BREAKING CULINARY NEWS

You know how horror movies always have the false ending? Where you think everything has wrapped up nicely, and all the conflicts are resolved, and then BAM! a knife-wielding clown bursts through the floorboards? That's a little how I'm feeling about lunch today.

During this trip, I have already eaten century eggs, chicken feet and eels, so I really didn't feel like I needed to prove myself any more. Sure, there's lots more scary stuff out there, but now that I've tried all those things I feel like I can just pass on certain things without feeling like a coward. And since today was my last day, it really seemed like I was past any risk of coming across anything too unusual.

My going-away lunch was attended by eight coworkers, including the executive creative director and the office managing director. We went to the same restaurant where I had the chicken feet (not a good sign), but it's a nice place, even if the decor is a little, as one coworker put it, "Country Kitchen."

The place specializes in spicy foods, so there were lots of peppers and lots of good hot food - tofu with pork, spicy green beans, noodles, chicken, fish soup, and the final dish was a whole grouper, including head and tail, that had been deep-fried.

That wasn't the scary bit.

The scary bit came when the managing director pushed one plate towards me and said I should try a bit. It was a beige sliced white meat that had a complex latticework of raised ridges on one side. My first thought was octopus tentacles, but I was trying to be a good sport so I tried a bit.

As I chewed thoughtfully on the rubbery, flavorless meat, it was revealed that no, thank goodness, it wasn't tentacles.


It was a cow's stomach.

My brain, thankfully, decided to protect itself by pretending it hadn't heard that, so my reply was a semi-interested "Hmm!" and I was able to finish the meal without incident, probably to the disappointment of my coworkers, who I noticed weren't exactly digging into the tripe themselves.

But at least that's another one I can scratch off the life checklist.

IN OTHER NEWS:

GOODBYE, BEIJING OFFICE:
Just generally a quiet, professional exit today. I cleaned my desk and computer, sent out my contact information to friends and walked around saying goodbye. No big speeches, no tearful hugs, but a lot of sincere goodbyes and hope-we-meet-agains. The account service group gave me a very nice gift - a cedar box containing a set of seven handmade ceramics representing the seven fortunes: happiness, inner-peace, prosperity, longevity, joy, health and contentment. It was actually very touching, very unexpected and very nice.

I went out for dinner with the executive creative director and one of my Singaporean friends. We went to a very upscale Korean barbecue, where they cook your food for you at the table over a charcoal pot. There had been talk of a crazy night, which wasn't what I wanted at this point, but fortunately both of them had to go back to the office to work after we finished eating at 9:30, so I was off the hook.

Tomorrow I pack, probably have one more dinner with my friends, and then I'm coming home. Two days and counting!

Regrets? I've had a few...

...but then again,
too few to mention.
So why did I
Ev'n bring it up?
Must love the sound
Of myself speaking!

We are officially in the 'wind down' period of my trip. Tomorrow is my last work day, which will involve packing up papers, doing an exit interview, turning in my security card, making sure my paperwork is in order, cleaning the computer I've been using of any passwords and then going out for dinner with some coworkers.

Today, however, wasn't nearly so action-packed. So I will devote today's blog to my few regrets: the blog posts I wanted to do but never quite got around to writing. At the same time, I want to make sure I capture these things, because they did make an impact on me, even if that impact was limited to "Ha ha! Lookee there!"

So here they are - The Lost Blogs:

Bellies of Beijing: When the weather gets warm, men in Beijing make their ultimate fashion statement: They hitch their t-shirts up under their armpits and go struttin' down the street as if saying "Look at me! I have a large, sweaty stomach, and I'm PROUD! See how it glistens? Drink it in, people!" And for the record, these are generally not the lean, muscular Jet Li types. Not that I am, of course, but I DO keep my shirt down.

Why It Didn't Get Written: It's a visual thing, and there was really never an opportunity to get the kind of pictures that would do the phenomenon justice. It usually would strike like lightning - I'd be walking along, minding my own business, then turn a corner and GOOD LORD! HAVE YOU NO SHAME, SIR? There it would be. Hard to discreetly get the camera out and snap a picture.

