Zach arrives in Beijing!!

Zach arrived in Beijing on Monday afternoon, and Cliff and I were really excited to share the city with our first guest. Two meals, one bottle of wine, 8 hours of sleep and two massages later we arrived at our first sightseeing mecca--the front gate of the Forbidden City facing Tiananmen Square. Below is the classic welcome to China picture: (including the too-kool-for-school Chinese peace signs)


Since the death of Mao in 1976, the central gate has had a portrait of MaoZeDong towering over it, while the western and eastern walls have had giant placards; the left one reads "Long Live the People's Republic of China" (中华人民共和国万岁), while the right one reads "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples" (世界人民大团结万岁).


The next stop was Tiananmen Square, just to the south. The walk to the Square is usually a quick jaunt thru a set of underground corridors, but yesterday we were one of the first people to walk thru the new set of security checkpoints. We were supposed to put all of our belongings thru an airport-style security scanner, but Cliff hand carried his large Rebel XTI thru the security gate without trouble, and a group in front of us carried a TV quality video camera past the guards. I guess if there is a 'short pole' in the security apparatus, count on Cliff to exploit it. As with many things in China, the illusion of of security is just as good as security itself.
Our next stop was the Monument in front of Mao's Mausoleum on Tiananmen Square. We didn't go into Mao's Mausoleum, as I have a moral conundrum with giving money and paying respects to a man--albeit the father of the CCP--who killed 30 mil of his countrymen in the largest man-made famine in history, who kept his country backwards for 40 years, planting the seeds of the biggest population crisis in history, purged a generation of doctors and academia when he shut down the higher education systems during the Cultural Revolution and who forced an entire nation to suffer thru his semi-psychotic bouts of self-importance and delusional paranoia...no, I think I'll pass on honoring him while I'm here...but I digress. The founding of the People's Republic of China under Mao was lauded at the rising of the 'people'...the workers, the peasants, the soldiers who gave their lives, sweat and blood for the 'people' (collective). This political changed also spelled doom for the 'petty bourgeois", or any liberal, educated, middle class, independent thinking element in Chinese society. The heart of this 're-education' of the masses--the 'people' (the impoverished, underprivileged and underrepresented)--is memorialized at the entrance of Mao's Mausoleum.


The Greatness of Communist China is derived from the peasant, factory worker and soldier.

But is mostly enforced by gunpoint (snicker).


On a lighter note, Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) is all-decked out for Olympics. Zach is happy to be here for such a historical event.


T-minus 9 days and counting...


After walking through the Square, we made our way over to Wangfujing walk street. This is a large shopping plaza with all sorts of Western and Chinese stores. Cliff and Zach enjoyed the Olympics Zone flagships store--three stories of all the Olympic related crap you can get your hands on. Its pretty incredible, but I can't imagine what someone would do with a crystal encrusted model of the water cube or a 24 carat gold sculpture of the birds nest, but with 1.3 billion consumers to satisfy, I suppose someone wants that kind of stuff.


Above you can see alittle of the smog on the left hand side of the picture...below is a better (and by better, I mean more grotesque) example of the air quality.


Before you scroll back up to re-read how many days are left before the Olympics, its 9...yep, 9 days to 'solve' this 'temporary' 'pollution' 'problem'. The local officials have stated that the air quality has been within acceptable limits, but also have hedged their bets and shut down 106 more factories in the area, halted all construction and have imposed more traffic restrictions. I want to believe in all my heart and the athletes won't be affected by the air, but if I were a marathon runner, I think I'd have to reconsider my plans. Moreover, it makes me slightly worried about Cliff and my long term respiratory situation. I suppose I could just get some Hello Kitty surgical masks and call it par for the course.
On the walk from Wangfujing to a bar, we walked down Donghuamen night market. A couple of years ago, the Gov't rounded up all the local street vendors, codified the selling system and created this eat street as a tourist attraction.

The food is overpriced and not well made--its more a spectacle than anything else. Below, for 15 RMB (or 2$) you can indulge in fried scorpions. I don't think the small ones would be too bad, but the large black ones are alittle too 'voluptuous' for my palate.

BBQ'd squid, intestines, kidneys and fishcakes are available in spicy and nonspicy versions.


Lastly, we had dinner at the nicest Beijing Duck place in the city: DaDong Duck near the new Poly Plaza. We indulged in a whole Beijing duck, served with pancakes, sliced cucumber, turnip and green onion, plum sauce, large-grain sugar (to have with the crispy duck skin) and pickles (which no one ate). The duck at this place is reputed to be the leanest Beijing duck available and is cooked in a wood burning oven. To placate Cliff, we ordered a kungpao shrimp dish made with peanuts, scallions, dried chilis and carrots. Zach and I had a small smoked scallop in Mango appetizer (not the best, but not bad), broccoli sauteed with garlic and some fried rice. At the end of the meal they brought out a fruit plate resting on a stand with dry ice, and then with the bill they brought all of us a peach-chunk sorbet in asian-style yogurt. We also had two coconut juices and 5 or 6 beers and it came out to 512 RMB or alittle less than 80 USD. Below I am pursuing their very, very, very large menu.
Below is the scallop mango appetizer. Sorry, we didn't get any other dinner pics--we keep on getting too absorbed in our meals to pause for a picture. We'll work on that.