Neighborhood Flowering Peach Blossoms: Both the Plant and the Human Variety!

During my last medical checkup, the doctor told me to get more exercise. So now that the weather has improved, I've been taking a brisk one-hour walk around the immediate neighborhood after getting home from work. I always bring along my camera because you never know when a nice photo opportunity will come up.

The photo above was taken about two weeks ago, during a stroll down the Dongzhimen Dajie—this particular spot on the street is about 10 minutes by foot from my apartment. The two ladies in the photo above are strangers. I saw them sitting in front of a restaurant and since they are very lovely, I naturally wanted to take their picture. As the photo indicates, they were quite happy to be photographed by this laowai.

This stretch of the Dongzhimen Dajie is home to lots of other restaurants and is called the “Ghost Street” or “Guijie” (簋街). According to my Chinese friend Lu Hongyan (路红颜), there's an interesting story behind this name. Beijing's old city wall used to run along this street, and many traders would do illegal just outside of it. Since they conducted this activity in the early morning, just before the sun came up, and also wore white clothes, they literally looked like ghosts.

However, the character in front of “街”, or “street”, doesn't actually mean “ghost”. It is rather the word for the dinner set of a ghost; it can also stand for a round mouthed food vessel with two or four loop handles. Another Chinese friend informs that people felt that “鬼街”, or literally “ghost street” was just terrifying (恐怖). I could add that “鬼” and “簋” have the same pronunciation: both are a rising and falling tone “gui”, so it can be rather confusing!

I spent the last part of that evening's walk doing a brisk walk through the local neighborhood park, Nanguan Gongyuan (南管公园). It's not as large or famous as Ritan Park, but serves as a kind of community recreation center for this densely populated Dongzhimen neighborhood. And from late March through the middle of April, the park has some lovely flowering peaches. Some photos of them and other blooms are below. All of them are now gone.

As this post is short and mainly photographic, there's no Chinese today. The pinyin, minus the tones, is in the text for all of the vocabulary, save for “恐怖”. That word is a falling and rising tone “kong” and falling tone “bu”.

The many other charms of Ritan Park:

Ritan Park's charms extend well beyond its spring blooms, which last from around late March through about the first two weeks of April. Even before the blooms come out, if the weather isn't really cold, a fair number of people will be out about in the park. So it's usually a great place to watch ordinary Chinese people, who are called here “Laobaixing” (老百姓), relaxing and having fun.

Ritan's sacrificial alter (祭坛) is surrounded by a lengthy circular wall. Since the space within the confines of this wall is fairly large and open—there are no trees and bushes here, as the surface is all stone—the area is a favorite spot for people to practice playing badminton (打羽毛球). I took some photos of a mother (母亲) and her daughter (女儿) doing that on a relatively warm early winter day in early February. Two of these photos are at the top of the post.

Other people, mainly older folks, were playing cards and Chinese encirclement chess, “weiqi” (围棋), better known in the West as “Go”. The photo below is a shot of a group of seniors (老年人) playing cards (打纸牌).

Once the weather begins to warm up around the end of March, even more people go to the park on the weekend. One area that always has a crowd is Ritan's recreation area, which is located at the northeast corner of the park. This spot has some exercise equipment (健身器材) as well as ping pong (乒乓球) tables. As the photo below indicates, people use the equipment more as a place to play (玩) and have some fun, rather than for doing some hard-core exercise (锻炼; 运动).

This is definitely not the case for the park's state of the art climbing wall (攀岩 墙). The people who use it are definitely very serious about improving their vertical climbing and scaling technique. When the weather warms up, there are always at least three people scrambling up the wall all through any given Saturday or Sunday. And while all of the routes are fairly challenging, one is especially so. It features an overhang, with a 30º backward inclining slope, jutting out from the vertical wall.

Whenever I go here, I always see a pair of young and rather attractive Chinese gals at the climbing wall. One of them will be scaling up the wall, while the other will be handling the safety rope/pulley. If my memory serves me correctly, one of these ladies actually once made it up the climbing wall's most difficult route. I shot these the photos of them below on my last trip to the park, when I took the spring bloom pictures that appeared in the previous blog post.

Many younger couples with small children bring their kids to Ritan Park, even during the winter, provided the weather isn't too cold. The top two photos below were shot on such a day in early February (in fact, the same day the earlier shots in this post were taken). And of course, when the weather warms up, more families with small children are out and about. The other two photos below were shot duirng a rather nice afternoon in the middle of March. As the Chinese would say, these youngsters were “非常非常可爱”, or “really, really cute”.

As was noted in my previous blog post, there's small hill at the center of Ritan Park. If it's a relatively clear day, you'll have swell view of the Beijing Central Business District (CBD) highrises from the top. The tallest structure in the photo below is the soon to be opened Traders Hotel. The new CCTV tower is just over to its left in the picture.

Once you've had your fill of enjoying Ritan's spring blooms and other flora, gazing at its older historic buildings, looking at the locals, and observing Beijing's new skyline, you can stop and rest and have a drink at the Stone Boat Café.

As the café’s photo indicates, the building really does look like the famous stone boat moored at Kunming Lake (昆明湖) in the Summer Palace (颐和园). This particular stone boat sits on the west side of a shallow pond. Ritan's small hill and rockery (假山) rises above the north of the pond. The Chinese word for “rockery” literally means “fake (假) mountain (山)” because a rockery was meant to be a mountain in miniature. The photo of this particular miniature mountain below was shot from one of the Stone Boat Café’s windows.

An attractive pavilion graces the other side of the pond (its southeast corner). This structure is set amidst some very nice willow trees. There's a photo of it below.

Ritan Park is located a bit north of the Nr. 1 subway line. You can walk there in about 20 minutes from the Jianguomen (建国门) subway station. It's also very near a restaurant that is a long-standing Beijing expat institution, Paul's Steak and Eggs American style diner. Ironically, the fellow who owns it, Paul, isn't actually from the US, but is instead a French Canadian from Quebec.

In any case, his restaurant serves big and hearty American-style breakfasts that come with a bottomless cup of coffee. And when the weather is nice, they put plenty of tables out on the sidewalk, so patrons can dine outside and enjoy the warmth and sunshine. The restaurant is very easy to find: just walk around to the back of the very prominent Friendship Store (友谊商店). You can't miss the latter when walking down the wide Jianguo Dajie Boulevard.

This part of Beijing is home to many foreign diplomatic embassies (大使馆). Among them are the the Sri Lankan, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Singaporean Embassies (the US Embassy used to here as well, but has since moved). I think the last embassy is housed in a rather cool building, so there's a photo of it below. The two towers poking above it are the Twins Mall, which is one of the many high rises lining this part of the Jianguo Dajie. This Embassy neighborhood, however, is a very quiet area with lots and lots of big and leafy trees.

