but here's how the Chinese pamphlet that Fish picked up described it (in fall-on-the-floor hilarious broken English: "Toboggan mixed sports and entertainment and became a new amusement project. Tt is also called 'Nanirrigated farmland sled'. Toboggan uses the theory of acceleration of gravity and makes coasters dive along the mountain path in low-latitude flying or high-speed driwing, Thrilling,amazing,safe and comfortable,it also has an auto device make speed easily controoled by both old and young.Weigang Company in German made this toboggan of stainless steel.It is 1580 meters in total length and ,in a form fo snake , it takes adwantage of different situations to accordance with the mountain path,so safely send tourists Muzhihaolou to the foot of Great Wall." ...This video that Eveline shot in February might give you a (slightly) better idea of what the ride actually is like...



Exploring the totally nuts neighborhood around our 7 Days Inn, where snazzy bars, sleek boutique-like shops, and tourist-friendly trinket stands sit side-by-side with tiny housing complexes that are basically just piles of rubble and inside you can see mothers sleeping with their babies, both clad in rags, on rickety beds.

Renting a slow motor boat (for 60 yuan - less than $10 - per hour) at around 10pm and driving it around the gorgeous lake in said hood while drinking Heinekens purchased from the same folks who rented us the boat. Red-lantern- and neon-lit nightclubs crowd the banks; a mix of traditional wooden boats, swan-shaped pedal-boats, and other motor boats share the water; and strange mini hot-air balloons with open flames rise in the sky around us, set off by locals on the shore; all make for a truly surreal scene. Maybe best of all, the disclaimers/warning sign by the boat-rental booth commands (again, in sublimely broken English): "Do not bubilosity, and do not engage in nonstandard behavior. Please do not stand and fight while in the boat..."

Eating in a hot-pot restaurant in said hood. The menu included "Braised dog," "Braised pig large intestine," "Braised bullfrog (live and fresh)," and "Braised bull penis, marrow, and testicles." We passed on all those culinary gems, but opted for the "Braised shrimp (live and fresh)," obviously expecting a nice steaming plate of cooked crustaceans to be delivered to our table. Instead, we got, along with our hot pot of boiling broth, a glass bowl full of very live shrimp, all kicking, spitting, and, I swear, sneezing. Our waiters gestured for us to stand and back away from the table, whereupon they dumped the wriggling shrimp into the boiling pot. The poor little animals danced and lept as soon as they hit the bubbling liquid, and two actually popped back out - one onto the floor, the other onto the tabletop - before the waiters could slap down the hot pot's lid. Maya, Fish, and I all stood around, watching this, completely amazed. The waiters frantically recaptured the escaped crustaceans and hurried back into the kitchen with them, only to return seconds later with the same shrimp, presumably washed, and began to put them back into the pot. Fish protested: "No, no, they've been on the floor," he said (and I have to agree - the 5 second rule should not apply in China), but the waiters were so obviously offended and incredulous, that we eventually relented, against our better judgement. The shrimp ended up being delicious - though we did half expect them to still struggle a little as we picked them, all pink and smoking, from the pot with our chopsticks. Hopefully, Maya and I prove to have as much fight in us as these poor critters - in fact, just a little more, since they're dead right now - over the rest of our mad trip.

P.S. Tomorrow night (Tuesday) we're off on a 12-hour train ride to Xi'ian (to see the motherfucking Terracotta Warriors) and to visit the trapped-in-time city of Pinyang. Most likely we won't be able to access the internet much in said locales, but stay cool: We'll be back and posting soon enough.