The Great Wall Street: I've done enough economy-related posts to mark myself as a geek, but the Chinese stock market really is something to behold. It's increased in value by 80% in the last 7 1/2 months, which is Chubble if I've ever seen it. But what's even more remarkable is that it's driven by individual investors, not the huge institutional buyers you find in other markets.

I wanted to capture a snapshot of that. You see, every morning when I get to work at 9:30, I am nearly run over by retirees - the women in cotton print dresses and slippers, then men in shorts, tank tops, black socks and flip-flops, and most of them EASILY over 60 - shoving their way into the elevator with me, sometimes even pushing the 'close door' button in my face to avoid missing precious seconds that could be spent playing the market in the brokerage on the third floor of my building.

I've poked my head out, and it looks like an off-track betting parlor, right down to the grimy plastic chairs, the electronic ticker that everyone stares at, the overflowing ashtrays and the cashiers behind the counter, buying and selling shares of whatever with the life savings of these survivors of the Great Leap Forward.

My Scottish friend smirked when I mentioned that. "One big difference," he said, "is the people at betting parlors have some idea what they're doing." And that's not condescension - even the government agrees that the markets suffer from too many people chasing fortunes without proper planning, but they don't know how to shut it off without bursting it. They keep putting out warning signals, and the market crashes for a few days or a few weeks, but then they put their flip-flops back on and head to the third floor to get on the money train.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Again, a visual story, and I was too sheepish to walk around taking pictures of people, especially if they happened to be losing money that day.

The Alcoholympics: The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have three official beers plus an official wine ("Greatwall - the wine in a bottle that tastes like wine in a box!") Somehow that seems a bit excessive. I also liked that Greatwall's official title was 'Official Supplier' - as if the marathon stations would have water, Gatorade or a delightful dry Cabernet Sauvignon. I was thinking of maybe doing a taste test and review of all the official Olympic booze.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Well, for one thing, it seemed like kind of a one-note joke. And if there's one thing I INSIST upon, it's that my posts all have depth and poignancy. For another thing, publicly advertising that much drinking alone just seemed a little off.

The Olympic Green: On a more serious note, I really wanted to get onto the site of the Olympics and get some pictures of the buildings under construction close-up. My company has contacts high up with the Olympic hierarchy since several of our clients are major sponsors, and I was hoping that would help me get past the barricades.

Why It Didn't Get Written: There's only so many strings to pull, and only so much time, and it just didn't work out for me. But I will be watching the Games next year with great interest nonetheless.

What Has He Seen?: On a couple occasions, I saw people who just stopped me in my tracks for one reason or another. They tended to be old, with the kind of lined and care-worn faces that were made for arty black-and-white photography. The first one I remember clearly. He looked like he was about 90, and couldn't have weighed 100 pounds. He was pedalling an ancient bicycle slowly - I was walking, and he just barely got past me. Suddenly, like magic, the sidewalk was clear, and he started swerving back and forth, looping the bike from side to side, almost letting it tip before putting the handlebars hard the other way and swerving away. In short, he was having fun.

My first thought was, how charming and quaint! My second thought, and I have no idea where it came from, was, My God, what has that man seen in his life? Eighty years ago China was a chaotic republic. Seventy years ago the Japanese were bombing and burning cities and conquered much of the east coast. Sixty years ago was civil war. Fifty years ago it was the Great Leap Forward era of Mao's Stalinist dictatorship. Forty years ago was the Cultural Revolution, with its purges - tens of millions dead over those two decades. Thirty years ago China was opening to the west. Twenty years ago you had the democracy movement, and what came after. And in the past ten years it's basically become a capitalist consumer society at breakneck speed.