So here is my suggestion for a perfect way to spend an early April Saturday or Sunday. Begin with a leisurely breakfast outdoors at Paul's Steak and Eggs. After breakfast, head over to Ritan Park, stroll about, look at and enjoy the blooms, do some people watching, and take in and get a feel for the history of the place from its older buildings and structures (see the photo below). Then top it off by having sitting down and having a leisurely drink at the Stone Boat Café. It just doesn't get any better than that!!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

老百姓 (lao3bai2xing4). As noted in a previous post, “老百姓” literally means “old (老) 100 (百) name/ed (姓)”. There are just 100 old and common family names in China, such as “Liu” (刘), “Zhang” (张), “Chen” (陈), and the like. Hence “old 100 names” came to be a slang term for very ordinary people.
祭坛 (hu4tan2).
打羽毛球 (da3yu3mao2qiu2). “打” is the word for “play”, while “羽毛球” means “badminton”.
母亲 (mu3qin1). The word for “mum” or “mom” is “妈妈” (ma1ma5).
女儿 (nü3er2).
围棋 (wei2qi2). “围” on its own means “encirclement/surround”; “棋” is the “chess” suffix character.
老年人 (lao3nian2ren2). “老” of course means “old”, “年” is the word for year, and “人” is the word for “person”.
打纸牌 (da3zhi3pai2). “打” is the word for “play” here, while “纸牌” means cards, i.e. in the sense of a deck of playing cards.
健身器材 (jian4shen1qi4cai2). This literally means “fitness (健身) appliance (器材)”.
乒乓球 (ping1pang1qiu2). If you look at the first two characters, they together form a picture that rather resembles two people playing ping pong.
玩 (wan2).
锻炼 (duan4lian4).
运动 (yun4dong4). This is also the verb “to move about”.
攀岩墙 (pan1yan2qiang2). “攀岩” means “rock climbing”, while “墙” means “wall”.
非常非常可爱 (fei1chang2fei1chang2ke3ai4). “非常非常” is “really, really/very, very”, while “可爱” is the word for “cute/adorable”.
昆明湖 (kun1ming2hu2). “昆明” is the name of the Yunnan (云南) Province’s capital city; “湖” is the Chinese word for “lake”.
颐和园 (yi2he2yuan2).
友谊商店 (you3yi4shang1dian4). “友谊” means “friendship”, while “商店” is the word for “store” (as in “shop” or “business”).
大使馆 (da4shi3guan3).

Spring Blooms in Ritan Park:

T. S. Eliot's acid poetic commentary on modern life, “Wasteland”, begins with the line “April is the cruelest month”. I doubt if Mr. Eliot ever set foot in Beijing during April (四月). Far from being the “cruelest month”, April is one of the best times to be in the capital. The frigid cold of winter has finally ended, while the stifling heat of summer is still another month or two away.

For a brief period, Beijing's weather is actually quite pleasant. To be sure, the occasional sandstorm, or shachenbao (沙尘暴), does blow through the city; however, after having lived here now for three years, I think all those “sandstorm” stories are somewhat exaggerated! But most of the time it's pleasantly warm or comfortably cool and we get quite a few clear “blue sky” (晴天) days. And best of all, the trees and flowers all begin blooming (树和花都开花了) in late March. Thus through the first half of April, Beijing's parks are ablaze with color.

Ritan Park is one of the best places to look at and take photos of all this spring color. The prettiest (最漂亮的) blooms are in the park's southeast corner. The pair of photos at the top of the post were shot there 2-3 weeks ago. The bush with the yellow color is forsythia, and this plant is native to China and Korea. The Chinese call it “Yingchunhua” (迎春花), which means “Welcoming Spring Flower”. The tree with the white blossoms is a Magnolia Dudenta, and the Chinese call this tree a “Baiyulan” (白玉兰), or “White Jade Orchid”. When this tree is blooming, that name is certainly more appropriate.

The deep pink or scarlet colored bush in the top photos is some kind of flowering peach. The juxtaposition between it and the forsythia is nothing short of spectacular. And anyone who walks up the small hill in the park's center will be able to see more beautiful flowers. The first photo below is a shot of that hill and the pavilion on its top; the second photo is a shot of these flowers with the pavilion in the background.

The rest of the park also has some nice blooms, though not as spectacular as the ones in the southeast corner or up on hill. There's a photo below.

The gate in the photo above provides a clue as to the main function of the park in Old China, which was to serve as the Temple of the Sun. The “Ri” (日) in the park's name means “sun”, while “tan” (坛) is one of many Chinese words for “temple”. This park, along with four others—Zhongshan, now named after the founder of Republican China, Sun Zhongshan (孙中山) (中山), Ditan (Temple of the Earth) (地坛), Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) (天坛), and Yuetan (Temple of the Moon) (月坛)—are located at Beijing's cardinal points. Ritan, Ditan, Yuetan, and Tiantan are respectively located at the city's east, north, west, and south points, while Zhongshan is at the center, next to the Forbidden City (故宫).

Thus Ritan Park used to be a place where the Emperor (皇帝) carried out solemn religious ceremonies. But now it is a place for the residents of the capital to relax and play. More on that in my next post!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

四月 (si4yue4). Since China's calendar used to be a lunar calendar, the character for “month”, “月”, also means “moon” in Mandarin. In marked contrast to English and most other Western languages, Mandarin doesn't have specific names for each month. April is literally “fourth month”; the same goes for the other months. Thus January is “first month”, or “一月” and so on.
沙尘暴 (sha1chen2bao4). “沙” means “sand”, “尘” means “dirt/dust”, and “暴” in this context means “storm”. It can also mean “violent/violence”.
晴天 (qing2tian1). This literally means “clear (晴) day/sky (天)”.
树和花都开花了 (shu4he2hua1dou1kai1hua1le5). The word order here is pretty much the same as it is in English: “树 (trees) 和 (and) 花 (flowers) 都 (all) 开 (a shortened form of begin, 开始 [kai1shi3]) 花了 (blooming). “花” can serve as both the verb “to bloom” and noun “bloom”, as well being the noun for “flower”.
最漂亮的 (zui4piao4liang5de5). “最” means “most”, while “漂亮的” is the Chinese word for pretty. The adjective is used for women and natural scenery, particulary landscape and plants.
故宫 (gu4gong1).
皇帝 (huang2di4).

Compared to other kinds of Chinese Opera, Peking Opera doesn't have a long History:

In addition to Peking Opera, China boasts several regional kinds of opera. These include Sichuan Opera (川剧), Shanghai Opera (沪剧), and Hebei Opera (河北梆子). These types of opera may not be as well-known as Beijing Opera, but they have a much longer history. All of them started many centuries ago.

By contrast, Peking Opera emerged relatively late in Chinese history. Indeed, it dates only to the mid-18th Century, which is fairly recent for a country with a 5,000 year history. It began when the Qing Dynasty (清朝) Emperor Qian Long (乾隆), whose picture is at the top of this post, observed four large Anhui Province (安徽) Opera troupes (班) perform during one of his inspection tours of Southern China. He invited these troupes up to Beijing to set up shop and the rest, as they, is history!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

川剧 (chuan1ju4). 川 is an abbreviated form of 四川 (si4chuan1) Province, which literally means “four (四) waters (川), while “居” on its own means “theatrical play”.
沪剧 (hu4ju4). “沪” is an older name for Shanghai (上海; shang4hai3). The city's modern name means “up (上) from the sea (海)”.
河北梆子 (he2bei3bang1zi3). “河北” is the name of Hebei Province and it means “north of the river,”namely the Yellow River (黄河; huang2 [Yellow] he2 [River]).
清朝 (qing1chao2). “清” is the name of the dynasty, which means “pure”, while “朝” is the Chinese word for “dynasty”.
班 (ban1).

