Planet China's Beijing Airport - the largest in the world.
Our Beijing HQ - the Jade Garden Hotel.
Beijing bullfrog - delicious and nutritious.
I woke up Saturday morning at 4:30 am, too excited and jet-lagged to sleep. Having read about the daily “Morning with Mao” flag-raising ceremony at Tianan’men Square, I decided to pull the “hearty Vermonter” thing and go for an early a.m. run to visit the Square and the Forbidden City, to see if I could grab a photo opp and experience Beijing’s historic city center at dawn. Wearing only shorts and a short-sleeved tee in the frozen early morning weather (an outfit that provided endless amusement for the warmly-dressed locals), I arrived downtown just in time to see the PRC flag slowly flutter up the Tianan’men Square flagpole, accompanied by the “East Is Red” PRC national anthem. Hundreds of Chinese were also on hand, including dozens of tour buses of Chinese tourists who looked to be in Beijing for the week-end, and didn’t want to miss their morning with Mao. The Mao phenomenon continues to perplex. After reading extensively about Mao, and talking with Chinese and Westerners about his complicated legacy, I am still amazed at the Cult of Personality that surround him – such is one of many of the political paradoxes in Planet China.
After returning to the hotel for a shower and the morning cuppa – Stash Lemon Ginger tea with a generous dollop of Grade B maple (standard international travel comfort food) – I took a walk around our neighboring hutongs to locate the best breakfast street food options for our posse. I used to think the Chinese were bad at breakfast, having eaten my fair share of bad Middle Kingdom morning fare - hard-boiled eggs, bland buns, and pickled vegetables - at more than one Chinese hotel in more than one Chinese city. And then I met Chinese street food. Hen Hao! Beyond the tasty pot stickers, fried dough, and steamed buns, my favorite option is “jianbing,” a crepe-like pancake of grilled flour batter, an egg, and scallions seasoned with hot sauce. In his excellent memoir “The Last Days of Old Beijing,” author Arthur Meyer, calls jianbing “the Egg McMuffin of Beijing street food.” I’d say that jianbing is both tastier and healthier, and it is good to see my five yuan going to support an enterprising local entrepreneur rather than a giant transnational corporation that peddles crap and calls it “food.”
Our group assembled at 9:00 am in the Jade Garden lobby, grabbed some steamed buns at a nearby local street food joint, and headed for the Forbidden City. Our China Mojo posse seemed game to do and try most anything, and everyone seemed more chipper after a night of rest in the wake of our epic airplane journey. Saturday had dawned bright and clear, but a crisp wind blowing cross the griddle-cake flat streets of Beijing made for a chilly but beautiful morning. We spent a few hours touring the Forbidden City, our Champlain’ers making great friends with a whole gaggled of Chinese tourists who wanted their pictures taken with us (and vice versa). I joked at one point that they could have paid their way to China by renting themselves out for photo opps, and it was fun to see our group’s attention to the Forbidden City’s many historic and architectural treasures competing with their interest in having some good times with fellow Chinese visitors to this incredible place.
China Mojo touring the Forbidden City.
China Mojo taking in the view at Jianshan Park's pagoda.
By noon, everyone in our group had climbed the hill at Jianshan Park (manmade – thanks, Chinese peasants) for the magnificent view looking south over the Forbidden City, and after descending for lunch at Grandma’s Kitchen (a surprisingly authentic American food joint in the shadow of the City’s east wall), we spent the afternoon exploring Tianan’men Square and the shopping district just south. At Tianan’men, we marveled at the Chinese government’s remarkable campaign of “perception management” in the wake of the pro-democracy movement of 1989, which we had encountered in the epic Longbow Group documentary film “The Gate of Heavenly Peace,” a three hour exploration of the event with extended interviews with key participants and observers. Now, the People’s Monument where students and workers had “occupied” Beijing for several weeks in spring 1989 before being driven from the Square with troops, tanks and bullets was cordoned off and guarded by military troops in uniform, and surveill’ed (as is true in much of Beijing) by an extensive network of security cameras. Two giant video billboards, meanwhile, flash a continuous stream of advertisements featuring scenes of the “New China” – Three Gorges Dam, the Bird’s Nest and 2008 Olympic vignettes, and a variety of eco-stunning tourist destinations all over the Middle Kingdom - along with the ubiquitous images of “shiny happy people” all “harmonizing” (the Chinese government’s favorite Orwellianism) with one another in the service of a new 21st century China on the go.
Fascinating. Such is life in the “New Beijing.”
The Cult of Mao in "New Beijing, China." Perception Management at Tianan'men Square.
After a few hours of shopping, our merry Mojo’ers returned to the hotel, tired after a full day of hoofing. We managed to corral six of them for a hot pot meal at Dong Lai Shun, a Muslim-owned hot pot that Beijing’ers say is one of the best in the city, found on the 5th floor of a giant shopping mall on Wanfujing Street, just a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Thinly sliced strips of beef, fresh greenery and vegetables – all served up in a traditional copper hot pot full of boiling oil and washed down with Yanjing beer. Delicious.
Mongolian Hot Pot! One of China's best eating options.
Has it only been 24 hours since we arrived? Hen Hao.
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