On this day, Gabe and I slept in until around 11:00 AM. I didn’t really have anything fun in mind for the day, so I followed Gabe’s lead. He’d been reading a book about this guy’s experiences living in Beijing as a reporter. The guy apparently had a number of crazy experiences (imagine that, here in China), and the epicenter of all of this craziness was a place called Ya Bao Lu. That was our destination for the day. If I have not dwelt on the point enough, I would like to mention again that it is very cold. It was well below freezing today, for the entire day, and we were still being mauled by the CCP snow commissioned a few days ago.
A little history: Ya Bao Lu (Street of Graceful Treasure) used to not be called Ya Bao Lu at all. It used to be called Ya Ba Hu Tong (Hu Tong of the Mute), but the government “beautified” the name sometime in the hazy past. The defining feature of this street (which is actually not a street in our sense of the word, but rather a neighborhood sprawling to the north and south of said street) is not Chinese wares, or artists, or Confucian scholars, or any of the national treasures of the Great Republic. No, the finest feature of Ya Bao Lu is Russians. The Russians come from far and wide to flock to this area of Beijing, establishing their own little Moscow under the nose of the CCP.
What does a Russian want to do here in Beijing? Why are they here? As Gabe points out, China and Russia share one of the longest borders in the world, and the assistance that Russia provided for the Republic (more ideological than financial or military), helped Mao establish the China that we know and love today. These roots of cooperation have greased the process of more Russians coming to the country, but their current occupation remains somewhat ambiguous. According to Gabe’s book, written in the mid-1990s, many of the Russians in the area were involved with the smuggling of illegal or ambivalently purchased goods. In the past at Ya Bao Lu, one could, for instance, order clothes manufactured in USSR sweatshops by the ton.
Aside from that facet of the Russian trade, you have your money exchangers. The central government, at the time the book was written, was keeping the currency artificially low – sometimes up to 13 Yuan to the dollar. This rate was well below the actual exchange rate, and anyone involved in international trade would be doubly taxed by the central government’s mandated exchange rate. Thus, there sprang up a number of money exchangers, Russian and otherwise, that would exchange Chinese Yuan to foreign currency at a rate closer to the actual rate. Much of this currency exchange was facilitated by the Russian mafia, and they did not get along well with the other “traders” in the area, to say the least.
Now, one can find a number of vendors selling whatever it is that Russian people like. From my casual observations, that list includes lewd advertisements, fur coats, shoes (and lots of them), vodka, and barbeque. We had the honor of visiting the Ya Bao Mall, where one could buy anything that you wanted from Russia, as long as it was lingerie and shoes. This brings me to the fourth occupation (and logically the fifth) that a Russian has in the Ya Bao area. The street is lined with lovely little shops for KTV, and cute little hotels, all covered with gaudy decorations. Wait: crazy decorations, decrepit building, ambiguous labeling of the building, strange Russian men going in and out… I think you guessed it – prostitution. It’s everywhere there; no need to mince words.
From the top of the Ya Bao Mall I espied the shopping center that I’d visited some days before: The Place. Gabe was as enticed by the prospect of purchasing cigars as I was, and we decided to pay ourselves a little visit. The cigar store was, if I may be frank, a letdown. The shop reminded me of something that my parents mentioned about China – something they’d noticed while they were here. Most of the items – widgets, gadgets, and clothing – that you get here are extremely cheap by Western standards, but you will occasionally find something that is insanely expensive for no apparent reason. I recall an instance where my parents visited a furniture store and laid eyes on a $100,000 table. What would one need that for? There is no practical answer, and the only one remains is that rich Chinese people want you to KNOW that they are rich. This cigar store was a prime example of that: you could buy a cigar that would cost about $6 in the US for the all-time low price of $50! I was beside myself. Why?! Even more than they are in the US – where cigars are the “cool thing” for fratty guys in college, eccentric professors, and pretentious businessmen – cigars in China are the symbol of the gloriously rich in China. Therefore, CEOs and government officials are willing to pay exorbitant prices for a moderate cigar. We couldn’t leave without getting one, however, and we each bought an $8 cigar.
We left The Place and went in search of another adventure. We found just what we were looking for in Ri Tan Park, or The Temple of the Sun. This park was another park commissioned by an obscure emperor in the distant past, for an even more arcane purpose. I left without grasping the full implications of the Temple of the Sun, but I doubt that I ever will. The park was very well maintained, and the most interesting features were the plum trees and the area around the frozen lake. The plum trees were given by the Japanese as a token of friendship after the Sino-Japanese War – or as the Chinese call it,The War of Japanese Aggression. The trees are meticulously pruned, and appear to be in excellent shape, despite the bone-chilling weather. There were a few kids playing on the frozen lake (see photo), and they appeared to be having the time of their life. There was a small group of men ice-fishing across the lake from the kids. We went over to talk to them, and they had had no luck today with the ice-fish.
“It’s too cold. They don’t want to eat.”
I’ll agree with that first statement, it was too cold. In Fodor’s, there was mention of a charming café called the Stone Boat, near the southwest of the park, which was, incidentally, right where we were. Despite our geographic proximity to said café, I could see nothing that told of its existence. So I asked an unlucky fisherman about the café, and he gave me the what-a-dumb-foreigner-look that I have seen oh so many times in this city.