Peking Opera Lives on—in the Movies, that is:

Peking Opera may be slowly dying on the live stage, but it does briefly flicker back to life every now and then on the silver screen (my apologies for the lame pun!). In particular, the art form holds a special fascination for one of China's most important and internationally well-known film directors, Chen Kaige (陈凯歌).

Indeed, it was Chen's 1993 movie about Peking Opera, “Farewell My Concubine” (霸王别姬), which made the director famous in the West. This epic film (史诗电影; shi3shi1dian4ying3; 史诗 means “epic”) charts the careers of two Peking Opera male stars from the early and tumultuous days of Republican China up through the chaotic upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and it, along with the early work of Zhang Yimou (张艺谋), put Chinese cinema in the international spotlight.

In his latest film, whose English title is “Forever Enthralled”, Chen returns to the subject of Peking Opera. Since this film is about the famous Peking Opera star, Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳), its Chinese title is “Mei Lanfang”. Li Ming (黎明) stars as Mei Lanfang, while Zhang Ziyi (章子怡), who is much better known outside of China, plays opposite him as film's leading actress (see the photos at the top of this post).

The real life Mei Lanfang specialized in so-called “nandan” (男旦) Peking Opera roles. As the photo of Mei below indicates, these men took on young female roles—“男旦” literally means “man-woman” in this context. Normal acting is difficult enough, but I'm sure it's a walk in the park compared to doing this kind of cross-gender performance. As one can imagine, being a “男旦” required a special kind of technical artistry and skill.

The Dowager Empress Cixi (慈禧) was especially enamoured of these female impersonators. Peking Opera flourished during her long reign, which lasted from the late 19th Century through the first years of the 20th Century. During this period, the opera troupes naturally sought to put on lots of plays featuring legendary and patriotic heroines.

One such opera was “Hua Mulan (花木兰) Joins the Army.” This opera was based on a very well-known story from traditional Chinese culture. Hua was a famous heroine who disguised herself as a man and became a soldier, taking the place of her father in the army. She then proceeded to achieve great feats in war. You could call her a Chinese Joan of Arc, but unlike the French maiden, she tried to hide her feminne identity.

Mei Lanfang specialized in other types of roles. In fact, he is perhaps best known for his moving portrayel of the “Beauty Yu” in the Peking Opera “Farewell My Concubine” (see the illustration below). And, yes, this is the same “Farewell my Concubine” Opera that serves as the focal point of Chen Kaige's earlier film about the art form. Mei was especially known for his smoothness, poise, and perfect timing. His style was so highly regarded that it became referred as the “Mei School” in Peking Opera circles.

The general Chinese public retained a keen interest in the “男旦” performers up through the 1930s, even after the emergence of China's film industry, which was centered in Shanghai, created lots of glamorous female movie stars. Indeed, during this decade, the readers of a popular magazine were polled as to who were China's top “男旦” opera singers. Mei Lanfang was one of the four winners. Mei and the other three top vote getters did a famous group photograph in which they all wore dark business suits.

In addition to achieving fame within China, Mei was the first Peking Opera star to achieve international recognition. He toured the world during the 1930s. During his visit to the United States, Mei became good friends with Charlies Chaplin. He was also welcomed in Hollywood (好莱坞) by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who managed to get him cast in several small film roles.

Mei was lionized not only in the capitalist west, but in the Soviet Union as well, where he received a bust of Lenin (列宁) after performing in Moscow. There he won the admiration of both Sergie Eisenstein and Bertolt Brecht.

In fact, in his new history of Beijing, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUITY, Jasper Becker argues that seeing Mei inspired Bertolt Brecht to develop his “verfremendungseffekt”, or “alienation effect”, theory of drama. In doing this, Becker claims that Brecht “completely misunderstood the art form (Peking Opera). He thought that the heavily stylized stagecraft, the patently unrealistic gestures that actors used to signal things like riding a horse or walking, was a deliberate effort to destroy any sense of illusion or escapism.”

The inversion of gender roles in Peking Opera was not limited to men playing younger women. In this topsy-turvy world, especially talented young female performers took on roles as older men. Since such characters were always older men, these ladies were called Laosheng (老生), or “old man”. Zhang Ziyi’s character in “Forever Enthralled” is a “老生”.

When Chen began thinking about this film project many years ago, he wanted the Hong Kong actor, Zhang Guorong (张国荣), better known in the West as Leslie Chueng, to play the role of Mei Lanfang. In my previous blog post, I noted that Zhang was the male lead in Wang Kar Wai's early breakthrough film, “Days of Being Wild”. However, in April of 2003, this great actor committed suicide (自杀) by leaping out of the window of a luxury hotel in Hong Kong. The photo below is a group shot with Chen, who is in the center of the picture, and the cast of “Mei Lanfang” (Zhang Ziyi is off to his side).

Chen had wanted to cast Zhang in his new film because he had starred as one of the two male opera performers in “Farewell my Concubine”. Unlike his partner, who marries the film's female lead actress (住女角), Gong Li (巩俐), this performer is not attracted to women. In fact, there is more than subtle hint of homoeroticism in the relationship between this pair. And Zhang Guorong was himself a homosexual (同性恋者); however, from what I've read and my Chinese friends have told me, being gay had nothing to do with his suicide.

One of the most powerful scenes in “Farewell my Concubine” comes toward the end of the movie, during the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命). The two opera performers are subjected to a “struggle session” (被批斗). In order to curry favor (拍马屁) with the Red Guards (红卫兵), the singer who is married denounces his wife, calling her a whore (破鞋)—they had first met at the high class brothel (妓院) where she worked as a prostitute—and saying that he had never loved her. His wife is naturally devastated by these statements. Thus when he returns home from the struggle session, he finds that she has hanged herself from the ceiling of their Siheyuan house.

Chen's frank depiction of the Cultural Revolution's excesses is more than just little autobiographical. Chen himself became a Red Guard during this period at the age of 14. He denounced the work of his father, who was then a prominent film director, as “subversive” (颠覆) (Chen's mother was a well-known film and TV actress). Chen has said that while his father has long since forgiven him for that behavior, he still deeply regrets what he did.

Fortunately, everyone in China, from the leaders down the ordinary people, all agree that the Cultural Revolution was a huge mistake. Something like it is thus very unlikely to ever happen here again.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

霸王别姬 (ba4wang3bie2ji1).
史诗电影 (shi3shi1dian4ying3). “史诗电影” is the Chnese word for “epic”.
慈禧 (Ci2xi3).
好莱坞 (hao3lai2wu4).
列宁 (lie4ning2).
自杀 (zi4sha1). “自” is a shortened form of the word “oneself”, “自己” (zi4ji3), while “杀” is the verb “murdered”.
住女角 (zhu4nü3jue2).
同性恋者 (tong2xing4lian4zhe3). The Chinese word for “lesbian” is “拉拉” (la1la1). These two characters are also the verb for “pull” or “drag along”. According to a Chinese friend, “拉拉” is used mainly by young people, and no standard term exists yet in Mandarin for “lesbian”. An older way of saying it is “女是个女同性恋” (nü3shi4ge4nü3tong2xing4lian4), which also means “female comrad”.
文化大革命 (wen2hua4da4ge2ming4). “文化” means “cultural”, “大” “great”, and “革命” “revolution”.
被批斗 (bei4pi1dou4).
拍马屁 (pai4ma3pi4). This literally means “petting (拍) the horse's (马) rear (屁)”. It can be translated into English not just as “curry favor”, but “kissing butt” and “licking someone else's boots” as well. “屁” on its own can mean “fart” and “rubbish”.