It just made me wonder, what has he lived through? What role did he play? What did he think when it was happening? I think that all the time when I see older people now. I wonder what they think of me, someone they probably were taught was the enemy a few decades ago, and now Beijing is crawling with laowai and their vices and their toys. Just makes you think.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Well, I guess it just did. But again, it would have been better if I could have gotten some arty black-and-white photos to go with it, and the opportunity never presented itself.

Playing Tourist: Summer Palace and Ming Tombs: Those were the two big tourist spots I never made it to. But if I had to trade, say, Gun Day in order to have people try to sell me postcards at those sites, I would take Gun Day every time.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Because I never went there. But Shannon did, so at least between the two of us we've got Beijing pretty well covered.

So there you have it: my list of regrets. But at least I can look back and say I experienced China... my way.

(Ba-dum BAM!)

The Laziest Man in Beijing

So how did I spend my last weekend in this vast, fascinating, exotic land to which I may or may not ever have the opportunity to return?

Well, on Saturday I did some laundry, listened to the Twins get shelled by the Angels, talked to Shannon, watched some movies and an episode of LOST, tried to salvage the music library on my crashed iPod (quite annoyed about that - thank you SO bloody much for your fickle software, Steve Jobs!) and otherwise managed to not leave the apartment, even for a minute.

Today I was a little better - went downstairs to buy some water, ran 4 miles on the treadmill in the workout room, and went out for Singaporean food with my two Singaporean friends. It was fantastic, for the record - kind of an Indian/Chinese fusion. Then we went to Frank's Place for a couple pints of Guinness, and now here I am.

No regrets for the lazy weekend, either. It felt good to relax, and frankly, if this one weekend was the make-or-break point of my three-month stint in China, I'd probably have squandered the trip already.

Two work days left. If I can avoid spilling scalding coffee on the managing director, I'll probably get to call this a success. Wish me luck!

BREAKING CULINARY NEWS: Beijing Roast Duck

(another Google image - not my actual meal)

Might be better known to some as 'Peking Duck,' but 'Beijing Roast Duck' is the full translation of the Chinese name. Needless to say, it's a bit of a specialty of the city, and Beijing Roast Duck restaurants abound.

I usually use 'breaking culinary news' to announce something upsetting or unusual, so this time I thought I'd give equal billing to what was an excellent meal.

Last week I mentioned to some friends that I hadn't yet had the dish, which is practically a crime for anyone who has spent more then 12 hours in the city. Neither of them had either, so we made plans with a couple of longer-term Beijing residents to go out for dinner tonight.

The restaurant itself, Li Qun, seems fairly authentic. It's an old, old courtyard house in a pretty battered looking hutong that must be a couple hundred years of age. From the piles of new bricks, the neighborhood looks like it may be in line for a renovation, but it certainly is REAL Beijing, from the tall grasses growing out of the roofs of the houses down to the kids playing in the street and the residents gathered in small clusters sitting on the sidewalks.

On the other hand, the restaurant is probably only 4-5 blocks southeast of Tienanmen Square, and I think it's become one of those 'authentic' places that gets 'discovered' and then fills up with 'tourists' as the 'prices' go through the 'roof.' This impression was borne out by the review my coworkers were reading during the hour cab ride to get there through rush hour - the phrase I recognized was 'laowai hen dwah hen dwah' - many, many white people.

There certainly were a lot of tourists, but hey, can't blame them. The ambiance was appropriately shabby (real Chinese restaurants don't spend much on atmosphere), and the kitchen, visible as we walked in, was doubtless set up to make one dish over and over and make it well.

I don't know if I ever had Peking Duck back home, but if I did, it certainly wasn't like this. It takes an hour to make (although here I'm sure they just keep pumping them out) and comes out whole, glazed to the point where it glows a radioactive orange and glistens like lacquer. For the five of us, we ordered two. The chef brought them out on a dented aluminum tray, showed it to us, then WHACK! Off with their heads. (I couldn't help but think of Daffy Duck saying "You realize, of course, that this means war!")