“It’s right there. See the boat?”
Oh yeah, the boat. The thing that doesn’t look like a boat at all, but is in the water? Got it. This reminds me of another phrase that has been incorporated into everyday life at ACC: TIC. It stands for “this is China,” and saying it has a more resounding affect, dear readers, if you say it with an English/Australian accent.
We left Ri Tan park behind us, and planned on making a route back to the subway stop from whence we had emerged some 4 hours before. We took the most direct route from the park, which took us right through the mysterious embassy district of Beijing. Troops lined the streets on both sides, embassies stood guard behind ten-foot walls, and all was silent. I don’t exactly know what would happen if we actually needed to get in an embassy because there was a host of Chinese army officers whose sole purpose was to tell people that they could not get in, or take pictures of the embassy. We passed the American, Kuwaiti, Thai, Beninese, and another dilapidated embassy, and continued on our way to the dorm.
We arrived sometime after 6:00 PM, and we took a moment to freshen ourselves for what would prove to be one of the wildest evenings that I have seen in Beijing.
A little before seven, a contingent of 9 people (myself, Gabe, Christina, Alex, Joy, Laura, Lee, Wes, and Hannah) left the dorm, bound for an abstruse Mexican restaurant in the Hou Hai district that Christina found on the Internet. Our impetus for going to this restaurant, you ask? The slim chance of getting half-price margaritas on Saturday. However, after making the trip, we found that the margaritas were not, in fact, half price on the weekends. That ad expired over two years ago – imagine that – and no one had bothered to take it down. They were quite expensive, and Christina nearly had a fit upon entering the restaurant and learning this fact. She negotiated with the head waitress after pacing up and down the length of the restaurant, while the rest of us took a seat and made ourselves comfortable for the visit. In the end, she obtained 6 free beers for the table to recompense us for our lost cause.
We were all voraciously hungry at this point, and ordered nachos to ease our appetite. I ordered a burrito after perusing the menu. The name of the restaurant, Amigo, and the decorations in the restaurant were quite misleading. Of the 10-page menu, only two pages were devoted to Mexican food, and one could order any hamburgers, pasta, salads, and all other Western treats at this facility. The food eventually emerged, and I devoured the burrito instantaneously. Paying for the meal, as paying for all meals, turned into a 20-minute ordeal, in which everyone shouts, no one takes charge, and one patron tries to shimmy her way into not having to pay for her meal.
We left the Mexican diner in our wake; while the meal was good, I personally did not plan on returning there. We wound our way to the nearest subway station (by the map). If you had polled Chinese people on the street that we encountered, we were either 1) traveling to a subway stop 2) going way out of our way to walk to a subway station or 3) not walking towards a subway station at all. Joy and Laura parted ways with us in the subway station.
The remaining seven took the subway in the direction of San Li Chuar, and we found that the exit was right in front of the acrobatic show that we’d been to the night before. We strolled in the direction of San Li Chuar, while CPP-ordained snow fell all around us. We eventually found what we were looking for: Smugglers, also known as Swash-bucklers. There, we found a table and hung out for a little while. Wes and Hannah parted ways with us around 11 PM – a decision that I would wish to have emulated. Gabe, Christina, and myself found ourselves alone in the facility, bored out of our minds, while Alex and Lee commiserated in the outdoors, searching for cheap beer from the vendors. Gabe eased our monotony by finding us a set of dice, and we played Yatzee for an eternity.
Lee and Alex emerged after their absence, saying that we absolutely had to go to this club across the street. They had great music, cheap beer, and a dance floor. I was along for the ride, so I acquiesced. This would prove to be a mistake. I would never stop writing if I told you all of the shenanigans that happened to us before the night was over, but I’ll give a little timeline:
12:30 – went to Shooters, the club
1:30 – Gabe accosted by a lone American/Russian girl
2:30 – Christina and Alex leave, to “have a talk”
3:00 – I decide that it is time to leave; round up Gabe and Alex
3:10 – Halted by Lee and Christina, who all “want to dance some more”
3:20 – Gabe and I realize that since I had to pay for Gabe’s dinner, I don’t have any money. Gabe has no money on his person.
3:25 – We realize that we are at the mercy of our fellows to get back to the dorm.
3:30 – Finally convince Lee to leave
3:35 – We turn around to see that Lee is no longer behind us; she has returned to tell the child to “never forget her.”
3:40 – Finding a cab is no easy feat for us, as the cabbies are all charging egregiously high prices to foreigners, charging 2 to 3 to 4 times more than the normal fare.
3:45 – We find a cab to take the girls back
3:55 – We finally find a cab that will take us back to the dorm for only 10 Yuan more than the normal fare.
4:15 – Alex decided that he isn’t going to pay the extra 10 Yuan on principle, and Gabe and I get out of the cab as soon as we can, with Alex close on our heels.
4:17 – The cabbie, realizing that he has been “shortchanged” speeds off to cut us off at the East Gate. We sprint down a side street to evade the froggy, enraged cabbie.
4:25 – We jump the fence into MinZu, and take a winding evasive path back to the dorm.
4:35 – We finally get into the dorm room.
What a day.
No comments:
Post a Comment