红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1). “红” is the word for “red”, while “卫兵” is “guard”.
破鞋 (po4xie2). For some reason, the Chinese literally refer to such a woman as a “broken (破) shoe (鞋)”. Rather like the English slang phrase “damaged goods”, I suppose.
妓院 (ji4yuan2). This is a much more descriptive term than its English equivalent, as it literally means “place (院) of prostitutes (妓)”.
颠覆 (dian1fu4).

The locals may not like his work, but the Architect who designed this Structure is one Lucky Fellow (很幸运的人):

Most people will instantly recognize the structure in the bottom top photo. It is Beijing's other iconic modern building, the new CCTV tower, which is located in the capital's Central Business District. The tower is nestled among 300 skyscrapers (大楼; 摩天大厦), hardly any of which stood prior to 1997. The old CCTV tower, which on the opposite side of town, just west of lovely Yuyuantan Park, is in the other photo shown above.

Whatever one might think about this structure, “boring” or “uninteresting” (没有意思) are the last adjectives that could be used to describe it. The tower is shaped like a double Z, while its large and dramatic cantilevered overhang and legs have a diamond-like facade. This novel design necessitated the use of never before tried building techniques during the tower's actual construction. And it comes as no surprise that the project's price tag amounted to hefty $600 million.

The new TV tower (电视大楼) is one of the world's largest buildings, even bigger than Chicago's Sears Tower. It is 750 feet high and its total area would cover forty soccer fields. Some 10,000 CCTV staff will work here, while 2000 visitors are expected to drop by the tower every day. And its elevator (电梯) sysem is said to be bigger than that of any other building in the world.

I actually rather like the TV tower and was relieved to hear that fire, which completely gutted the adjacent hotel, didn't seriously damage the structure. People familiar with this story know that the blaze was caused by some high-powered fireworks set off at the end of this year's Spring Festival holiday. Even though the police told the CCTV officials not to set them off, they went ahead and did so anyway. These folks are now in a lot of trouble!

But I seem to be one of the few people in Beijing who thinks that the new CCTV tower is a really cool building. Even most of the laowai living here don't seem care much for it. And all of my Chinese friends and acquaintances believe that the tower is a very strange building. In particular, they think that since the various towers lean forward toward each other, the structure must be inherently unstable (东倒西歪). They thus compare it to Italy's famous leaning tower of Pisa. And one friend informs me that the locals often refer to the building as the “big underpants” (大裤衩).

The designer of the Tower, the German architect Ole Sheeren, who works in Dutch superstar architect Rem Koolhaas's Office for Modern Architecture, has defended his design, comparing it to a “Giant Hutong in the Sky.” Of course, having this hutong in the sky doesn't even begin to make up for the mass destruction of the capital's historic siheyuan architecture and neighborhoods that has occurred over the past decade. In any case, very few Chinese people appear to be convinced by this argument.

However, one person who surely buys it is Sheeren's new girlfriend, the movie star (电影明星) Zhang Manyu (张曼玉), better known in the west as Maggie Cheung (their photos are below). Since Zhang is one of the loveliest women on the planet—she is beautiful in a quintessentially Chinese way—I suspect that Sheeren isn't much bothered by what other folks in the Middle Kingdom think about his design concept.

Zhang is a Hong Kong native (香港人) and has been starring in films for over two decades—she is currently 43 years old. Sheerer is actually her junior—he is 37 years old—and the Chinese call this kind of relationship “older sister (姐) younger brother (弟) affection (恋)”.

Zhang got her start playing not very serious eye candy roles in the Hong Kong action (枪战电影; 功夫电影) movies of the 1980s. I happen to really love this film genre (一种电影; 一类电影). And in fact, one of my all-time favorite Hong Kong action films starred Zhang, Michelle Yeoh (杨紫琼), and the late Mei Yanfang (梅艳芳), who died of cervical cancer and went by the English name of Anita Mui (Mui was also a pop music superstar). All Hong Kong action films were completely over the top, but this particular one was especially so. The plot (结构), if you could call it that, featured these three nubile and scantily clad superwomen kicking butt. Great fun to watch!

Zhang subsequently became something of a muse for the iconoclastic Hong Kong film director Wang Jiawei (王家卫), who is better known in the west as Wang Kar Wai. She was the main supporting actress in Wang’s first breakthrough film, “Days of Being Wild” (阿飞正传), where she plays the ex-girlfriend of the film's male lead, the noted Hong Kong actor, Zhang Guorong (张国荣), or Leslie Cheung.

I haven't seen this particular film, but have heard that it's very good. According to the plot summary I read on the internet, Cheung's character in the film—he goes by the English names of “York” or “Yuddy”—is a handsome playboy (花花公子) who has a very cavalier attitude toward his women. The film begins with him casting aside Zhang. She subsequently suffers an emotional breakdown, but receives solace from and has a near romance with a cop named Tide, who is played by Liu Dehua (刘德华), or Andy Lau.

Yuddy's next target (目标) is a vivacious cabaret dancer played by the Suzhou born actress, Liu Jialing (刘嘉玲), better known in the west as Carina Lau. However, Yuddy quickly becomes bored with this relationship and dumps her soon enough. He then enters a downward, self-destructive spiral. As the film draws to an end, the viewers learn that Yuddy's instinct for romantic cruelty and inability to commit stem from his conflicted feelings regarding his adoptive mother, who is a former prostitute (妓女), and his biological mother, who is a Filipino aristocrat.

Zhang got the lead female role (女主角) in the film Wang did as a followup to “Days of Being Wild,” “In the Mood for Love” (花样年华). I saw this movie when it was first released in 2000 while living in Los Angeles. Like “Days of Being Wild,” it's about the inability of people to find romantic love and establish lasting relationships.

“In the Mood for Love” is set in 1962 Hong Kong. The male lead (男主角) character (角色), played by the dashing Liang Chao Wei (梁朝伟), is a journalist (记者). He and Zhang are both married and also happen to be next door neighbors. We hardly see Zhang and Liang's spouses in the film. Their absence from the film—we get a fleeting glimpse every now and then—and other subtle hints tell us that they are both having affairs (婚外情).

Zhang and Liang react to this infedility and the loneliness that goes with by quickly entering into a romantic relationship, which is initally completely platonic (柏拉图式). In particular, Zhang tries to help Liang with the novel (小说) that he is struggling to write, even though she's just an ordinary housewife and knows nothing about literature.

However, toward the end of the film, they do make love (做爱). It is tribute to Wang's subtletly as a director that they're never shown actually having intercourse—before they bed down together, Zhang wears a beautiful red qipao (旗袍) silk dress and they listen to romantic Spanish music (see the poster below). But shortly after this happens, before the relationship can develop into something that is strong and permanent, Liang is sent by his newspaper to cover (报道) the Vietnam War (越南战争).

