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"I love fish. They are my friend, not my food."
The Beijing subway is like most other old, big city subways--the pale green tile walls popular in the early 1960s, the creaky, cranky, leaky stone stair cases, the peeling ad posters along the walls. None of this is at all odd for a city subway until you realize that this one was built less than 10 years ago.
Beijing manages to be a city of contradictions--nearly every building is simultaneously new and old. Like the subway, my dorm carries a sense of history. It feels as if it's been around as long as the dorms at any old university. Not only is it not old; half of the building is still under construction. I have to walk through debris and workmen to get in and out. Similarly, Beijing is the capital of the communist world, yet now has a thriving capitalist-looking economy. Odd.
Yesterday was a food adventure day. Took myself to a breakfast shop and got breakfast (sweet) soup and buns; a Chinese couple of students invited me to dine with them--isn't that nice? Went to see my old professor friend from Princeton (took my first local bus); he and his wife and son took me out for a Sichuan feast. I listened in amazement as they ordered and ordered and ordered--in the end, we had bitter melon, golden needle mushrooms, deep-fried flower fish, duck "web" (feet) in very hot mustard, sweet and sour chicken (which, by the way, lends no resemblance to the red deep-fried stuff near you), sweet bean balls, something I can only describe as a Chinese version of blackened steak, sea cucumber, Sichuan noodles in spicy sauce, and soup. At one point--when the fish came, head and all--I said to Gao Ge, "how many more dishes will there be for the four of us?" "No more dishes," he promised. Then the soup arrived. "That's soup. It's not a dish." I tried them all--the mustard spreads from inside your mouth simultaneously to the back of your jaw and to the top of your head. Interesting, but hard to eat a lot in one setting.
(I wrote all these dishes down so I wouldn't forget any of them. My roommate, Hyun Zhong, asked what the words were, so we had a little conversation. Suffice it to say that the list from which I am typing this message is now adorned with two little birdies, one quacking, one clucking, a picture of a mushroom, some beans, some soup, and a fish. It's very cute. I'm only sorry you can't be here to see it.)
And yesterday evening? My first (of many) Beijing ducks. A Chinese friend of Emily's was kind enough to take me and a Swiss dormmate to a roast duck house. She took us out afterwards to the new 6-story shopping mall three blocks away from Tiananmen. And then we walked past--no exaggeration--three straight blocks of street food. Mark, you woulda loved it. I've bought you a few bao and some meat-on-a-stick. I hope you don't mind that it will be five weeks old when you get it....?
Today, I discovered Koreatown is in my backyard. The internet cafe I am using today has Korean letters on the keyboard. I tried typing some into this message, but Hotmail doesn't seem to get it.
Remind me to tell you about my Chinese friends. I've said this before, but they are literally one in a billion. Gao Ge is part of a 2000-member national educational conference that, coincidentally, is being held in the hotel near my school. He's schmoozing with provincial governors and who knows who else? Li Ling, Emily's friend, is a top criminal lawyer and will be heading delegations to England, Italy and the US later this year. In the US, she may be meeting with Pres. Clinton. Truly amazing people.
That fish quote above? Found it on a tablecloth in a nearby market.
By the way, I love your notes back--even if I don't reply to them personally. I haven't see the news in a week and I have no idea whether Saddam is alive or dead, but I know that Amy is working on the school Purim party and that Ron just came back from San Diego and that John saw Mark at the office last week. And that's what's important in life, no?
Please eat some cheese on my behalf.
Love,
Jin De Feng.
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