The chef then deftly cut the breast meat into thin slices maybe an inch square, making sure each piece had a bit of the glazed skin, which is the prize of the meal. Only the breast was served - the rest of the bird was whisked away.

Plates full of meat were put on the table along with a sweet, strong sauce, green onions cut into strips, small sliced cucumbers, a bowl of raw sugar and stacks of paper-thin pastry sheets maybe six inches across, like small thin tortillas. To eat it, you take a pastry, put a piece of duck dipped in sauce on it, add other toppings, and wrap it up like a tiny burrito. It was delicious. The sugar was surprisingly good, too - just a pinch really brightened up the flavor.

Also at the table was steamed broccoli (not normally my favorite, but I enjoyed it), scallops served on fried taro strips, and some excellent fois gras. I suppose the last makes sense - if there's one thing the place probably has a surplus of, it's duck's liver. I ate more than I should have, but hey, it's not like I eat it every day.

So I was enjoying the meal and thinking, "Hey, this is pretty darn good! And it's an authentic meal where I'm not picking out bones or worrying about what it is or anything!"

And then the remains of the ducks we had just eaten came back out of the kitchen, like duck zombies.

Imagine taking a whole duck, stuffing it full of firecrackers, dunking it in a deep-fat fryer and then exploding it. That's what the bowls set in front of us looked like. There were random bones, necks and blasted pieces of meat sticking out of it every which way. It actually smelled pretty good, and I was able to find a pebble of meat that wasn't seared to a bone and tried it - like all fried food, it was pretty tasty. But I've been here too long to have to prove myself, so I pronounced myself full and let it pass.

I was actually amused by this (if you haven't noticed by now, I'm easily amused.) Serving the meal this way is like them saying "And for you, monsieur, we serve ONLY the very FINEST parts of the duck. Oh, and then we serve you the rest of the duck."

There were plenty of leftovers from the Bowls 'o Duck Bits, which were unceremoniously dumped into a clear plastic bag for us to take home. I passed.

But at least I got to eat the Beijing specialty and have a last Friday night meal with my friends. Good times!

New Chinese Stereotypes

I’m a sensitive liberal-arts-degree-holding kinda guy, so there’s nothing I hate more than the tired old stereotypes we hold about different groups of people. It’s insulting to the people being stereotyped, and it limits the thinking of those who buy into them, potentially closing off our minds to wonderful new experiences that blah blah blah.

That’s why I’ve come up with some exciting NEW stereotypes about Chinese people that you can use in your everyday lives!

1.) The Chinese are highly efficient sleepers. Almost every time I’ve been in a cab or on a bus with a Chinese person for a trip that would take more then 20 minutes, they’ve said “I’m going to close my eyes for a while,” then leaned their heads back and nodded off. At work, many people keep pillows at their desks (this is no joke; actually, it’s quite a good idea) and will just put their heads down on their desks for a 15-minute power nap over lunch. During the hottest part of the day, it’s not unusual to see people – including businesspeople - laying on park benches in the shade and taking naps. Being a hot city, I suppose it bears a lot in common with siestas in Mexico, Spain and other warm areas. Just didn’t know that was a Chinese thing too.

2.) Chinese look great in heavy black-rimmed glasses. Not everyone can pull this look off, but for some reason, the Chinese can.

3.) Chinese people move SLOOOOOOWWWW. This actually might be a Beijing thing and not a Chinese thing, and it’s far from universal, but more than once I’ve passed bicycles while walking briskly, and if I’m in a hurry, it always seems like everyone in Beijing is sleepwalking. I usually end up swerving in and out like a skier through a slalom, and I feel like I’m moving that fast, too. To illustrate this point, I’ve drawn this picture of me being run over by a glacier while trapped behind a crowd of Chinese.

IN OTHER NEWS:

MOVIE PACKAGE DESIGN 101:

I enjoyed what I assume to be a totally legal and legitimate copy of Die Hard 4.0 and was pleased to see that this movie wears its heart right on its sleeve:

Nothing like a prominently placed exploding helicopter to help you know exactly what kind of movie you’re in for.