When the film ends, Liang has returned to Hong Kong. Both he and Zhang have ended their earlier marriages. Zhang now has a child and we know that Liang is its father. The the movie concludes with Liang futilely looking for Zhang in her old apartment. He can't find her because he look for Zhang in her old apartment. However, she is in his old apartment, holding the small boy who is the product of their earlier one-night stand. Thus the film is ambiguous right up to the end: we never really know if Zhang and Liang are able to connect with each other.

I've watched this film a number of times after seeing it in the theater on videocassette and DVD and it gets better and better with each viewing. I love how Wang uses the strength of Zhang and Liang's terrific acting to narrate the story, particularly the way he weaves their mundane and ordinary day-to-day activities into the mix. The latter includes Liang hunting and pecking away on his big, old-fashioned Chinese typewriter both at work and as he tries, without much success, to write his novel, as well as Zhang's nightly visits to the nearby noodle shop.

Zhang starred in several other Wang films, including the final installment of the triology that began with “Days of Being Wild,” the 2004 film, “2046”. I must confess to having missed that movie as well, although it's certainly on my large and ever growing backlog of must see movies. However, I did catch the film Zhang did in France, “Irma Vep,” while being married to its director, Olivier Assayas (they got divorced after two years, but breakup was amicable).

“Irma Vep”is based on a French comic book (漫画书) action heroine (女主人公). The above poster doesn’t exaggerate: Zhang really does spend most of her time in the film dressed in the tight, black-leather body suit. The outfit reminded me a lot of the ones Diana Rigg donned when she played amateur sleuth, Mrs. Emma Peel, in that great 1960s British spy show, “The Avengers”.

In addition to being gorgeous and a talented actress, I suspect that Zhang is a pretty smart gal to boot. She's at least smart enough to be very multilingual. Cantonese (广东话) is her native language and she is fluent in both Mandarin and Shanghaihua (all of these Chinese dialects are really foreign languages in relation to each, much like French is to Spanish). Zhang also speaks good English and excellent French.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if Zhang masters German (德语) in the not too distant future (it's a safe bet that she will master it sooner than Sheerer does either Mandarin or Cantonese!). I'm sure she already knows how to say “Ich liebe dich” (我爱你; I love you) to her new beau.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

很幸运的人 (hen3xing4yun4de5ren2). “幸运” is the word for “lucky”, while “人” means “person” or “fellow”. “很” is the word for “very” and “的” is the Mandarin possessive, serving the same function as the apostrophe in English writing.
大楼 (da4lou2). This best translated as “high rise”, or more literally, “big (大) rise (楼)”.
摩天大厦 (mo2tian1da4sha4). This is the nearest equivalent to “skyscraper”; “天” can mean both “sky/heaven” and “day”.
没有意思 (mei2you3yi4si5). “没有” means “not have” or “lacking”, while “意思” means “interesting” and “to be of interest”.
电视楼 (dian4shi4lou2). As noted in an earlier post, the “电视” “television” character combination literally means “electric vision”.

电梯 (dian4ti). “电” by itself means “electric power”, while “梯” can mean “ladder” or “stairs”.

东倒西歪 (dong1dao4xi1wai1). “倒” on its own is the verb “to topple” or “fall over”. According to my good Chinese friend, Zeng Lin (曾琳), the Chinese have another more slangy term for badly built/unsound structures, namely “豆腐渣工程” (dou4fu5zha1gong1cheng) or literally “tofu (豆腐) engineered (渣工程)”. For example you could say, “四川 (si4chuan1; Sichuan) 建筑 (jian4zhu; buildings) 没有 (mei2you3; not have) 钢铁 (gang1tie3; steel) 构 (gou4; frame), 所以 (suo3yi3; so) 地震发生的时候 (di4zhen4; earthquake; fa1sheng1; occurred/struck; de5shi2hou2 when), 它们 (ta1men1; they) 都 (dou1; all) 倒了 (dao3le5; toppled down).”
大裤衩 (da4ku4cha3). “裤衩” means “underpants”.
电影明星 (dian4ying3ming2xing1). “电影” is the word for “film”, while “明星” is the word for “star”.
香港人 (xiang1gang3ren2). The “香” in the Chinese name for Hong Kong means “fragrent”, while “港” is the word for harbor. Mandarin is sooooo much easier than English when it comes to naming people from other countries. Whereas English has a bewildering variety of ways to do this—Spaniard vs. German, for example—in Chinese you just put the character for “person”, “人”, after the country’s name. So Spaniards are “西班牙人” (xi1ban1ya2ren2) and Germans are “德国人” (de2guo2ren2).
枪战电影 (qiang1zhan4dian4ying3). This literally means “shooting (枪) battle (战) movie (电影)”. And of course the over top gun play and shootouts were staple features of most Hong Kong films from the 1980s. In fact, I remember the trailer for one such film, “Time and Tide” boasting, “No crouching tiger, no hidden dragon. But one helluva of a lot of bullets! Sometimes you can't tell who's shooting who!!” For readers wondering about the Chinese name of John Woo, who directed famous 枪战电影 starring Jackie Chan (成龙; cheng2long2) like “Supercop” and “Hardboiled”, it's 吴宇森 (wu2yu2sen1).

功夫电影 (gong1fu5dian4ying3). “功夫” means “kung fu”. Most of the Hong Kong films that weren’t 枪战电影 were kung fu movies. I use these two terms for Hong Kong action movies as all of the action was shooting or kung fu fighting. The Chinese call other action films, such as Western action films, 动作片子 (dong4zuo4pian1zi1). This is a word-for-word translation of “action (动作) movie (片子)”.
姐弟恋 (jie3di4lian4).
一种电影 (yi1zhong3dian4ying3). “种” also means “species”.
一类电影 (yi1lei4dian4ying3). “类” is word for “type”, as in “type of”.
杨紫琼 (yang2zi3qiong2). “杨” is a very common Chinese family name.
结构 (jie2gou4).
阿飞正传 (a1fei1zheng4zhuan4). This title literally means “The true story of Ah Fei”.
花花公子 (hua1hau1gong1zi5). This literally means “flower flower Prince”.
目标 (mu4biao1).
妓女 (ji4nü3). The Chinese call a woman with very bad morals, i.e. someone who English speakers would call “slut”, a “破鞋” (po4xie2), which literally means “broken shoe”.
女主角 (nü3zhu4jue2). “女” is the word for “woman”, “主” means “main” here, and “角” is a shortened version of the word for “part”, “role”, or “character” (角色; jue2se4).
花样年华 (hua1yang4nian2hua2). This title is quite different from “In the Mood for Love”; it can be translated as “Beauty/Splendor (花样) of Time/Age (年华)”.
男主角 (nan2zhu4jue2). “男” is the word for “man”. It consists of two characters, “田” (“field”) at the top and “力” (“power”) running down from it. My first and only Chinese teacher once told me this character symbolizes that men are the “power in the field”.
记者 (ji4zhe3). “记” on its own means “to remember”, while “者” is another suffix, like “师” (shi1), indicating a profession. So journalist in Chinese literally means “memory profession”. Not too far off the mark as a job description.

婚外情 (hun1wai4qing2). Literally means “marriage (婚) outside (外) affection (情)”.
柏拉图式 (bo2la1tu2shi4). “柏拉图” is the word for Platonic; “式” on its own means “style”.
小说 (xiao3shuo1). These two characters literally mean “small (小)” + the verb “to speak (说)”.

