Today was good, today was fun

Apparently a couple people got upset over my last update because I implied that I liked sneakers more than other Meaningful Aspects of Life. This is not actually true. I thought I had made that relatively clear through excessive use of hyperbole and the general knowledge that nobody could actually be that shallow, but I’m sorry if you were offended by it. (The hyperbole will continue, though, so I suggest that literalists look elsewhere.*)
Anyway, today I had no classes – there’s an option to do an internship with a Chinese company, which I think is pretty useless because most of the students here, myself included, don’t know enough to be useful in any significant capacity, and the internships all meet on Wednesday mornings. Neither of my area studies classes met this afternoon, so I had the entire free day to explore. I woke up later than usual (eight) and emerged into the living room to find both my host parents gone and my breakfast on the table. After consulting a guidebook over my favorite sesame seed cakes, I decided I could do with a little inner peace (who couldn’t?) and headed for the Yonghegong Lama Temple, Beijing’s biggest Tibetan Buddhist temple and monastery. Frankly, I’m a little surprised they still let the place exist; if it weren’t such a well-preserved and popular place, they probably would tear it down, because it is a hotbed of Tibetan culture and Tibetan stuff in general, and if there is one thing the Chinese government doesn’t like, it’s Tibetan things.** It didn’t seem to be particularly well-guarded or cracked-down-on, either. In fact, it was quite crowded, more so than I thought it would be on a Wednesday morning.
Unfortunately, the swarming crowds of worshippers and obnoxious people on package tours disrupted my quest for inner peace a bit, not that I would have gotten anywhere close anyway. But it was still a beautiful walk – the entire complex is enclosed with a tall wall, so you feel like you’ve escaped from the Beijing hustle and bustle, even though there are major streets within feet of the boundaries.
I had never been to an active Buddhist center before (the closest I’d been was the annual Enmanji Teriyaki BBQ) and was very surprised at the devoutness of many of the laypeople. I pictured lay Buddhism as a pretty chill religion, with most of the focus on action instead of orthodoxy and ritual. I still think that’s mostly accurate, but the latter definitely have their place too. You had to pay (about $3.50) to get into the temple, and from there you could wander the grounds for free as long as you liked. However, there was an unofficial rule that for each hall in which you wanted to worship, you had to burn three sticks of incense outside before entering. As a result, there was a huge metal basin, sort of like a BBQ pit, outside of each building, and they were all always crowded with people throwing their incense in and bowing and praying. This did little to nothing for the already iffy air quality today, but it did make everything smell really good. Inside each hall there were different altars depicting various aspects of the Buddha and some other bodhisattvas, the most impressive by far of which was a huge standing Buddha statue that was five stories high and carved out of a single piece of sandalwood. Yes, just one. I have no idea where they found a sandalwood tree that big – the statue was probably twenty feet wide and something like sixty feet tall – but the Guinness Book of Records certified it, so I will trust them. The statue was painted gold, and unfortunately I was not allowed to photograph it. The ground in front of this altar, obviously the crown jewel of the complex, was covered in all colors of incense, as the tray that had been provided for them had overflowed a long time ago.
Monks in chocolate-brown robes (which immediately endeared them to me, as chocolate brown is my favorite color and a universally flattering one) and brightly colored sashes strolled around the complex, doing things like cleaning up the altars and chanting, but also stuff like signing for FedEx packages, in an interesting modern twist. Overall, they seemed very happy and easygoing, as do Buddhist monks everywhere, and relatively unconcerned with the wackness surrounding their native home and their adopted (forcibly adopted) government.
I had planned to meet up with Max in the afternoon, but since he was still entrenched in classes I decided to strike out on my own a bit more until I heard from him. I got some shopping done on the streets surrounding Yonghegong (if you’re my little brother, Abby, or Arianne, I got your stuff today!) and headed for a place recommended in my indispensable Lonely Planet: Encounters Beijing guidebook called Plastered T-Shirts that sold its own original designs, on a small street called Nanluogu Hutong. It was a bit far from any subway stop, but I figured I didn’t mind a bit of a walk.
The stroll there was quite nice – I stayed on a major street most of the time, but it had several pretty restaurants, food stands (I had the most delicious sesame-paste bun and it was twelve cents) and, for some reason, shops selling musical instruments. When I finally had to make a turn onto Nanluogu Hutong, I wasn’t sure I was in the right place at first – it just seemed like a run-down alley – but headed forward anyway. About half a block in, I was greeted with the loveliest place I’ve seen here so far, bar none.
Hutongs are a uniquely Beijing design of courtyard houses along small back roads, and the government is demolishing them by the dozens to make room for high-rises and the like. Fortunately, though, Nanluogu was one of the first to be protected, so it will likely be around for a long time. The streets were verboten for cars and unevenly cobbled, and the buildings’ traditional stone walls had not only been preserved but reinforced. The steep, tiled roofs had kept their shape and unmistakable Chineseyness, and the sides of the streets were lined with leafy green trees. It was like I’d entered another world, entirely separate from the Beijing with the traffic jams and the tall Soviet buildings and the crappy air. Many, if not most, of the buildings had traditional hand-carved wooden signs or windows on them, cultivating a very languid, relaxing air throughout the whole street. Off to the sides, even smaller alleys led to people’s homes (despite the development put into this hutong, many of the homes surrounding it lack indoor plumbing, so easy access to the many public toilets is imperative) and into small garden courtyards, usually filled with potted plants and belonging to restaurants or bars that offered outdoor seating.