I LIKES TO DRAW DRAWRINGS:

This should strike fear into the hearts of all of the designers I work with back home. It's a sample of some of the work I've been doing here. Now that I’ve had a taste, I don’t know if I can go back to being just a copywriter ever again.

WORK UPDATE:

Work has pretty much dried up after a long day yesterday (client call at 8:00 pm), and I don’t expect to see much more Beijing work (if any) before I leave. On the other hand, I’ve been getting some details about some work in Minneapolis, so I’ve spent some time pondering that.

The new business pitch I was working on was presented today (I wasn’t there – Chinese presentation) and apparently it went well. The farewell video I was working on was shown at the client’s farewell dinner last night, and apparently the honored guest enjoyed it very much, so that’s all good. (Oh, by the way, when I was at the American restaurant yesterday, I saw him having lunch. Probably a Yippie-Ki-Yay Burger or something. Kind of funny to recognize him from putting together the slideshow while he had NO IDEA who I was.)

America, Olé!

Went out for lunch with my Scottish coworker today. He’s heading to Shanghai tomorrow and then on to Bangkok for a long weekend, so we wanted to catch a meal before I take off.

Since it was a special occasion, I simply HAD to go to the American-themed restaurant I’d heard about at Lido Place a mile or so away.

Two words: Cowboy hats.

To be fair, it fit the overall theme, which was really more Tex-Mex than straight-up American. But it was still a little strange seeing the entirely Chinese staff wearing cowboy hats, boots, checked shirts (fringed shirts for the women) and jeans. The walls were decorated with serapés and sombreros. The music was, I actually don’t know how to describe it, but maybe romantic Country? Very low energy and as bland as a doughy tortilla.

Speaking of which, the enchilada was a bit substandard – stringy beef in the aforementioned doughy tortilla, topped with – well, imagine if you could somehow melt a carton of cottage cheese. And I mean the WHOLE CARTON, plastic and all. Kinda like that, but greasier.

The salad bar was a bit odd, too. It was made to look like an old chuck wagon, and while it had iceburg lettuce and salad dressing, there wasn’t much else there with which to construct a salad. There was a pasta salad that had what looked like strips of luncheon ham in it (ran into that in some noodles once before here, too) and what I think they thought was potato salad.

Deconstructing it at the table, it seemed to consist of large chunks of potato, salad dressing, pickles, bacon bits and paprika. (“What the heck IS this?” I asked my friend. “You tell me, you’re the American,” he replied, as if it were some national delicacy of ours.)

So not exactly a four-star meal, but I was amused by the décor. (Would have gotten pictures, but hey, no camera left.) I have to say, I bet that when Chinese tourists eat at many Chinese restaurants in America, they probably have a similar reaction. (“And where were the bones? It just creeps me out!”)

Riceometer Check

That's right, boys and girls. 90%. I have ten days remaining in Beijing (a little less when you consider my flight leaves early on the 16th.)

IN OTHER NEWS:

TRICKSY, TRICKSY THIEVESES WANTS MY PRECIOUSES
Take a look at the Riceometer picture. Does it look a little blurry to you? It should, thanks to the pickpocket who lifted my new Olympus camera out of my backpack yesterday, leaving me with just my low-resolution webcam as the last way I have to take pictures.

(Remember, my cameraphone was stolen after I forgot it in a cab in June. I say stolen because, while it was my own fault for forgetting it, when I called it moments later, the person who picked it up clearly knew it was forgotten, and knew they could answer it and perhaps get it to its rightful owner, but instead turned it off and took it. I accept some responsibility for that one, but I still say stolen.)

I'm not sure where it happened, but I suspect it was at the Silk Street Pearl Market, a six-story bazaar in central Beijing stuffed to the rafters with counterfeit bags, jeans, shoes, jewelry and more. I had gone out for the day shopping with two Singaporean coworkers. We went first to Panjiayuan, the huge antique market I visited twice in June, for some last-minute souvenirs, then to Silk Street for one of my coworkers to buy a bag.