做爱 (zuo4ai4). The Chinese say it exactly as we do: “做” means “do/make”, while “爱” means “love” (both a noun and verb).
报道 (bao4dao4). “报” is part of the “报纸” (bao4 [report]zhi3 [paper]) character combination for newspaper and means “report”, while “道” on its own normally means “corridor” or “path”. However, here is means “verbal communication”.
越南战争 (yue4nan3zhan4zheng1). “越南” is the word for Vietnam, while “战争” means “war”.
漫画书 (man4hua4shu1). “漫画” means “caricature”, while “书” is the word for book.
女主人公 (nü3zhu4ren2gong1).
广东话 (guang3dong1hua4). 广东 Province, which is literally “wide (广) east (东)” is where Cantonese is spoken. “话” is the word for “speech”. So Shanghaihua means “Shanghai speech/talk”. Since Mandarin is the language spoken by all Chinese—in theory at least—it literally means “common (普通; pu3tong1) speech/language (话)”.
德语 (de2yu3). “德” stands for “German” here and “语” for “language”.
我爱你 (wo3ai4ni3). “我” is “I” (said like “Wah”), “爱” is “love” (said like “eye”), and “你” is “you” (said like “knee”).

Urban Renewal, the National Performing Arts Center, and Beijing Opera's Struggle to Survive:

People who live in Beijing will certainly know where I shot the two photos above, as will the many visitors to the capital last summer making the obligatory stop at Tian'anmen Square. It's the area south of the Tian'anmen Square's Qianmen (前门), or “front gate”.

As part of its campaign to remake Beijing before the Olympic Games, Beijing's municipal government, as well as China's national government, decided that this area needed a major facelift. Thus most of the old buildings, including many old siheyuan (四合院) neighborhoods (邻近), were torn down. In fact, Michael Meyer lived in a siheyuan in this area while teaching at the local Coal Lane elementary school (小学) and writing his great new book about all of this, THE LAST DAYS OLD BEIJING.

To be fair, this bit of urban renewal could have been much worse. To start with, the Qianmen Dajie wasn't turned into a four lane boulevard for automobile traffic. It was instead made into a pedestrian mall (步行街). Moreover, as the photos above indicate, the new buildings have an older traditional look, so the street looks very much it did in the 1920s and 1930s.

When I shot these photos last fall, most of the buildings were still empty. However, I do look forward to returning here when new shops, bars, coffee houses and restaurants open up (if they haven't already).

Unfortunately, the old siheyuans, many of which were certainly run-down (很破) could be seen as substandared housing, were not the only structures razed during this area’s recent makeover. Jasper Becker writes in his terrific new history of Beijing, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY, that this part of Beijing, which locals call the Dashilan (大栅栏), was home to a large number of Peking Opera theaters (京剧院). All of them are now gone.

The gentrification of the Qianmen Dajie provides yet another vivid reminder of the increasingly marginal status of Peking Opera, which I wrote about in one of my Changyucheng village blog posts. The building in the photo below is another symbol of the this art form's struggle to survive.

People who are familiar with Beijing will instantly recognize this very avant garde (前卫派; 先锋派) structure, which is the National Performing Arts Center (国家大剧院). The Center is located on a prime bit of real estate just southwest of the Forbidden City, behind the Great Hall of the People (人民大会堂) and opposite the so-called Zhongnanhai (中南海). The Zhongnanhai is where China's leaders live and work.

We largely have China's former President, Jiang Zemin (江泽民), to thank for the National Performing Arts Center's unusual design. According to Jasper Becker, Zemin fell in love with I. M. Pei's “Pyramid” at the Louvre (卢浮宫) and wanted Beijing to have something equally iconic (标志性) and recognizeable. He thus took the unusual step of personally intervening to ensure that the avant garde design proposed by the French architect, Paul Andreu, was chosen for the theater.

The choice of Andreu as the theater's architect had more than a bit of irony to it. Before doing this project, Andreu had focused on designing airport halls. These included the hall for the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, which collapsed some time after being built, killing a number of Chinese passengers.

Like Andreu's other buildings, the National Performing Arts Center is an innovative (创新) glass (玻璃) and steel (钢铁) construction. It's most striking and recognizeable feature, the roof (屋顶), is made out of titanium (钛) and glass. The theater's other notable design characteristic, not visible from the outside, is its entrance, which is a tunnel (隧道) under a lake.

As Becker notes, this design was very controversial. Indeed, when its selection was announced, 108 of China's most prominent architects (建筑师) signed a protest letter stating that such an important should not be the work of foreigner, particularly one who flouted the Middle Kingdom's long-standing architectural traditions. For example, they noted that tombs (坟墓) are the only Chinese buildings one enters through an underground tunnel.

These feelings are shared by ordinary Chinese people. All of my friends, for example, use adjectives like “strange” (奇怪) and “unusual” (稀奇) to describe the building. Due to its roof, one popular nickname for the Performing Arts Center is the “egg” (鸡蛋). Unlike the the “bird’s nest” (鸟巢) nickname for the Olympic Stadium, which stems from its nest-like steel mesh exterior, the “egg” is not a term of endearment.

According to Becker, the National Performing Arts Center is also referred to as the “turd” (一团粪), although I've never heard it called that. But one of my Chinese friends, a very lovely, sweet, and clever young lady, who's a software engineer, wrote that the building's roof makes the Center look like a half-submerged ball floating in water (水上浮着半个球).

Big posters (海报) publicizing events at the National Performing Arts Center often grace the walls of practically every Beijing subway station. Most of these performances are by well-known Western performing artists and musical groups. The latter typically include world famous orchestras, such as the London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and the like. So it is Western artists and performce art, not Chinese artists and performance art, that is showcased on the Center's four stages (yes, it has four stages with total seating that can seat altogether 2,700 people).

For example, last Monday, which was the Tomb Sweeping Day (清明节) holiday, I noticed a poster for an April-May Opera Festival at the Center while leaving the Military Museum subway station (I was on my way to Yuyuantan Park to photograph the cheery blossoms; more on that in a future post). Four of the five operas to be staged were the Western opera classics: “Tosca” (托斯卡), “La Boheme” (技术家生涯), “Turandot” (图兰朵), and “Carmen” (卡门). The festival’s sole Chinese opera was “Red Guards on Honghu Lake” (洪湖赤卫).

The National Performing Arts Center is thus holding an opera festival that doesn't include a single Peking Opera performance! More evidence, as if that were really needed, that Peking Opera is struggling to survive.

Notwithstanding all of the criticism of the “egg”, some of my friends, including the Irish attorney, Diarmuid O'Brien, who got me the free tickets for the China vs. Germany and US vs. Spain Olympic Basketball games last summer, say that it really is stunning once you get inside (Diarmuid, alas, has left Beijing to live and work in Madrid). The acoustics are supposed to be especially good, though I doubt if they match those of the Forbidden City Concert Hall (中山公园音乐堂) in nearby Zhongshan Park.