The vast majority of the spaces with doors actually facing Nanluogu Hutong, though, were stores – not chain stores, but unique tiny spaces selling fabric, hipster-y t-shirts and gifts, and in one case, an entire small gallery filled with little statues made of bent silverware, some of which lit up. The rest were bars and restaurants – some upscale, some cheap, all elegantly located and furnished (for a good example, check out the picture I posted along with this entry of a small café), and many of which had their own inner courtyard, rooftop terrace, or both. If I ever got a date over here, I would take him here to eat dinner; having a second-floor view of everything gently lit at night must be nothing short of magical.
After doing some extensive research on this hutong after getting back home, I’ve heard some internet grumbling that it’s too touristy. I’d beg to differ – there were relatively few people there at all, and there were maybe only three other Westerners that I noticed over the course of my wanderings. A lot of businesses are owned by expats, so the owners will speak English, or the restaurants will have English menus, but this isn’t done in a touristy way like it is in some other parts of town, where people will physically try to pull you into their restaurant or bar. Instead, the option is just there, but the lingua franca is definitely still Chinese. I am surprised that such a peaceful, beautiful street was so quiet, but I guess I’m happy about it too; it should be one of the city’s best-kept secrets instead of being overrun by people trampling on its plants, stubbing out their cigarettes on its walls, and generally wrecking its peacefulness by bringing all the things that large groups of tourists bring with them. This is just why I like exploring cities on my own; when you’re willing to go off the beaten path a little, you find the most wonderful parts all on your own.
I finally did meet up with Max and we headed for Wangfujing, Beijing’s best-known shopping street. I was actually pretty disappointed – the mall was just a mall with luxury brands I could have bought back in the States, and Max even joked that the owners probably had to pay Chinese people to walk around in it. Wangfujing Snack Street, touted as the street food capital of Beijing, had several promising-looking eateries if you wanted to sit down, but most of the street food (actually, most of the restaurants in general) was similar and touristy – stall after stall of weird things like scorpions and grasshoppers on skewers, none of which I saw actual Chinese people eating. Looking at them, I felt myself starting to renege on my promise to eat every weird thing set in front of me (although I still would be willing to try the seahorses), especially when one of the skewered pupae
PLEASE SIT DOWN BEFORE YOU READ THIS. THIS SHOULD NOT BE READ BY THOSE WITH HEART OR NERVOUS CONDITIONS, PREGNANT OR NURSING WOMEN, OR PEOPLE WITH BACK PROBLEMS. CONSULT A DOCTOR BEFORE READING.
started pulsating and moving around, and one of the scorpions, which really seemed to not want to be there anymore (not that I blame the little dude) followed suit, thrashing its legs around and waving its stinger furiously. It’s good to know that your food is fresh, but I don’t want it to see it still living before I eat it, especially when its movement would cause me to squish it under my foot in a slightly different set of circumstances. I ended up getting an octopus skewer instead (tentacles only, henceforth fully dead).
The rest of my shopping was pretty fruitless, so I headed home to the Zhangs’ after a successful and fully understood (on both sides!) phone call to tell them that I would be late due to being held up in Beijing’s awful rush-hour traffic. The traffic is still halved due to the Olympic/Paralympic policy of only allowing cars with even/odd numbered plates on the streets on alternating days, so that wasn’t the worst part of the traffic. The real reason it takes so long to get anywhere by car or bus here is that for some reason, the lights take FOREVER to change. My record time for waiting at one red light, wanting to go straight ahead, is seven minutes, and that was one cycle of the lights. Beijing must have access to traffic engineers somehow, so why this ridiculousness is allowed is beyond me. At any rate, if you’re stopped at a red light, you’d better hope you like the view out your window, because you’ll be looking at it for a long, long time.
So I arrived home to the family sitting down to dinner with Bin Bin. We chatted a little and I had more of Mr. Zhang’s tasty eggplant dish, which I will be learning how to make before I leave, whenever that may be. Things are going better with them; I can understand them a little more now, and when they sat down to watch TV tonight I was able to make some conversation by asking about what was on (what time period is this set in? Is Character A Character B’s girlfriend? What’s the prize if this person wins this game show?). Best of all, I got them to agree on my set of Epic Weekend Plans to stay out all night dancing and then catch the sun going up in Tiananmen Square. I think they liked that, as they seem like a very patriotic family. They’ve never mentioned it outright, but there are a ton of cultural knickknacks and little flags around their house, and even a couple hammer-and-sickle symbols. However, like everyone else in China, they are really, really into Kentucky Fried Chicken, which reigns supreme as the fast food establishment of choice – not McDonalds, not even street food.

*I promise you’ll be super sad if you don’t click that. Best first result from a Google search EVER.

**And traffic rules, and FDA-like oversight of consumer products, and efficiency, and basic food safety, and the environment, and…