Both are well-known for pickpockets, since they attract a lot of tourists, but in Silk Street we were constantly bumping people due to the narrow aisles, and the laowai are especially dense - like fish in a barrel.

I'm kicking myself, of course, because I knew better. I've been very careful about what I carry and where. As I was throwing my bag together for the day, I even looked at the camera in my hand and thought "I don't need this today." But then I think I got distracted and dropped it in an outside pocket with a water bottle.

Then I forgot about it. I remember feeling people bump me - at one point I even turned and asked a friend if I was still zipped - but I remember thinking "Well, if they want my water that bad, they can have it." Only later, when I realized it was gone, did I remember that I had brought it after all.

So yeah, I'm kicking myself - but I'd rather be kicking the thief who took it from me.

I will not miss sticking out as an obvious foreigner, and I will not miss the way foreigners are viewed by part of the population here as a source of easy money. There's the pickpocket, who probably also steals from Chinese but probably prefers to steal from foreigners because, even if I noticed, what do I do? I can't make myself understood. Then there was the vendor at Panjiayuan who gave my Singaporean (but ethnic Chinese) friend a starting price of 150 yuan for an item, then gave me a starting price of 280 when I asked about the same item a few minutes later. Or the panhandlers, who were especially on last night, following me and tapping my feet with their sticks for - seriously - at least 5 minutes (I was waiting for someone), totally ignoring the locals who walked by.

I know that's just sulky carping, and I know I should be more generous since they need it more than me, but I can't help feeling insulted. And I'm bitter about the camera.

Still, I'm talking about a tiny minority of the population in very specific places. I know perfectly well that every city has pickpockets and scam artists and panhandlers and worse - really I have never felt unsafe in Beijing, and I'm not going to let a little petty larceny ruin what has been a fabulous experience. I just don't like being marked as an outsider, but I guess knowing what that feels like is a valuable lesson in empathy for me.

As for the camera itself, at least I had moved almost all of the pictures to my computer (maybe a dozen were lost, nothing significant) and at least it happened after I had seen pretty much all of the tourist sites. And a replacement will cost less than $200 - a kick in the teeth, to be sure, but it's not like buying a new car.

So there you go! Sunshine and rainbows, everybody!

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE:
One thing I noticed at Silk Street was that, while many of the vendors don't speak English, they all know all the brand names. There's a large number of Chinese whose introduction to our language starts with "Louis Vitton," "Rolex," "Nike" and "Dolce & Gabbana."

I don't know why that struck me. Maybe because it seems so trivial, or because it's a shame that foreigners come to Beijing, and that's all they want to talk about.

(To be fair, the bags I saw carried a badge that said "Dolge & Gabbana," and every one of them, regardless of whether they were made of leather, canvas or vinyl, was marked "Genuine Denim.")

WORK UPDATE:
About a week left, and NOW they pile it on.

The farewell video saga continues, with rewrites coming in from various parties on the client side, requiring a re-recording. I had to rewrite and edit parts, but fortunately got to skip the studio because I was at a meeting for:

The new business pitch on Thursday. Myself and one of the Singaporeans presented three conceptual ideas with extensions in 4 media. A Chinese team presented 2 more. In the end, two of the ideas I worked on are moving forward. But since the presentation is in Chinese, I don't know what more I have to do.

Then there's the print campaign that was my first job here - I was told I'll be spending part of the week coming up with online extensions.

And as for the TV commercial that is being art-directed by about 40 people on 4 continents, the call Friday was as painful as I feared. Frankly, I'm keeping my head down, other than informal discussions with a couple people, because I don't want to get sucked into that with just a few days left.

Mostly, though, I just want everything to wrap up nice and quiet-like. I've made it this far without a serious meltdown or crisis, and (knock on wood) I'd just as soon keep it that way.

I'll see you all soon!