In any case, now that my income has improved, I can actually afford to go there every once in a while—ticket prices for the operas in the April May festival ran from 100 all the way up to 640 RMB. The National Performaning Arts Center is here to stay, so I might as well take advantage of it. Who knows, maybe I’ll have come all the way to China to see … the New York Philharmonic!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

前门 (qian2men2).
四合院 (si4he2yuan2).
邻近 (lin2jin4). “邻” on its own means “neighbor”.
小学 (xiao3xue2).
很破 (hen3po4). “破” is the Chinese word for “worn”, so if somone’s shirt (衬衫; chen4shan1) has lots of holes or is really frayed, then it’s “很破”.
步行街 (bu4xing2jie1). This literally means “pedestrian (步行) street (街)”. “行人” is another way of saying “pedestrian” in Chinese.
大栅栏 (da4shi2la4).
京剧院 (jing1ju4yuan2).
前卫派 (qian2wei4pai4) 先锋派 (xian1feng1pai4). “前卫” and “先锋” also both mean “vanguard” and are commonly used in military Mandarin.
国家大剧院 (guo2jia1da4ju4yuan2). “国家” means “national”, “大” “big”, and “剧院” “theater”.
人民大会堂 (ren2min2da4hui4tang2). The word here is quite different from the English translation: “people (人民) great (大) hall (会堂)”. And the word for “hall” combines the characters for “meeting” (会) and “hall” or “temple” (堂). “堂” appears in the Chinese word for “church”, which is “教堂” (jiao4tang2).
中南海 (zhong1nan2hai3).
卢浮宫 (lu2fu2gong1). For those interested, the Chinese word for pyramid is 金字塔 (jin1zi4ta3).
标志性 (biao1zhi1xing4). Chinese speakers would thus say, “故宫是北京的标志性的建筑” (gu4gong1 [Forbidden City] shi4 [is] bei3jing1de5 [Beijing] 5biao1zhi1xing4de5 [icon/iconic] jian4zhu4 [building]).
创新 (chuang4xin1). The noun “innovation” is “革新” (ge2xin1).
玻璃 (bo1li2). Bear in mind that you never say in Chinese, “I'd like a glass (玻璃) of milk.” You instead always say, “I'd like a cup of milk” or “我要一杯牛奶” (wo3 [I] yao4 [want] yi1 [1; a] bei1 [cup] niu2nai3 [cow's milk]).
钢铁 (gang1tie3).
屋顶 (wu1ding3).
钛 (tai4). The left side “metal” radical gives you a clue about the meaning, while right hand “太” (tai4) character within the character tells you how to say it.
隧道 (sui4dao4). “道” by itself means “corridor”.
建筑师 (jian4zhu4shi1). “建筑” by itself means “building”, while “师” is a suffix denoting a profession, as in “teacher”, or “老师” (lao3shi1).
坟墓 (fen2mu4).
奇怪 (qi2guai4).
稀奇 (xi1qi2).
鸡蛋 (ji1dan4). While English speakers refer to chicken eggs as just plain “eggs,” Mandarin is more specific, calling them what they are 鸡 (chicken) 蛋 (egg[s]).

鸟巢 (niao3chao3).
一团粪 (yi1tuan2fen4).
水上浮fu2着半个球) (shui3shang4fu2zhe5ban4ge4qiu2). Here is yet another good illustration of how Mandarin word is sooo different from English word order. This phrase literally reads, “water (水) on (上) floating (浮) continuously (着) half (半) ball (个球)”. In other words, the object, the “ball”, goes at the end, not the beginning.
海报 (hai3bao4).
清明节 (qing2ming2jie2). Actually the words “tomb-sweeping” don't appear in the Mandarin term for this festival. “清明” really means “lucid” (as in mind) or “peaceful” (as in times) (“节” is the word for “festival”). But since Chinese people traditionally sweep the tombs of dead ancestors and then leave gifts for them, the holday is called “tomb sweeping day” in the West.
托斯卡 (tuo1si1ka3).
技术家生涯 (ji4shu4jia1sheng1ya2). Unlike the Chinese titles for the other Western Operas, this one summarizes what La Boheme is more or less about: “Talented/skilled (技术) household (家生) on the edge (涯)”.
图兰朵 (tu2lan3duo3).
卡门 (ka3men2).
洪湖赤卫队(hong2,vast/big,hu2, chi4 “red”, wei4 dui4; ). “洪湖” is the name of the lake, while 赤卫队 is another term for “Red Guards”. As stated in an earlier blog post, they’re also referred to as 红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1).
中山公园音乐堂 (zhong1shan1gong1yuan2yue4tang2). This place is called the “Forbidden City Concert Hall” in English because it’s next to the Forbidden City (故宫; gu4gong1). However, the Chinese name is “Zhongshan (中山) Park (公园) Concert Hall (乐堂)”, as the hall is in Zhongshan Park. While Zhongshan Park is very lovely and one of my favorite Beijing places, few foreigners know about. However, everyone knows about the Forbidden City, so that name is used in the English translation.

If You're Looking for Eating Adventures of a New and Different Kind …”:

… then China is the place for you! Getting served the whole chicken, including the head and feet, is just the beginning of your interesting gastronomic experiences (经历) here.

This because China has long faced a basic problem: while its population is large, the amount of arable land (可耕之地) in the country is relatively small. In fact, since most of the Middle Kingdom consists of mountains and desert, crops (庄稼) can be grown (種) on just 10-15% of its total land area.

Thus China has always had what some observers have called a “famine (饥荒) cuisine (烹饪法)”. That is to say that any plant (植物), animal (动物), or animal parts that are in the least bit edible do get eaten.

In Yuannan (云南) Province, for example, which is very mountainous and has little arable land, insects play more than a minor role in the regional fare. I actually ate bee (密封) larva (幼虫) when dining with a Chinese friend at a Yunnan restaurant located near the Second Foreign Langauges University (二外) (I taught English there during my first year in Beijing).

I have to say that it didn't taste all that bad. In fact, were it not for the seasoning on the larva, the stuff probably would have been completely lacking in taste. The same can be said for the fly (苍蝇) larva (or pupa) I had sampled at the Mono Lake Visitor Center in California before coming to China.

The park ranger informed us that the Piute Indians (印第安人) gathered and then dried the fly pupa from Mono Lake. The lake (湖) has lots and lots of flies, providing plenty of food for the masses of migrating birds who stop there on the Pacific flyway.

The only notable thing about the fly pupa was its crunch. The ranger also told us that this food is extremely high in protein (蛋白质) and has virtually no fat (肥) or cholesterol (胆固醇). The same could probably be said about the bee larva. But I remember that it was rather expensive, so I doubt if the growing numbers of overweight Chinese people suffering from high cholesterol will soon be adopting an all bee larva diet!

Yunnan cuisine also features lots of exotic mushrooms (蘑菇) and other wild greens. One of Beijing's best Yunnan dining spots is Hou Hai’s South Silk Road Restauarant. For some reason, these dishes are translated on the menu from Chinese into English as “Stir Fried Wikipedia”! Leaving aside this “Chinglish”, the restaurant is really worth a visit. It has outdoor dining by Hou Hai's southernmost lake and the food, especially the pork ribs in pu'er tea, is to die for (超好吃). But be warned: it's pretty spicy (很辣).

