There Will Be Stud...ying

The past few days have been pretty uninteresting; I’ve spent most of my time doing homework and catching up on stuff. I did finally get off campus yesterday and visit a neighborhood southwest of Tiananmen Square where, I was told by my guidebook,* there was a large and vibrant Muslim community and excellent shopping.
Other than an abundance of grilled meat restaurants (of which I am still a little leery after my Dai BBQ adventure), there unfortunately wasn’t much that set the Muslim neighborhood apart from its surrounding environs. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting – something more like San Francisco’s Chinatown, perhaps – but the whole place seemed pretty standard, with the same China Unicom storefronts and Han people wandering around that could be found anywhere else in the city. The high point was the Niujie Mosque, built in the 900s (seriously, it blows my mind how old this is) and still the largest mosque in Beijing. Since my guidebook recommended checking it out, and the admission fee was just $1.50, I went in for a look.
The mosque was remarkably quiet inside. I expected it to be a bit more bustling on a Saturday afternoon, but there were just a few older people walking around, and nothing was really going on. A very sweet older man took my ticket, and we had a brief conversation about where I was from. (I pointed out Seattle on a map because I know its Chinese name. The man was excited to learn that I was American and said “My brother lives in New York! Do you know him?” Me: “Probably not.”)
The mosque made for a nice, peaceful twenty-minute stroll. It was completely walled off from the rest of the neighborhood, so there was a definite sense of separation from the Beijing traffic and hustle and bustle. The architecture was a very interesting mix of Chinese and Islamic styles; if it weren’t for the Islamic writing everywhere, it would be easy to mistake the place for a standard-issue Chinese temple. Besides functioning as a hall of worship, the mosque also served as a community hub, and many of the buildings were devoted to teaching, welcoming guests, and other general multi-purpose uses. The biggest building was the prayer hall. I couldn’t go in because I am not Muslim, but I stole a peek through a window on the side, and it was beautiful – huge and very ornately decorated.
I left the neighborhood and headed up to Liulichang and Dazhalan streets, recommended as shopping hubs. Liulichang, well known for its antiques, was a huge disappointment. The whole street was just block after block of the same shops, all with signs promising in broken English to carve your name on a chop in only five minutes, advertising genuine antique ceramics,** and offering free tea tastings (I tried the tea at a couple places and it was very bad). From there, I spent about fifteen minutes wandering through a warrenlike maze of hutongs trying to make my way up to Dazhalan, as well as an extra three or four helping this guy fit a mattress into his car. Once I got on the right street, it was pretty much a straight shot northeast, and I stopped only once.
I’ve heard the rumors about Chinese people eating dog. A couple people asked me about it before I left. I largely wrote these concerns off as xenophobic and ill-informed, and figured that in a city where so many people keep dogs as beloved pets, dog meat wouldn’t be something I’d run into. I even asked one of the Chinese teachers about it, and she totally blew me off. “Only Koreans eat dog,” she told me.
So imagine my surprise when, in this random little hutong, I found myself face-to-face with a restaurant that read “Dog Meat” across the window in big characters. The neon sign above it had a fairly normal name on it, but right next to the restaurant’s name was a giant picture of a Golden Retriever. I was too busy being perturbed to take a picture and walked away slowly after picking my jaw up off the ground. The weird part is, I kind of want to go there, but first I want to make sure they don’t actually serve Golden Retriever.
Dazhalan was a little better in terms of shopping. The touristy stalls that sold Mao t-shirts and posters were still there, but so were more traditional shops filled with actual Chinese people. My favorite store was one that sold beautiful handmade cloth shoes, but there were several that caught my eye, including a pharmacy that had been in existence for 200 years and proudly displayed Chinese remedies in huge glass jars next to boxes of Maalox, and the many silk stores lining the street. At the end of the street was a giant pedestrian-only shopping plaza that had obviously been completed just in time for the Olympics. The buildings were gorgeous and Western-quality, but 95% of them were empty. Nonetheless, this seemed like a hotspot for young Beijingers with money to burn to congregate.
I’d finally decided to go for the knockoff Coach bags at the Silk Market, so I went there next to try my luck again. I decided on one of the most convincing fakes I’ve ever seen, made with real leather and everything. It even had a real Coach price tag on it, although the area where the actual price would have been was left blank, which I thought was kind of funny. This time, the bargaining was even more fun: I knew what to expect, the vendor spoke better English, and I’d memorized several bargaining phrases, which I used to great effect. The vendor insisted that she was giving me a discount because I was a student and not a tourist, and repeatedly showed me the price she’d ostensibly make tourists pay for the bag. Whenever I suggested a price, she would get this hilariously appalled look on her face, say something like “Oh, you’re killing me, honey!” and insist that she couldn’t do business that way. I actually feel like I got a little overcharged anyway, but I really like my bag, and I had fun speaking Chinese with the vendor, who seemed legitimately impressed that I knew so much.
After that I went home, got dinner, went to a bar with Pei Rei and Cody, came home relatively early, and went to bed. Today was spent watching my pirated There Will Be Blood DVD and finishing up work, although I did take a food break to eat possibly the most delicious dessert I’ve had, a blueberry mousse topped with peaches and dragonfruit slices. I’m probably going to go back and get another one within the next hour. I have no idea how the Chinese girls have such thin bodies. I’ve definitely put on a few pounds since arriving here, and with the abundance of good, cheap food, I’m sure there will be more coming.
This entry is not as meaty as my usual ones, so for your viewing pleasure, here’s a list.
UNSUCCESSFUL SELLING TACTICS WITNESSED AT THE SILK MARKET
1. I was walking through the leather-goods area (bags, belts, shoes, etc.) and a vendor stepped in front of me holding a watch exactly like the one I was wearing (Fossil, simple silver face with black leather strap) and asked “Lady, want another watch?” Um, no. I clearly already have one, what do I need another one for?
2. On the first floor, which has the bulk of the clothes for both men and women, a vendor jumped out at me and asked “You need something for your boyfriend?” I don’t know why this struck me as such a weird thing to ask, but I told her “mei you” (“I don’t have one”) with more surprise and force than was probably really necessary and scuttled off quickly into the thickets of fake Ralph Lauren shirts.
3. This wasn’t used on me, thankfully, but I saw a more heavyset Western woman looking at some sweaters as the vendor helpfully told her “This will not make you look fat anymore!” They are not subtle in the Silk Market.
4. Weirdest for last: while I was in the bathroom washing my hands, a vendor approached me (you can tell who they are because they all wear the same red vests) and told me that I was very pretty and if I waited for her to finish in the bathroom, she’d take me to her stall, which had name-brand jeans. I wanted to go into my usual Chinese spiel about how their jeans were too short and too small in the butt for me, but I felt like the situation was just way too strange for that, so I gave her an incredulous “zhende ma?” (“Seriously?”), finished washing my hands, and left.

*Lonely Planet’s Encounters: Beijing. I have never before, and probably never will again, run across such a useful little book. The thing is completely indispensable, and if it only had a subway map it would be literally perfect.

**This is borderline impossible, as it’s illegal to take most things that would qualify as “antique” out of the country.