I also twice dined on sea sponges during my first year in China, when I lived and worked in Henan (河南) Province. The first time was at a Zhengzhou (郑州) Muslim Restaurant—our school took us there for dinner, following a day trip to the Yellow River. The second time was at a National Day banquet organized by the Hennan Provincial Government that was held at Zhengzhou's swank Sofitel Hotel. I and a few other teachers were invited to go and represent the school at this event. The school, I might further add, made a special point of including two very cute young blondes in our delegation.

Sea sponges are aptly named. Eating these little critters really is like eating a sponge, particularly an old and rubbery sponge that's seen way too much heavy duty cleaning action around the kitchen. So during my first go with the sponges, I literally felt like gagging after taking just one bite. Indeed, had there not been other people at the table, I would have spat it out faster than a snitch turning state's evidence.

When the sea sponges were served during the National Day Banquet, I thought, “Well, why not give it the old college try”. This was, after all, the Sofitel, and I figured that their expert kitchen staff might be able to turn the humble sponge into the marine delicacy it's reputed to be. And the rest of the dinner was outstanding—it was hands down the best meal I had in Henan all that year.

Alas, no such luck. Once again, I couldn't get more than a single bit down. I thus concluded that the problem with Muslim restaurant wasn’t the saurce or anything like that. The problem is simply that sea sponges just taste really awful.

My Middle Kingdom culinary adventures haven't gone beyond eating bee larva and sea sponges. However, some foreign friends and acquaintances have scaled far greater heights when it comes to eating what most of us would consider utterly disgusting fare. For example, during my first year in China, one of my fellow teachers dined on sheep's testicles (睾丸). This fellow was back in the states after just one term, and perhaps this dining experience had something to do with his quick departure from China!

Another colleague from that school, who stuck it out here for another two years, albeit first Fujian and then in Shanghai, before going to Ethiopia to teach law, was voted by her colleagues the instructor most likely to eat strange and interesting dishes. This lady, who is a delightful 50-something lawyer from South Carolina, feasted on grilled sheep eyes, fried silk worms (炸蚕), and fried apples (炸苹果) with ants (蚂蚁).

Even more bizarre culinary adventures await those who travel to Mongolia (蒙古). At least this is what I can surmise from an utterly hilarious article Tim Wu posted in the online SLATE magazine in September of last year. In particular, Mongolian diary culture is very different from that of the West. As Wu notes, there's a good reason why we stick to drinking milk from a cow (牛奶): “most other types of milk are absolutely disgusting”. They all get “under your skin in a special diary sort of way.”

This is especially true for camel's (骆驼奶) milk, which Wu states has a very “musky” flavor and is like “drinking bottled smoke”. He adds, “I finally understand why Camel is a brand of cigarettes (抽烟)”. According to Wu, while Yak (牦牛奶) milk isn't too bad when served warm, mare's milk (马奶) tends to be very salty, giving a whole meaning to the phrase “acquired taste.”

However, mare's milk is a lot more drinkable after being fermented (发酵) into alcohol (酒); moreover, imbiding it is a sure-fire way of getting drunk in a hurry (很快喝醉). I suspect it also beats drinking the local vodka (伏特加). Wu notes his Mongolian host went out of his way to flavor the vodka with a few live beetles (甲虫), as if to add a “Ghenghis Khan (成吉思汗) touch to the whole thing”.

Mongolia is a very diary-centric place—most of China's milk is produced just across the border, in adjacent Inner Mongolia Province, around the city of Hohhut (呼和浩特)—so cheese (奶酪) is a big part of the Mongolian diet. Unfortunately, Wu notes that nearly all of it is “hard as a rock and as acidic as battery acid.” It thus not only tastes bad, but eating it is “rather exhausting” to boot.

But the high point, if one can call it that, of Wu's adventure was getting served an entire sheep. In China, by contrast, while you usually get the whole chicken, you very seldom, if ever, get served the whole sheep, at least nothing beyond the eyes and testicles, along with the parts we westerners normally eat, such as the leg.

This particular sheep was boiled in a large vat warmed up by burning dung. Wu notes that while the stomach and heart were the “highlights” the lungs “had a spongy texture” that made them hard to bite through. And after eating the fatty intestines and connecting flesh, he “felt, for the first time, what 19th century writers refer to as ‘rising bile.’”

Wu provides the following memorable verdict on this experience: it was “like a horror film (恐怖电影), except that I am eating the special effects (特技)”. Yum, yum, I can now hardly wait to visit Mongolia!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

经历 (jing1li4). This just refers to life experiences. Mandarin has a separate word for “work experience”, which is 经验 (jing1yan4). And when using this word, be sure you say “历” in a fourth, not a third tone. Otherwise, your Chinese listener think you're talking about your manager (经理; jing1li3) at work.
可耕之地 (ke3geng1zhi1di4). “可耕” means “arable”.
庄稼 (zhuang1jia1). “Harvest” is 收获 (shou1huo4).
種 (zhong4).
饥荒 (ji1huang1). “饥” means “starving”, while “荒” by itself can mean “waste”, “desert”, and “desolate”. The Mandarin word for “hungry” is “饿” (e4), while starve to death is “饿死了” (e4si3le5). This term can mean literally and figuratively “starving to death”.
烹饪法 (peng1ren4fa3). “烹” on its own can be translated as “cook”, “boil”, or “stir fry with sauce”; “饪” can also be translated as “cook”. “法” means “method” or “approach”.
植物 (zhi2wu4). This literally means “established (fixed) living thing.”
动物 (dong4wu4). And this literally means “moving living thing.”
云南 (yun2nan2). Translated word for word, it means “south of the clouds”.
密封 (mi4feng1). “Honey” is 蜂蜜 (feng1mi4). I should also note that unlike people in the west, Chinese people never refer to their adult loved ones as “honey.” They instead say “宝贝”, which means “baby” and “darling”. And husbands call their wives “老婆” (lao3po2), while wives call their husbands “老公” (lao3gong1).
幼虫 (you4chong2). “幼” means “young”, while “虫” means “insect/worm”.
二外 (er4wai4).
苍蝇 (cang1ying5).
印第安人 (yin4di4an1ren2). This word refers to “Native Amercans”, not to people from India. The latter are called “印度人” (yin4du4ren2); “India” is “印度”.
湖 (hu2). This character is quite similar to the one for the Chinese family name “胡”, as as in the country's current President, 胡锦涛 (hu2jin3tao1). The character for “lake” differs from the proper name because it has the “water/liquid” radical on its left side. That provides a clue about the meaning.
肥 (fei2). The Chinese word for “lose weight, “减肥” (jian3fei2) really means “lose fat”.
蛋白质(dan4bai2zhi4). Literally translated, this means “egg (蛋) white (白) matter (质)”.
胆固醇 (dan3gu4chun2). “胆” on its own means “gall bladder” and “gall”, as in “audicity”, “固” is “originally”, “as a matter of course”, or “solid”, while “醇” can be translated as “mellow”, as in “mellow wine”.
蘑菇 (mo2gu5).
超好吃 (chao1hao3chi1). This means “super good tasting”. Something that just “tastes good” or “delicious” is simply “好吃”. You can also say “非常好吃”, “really, really good”, “特好吃” (te4hao3chi1), “particularly/especially good”, or “好好吃”. The latter phrase can’t be directly translated; it’s just another way of saying something is really good.
很辣 (hen3la4). Since Sichuan people love spicy food, women from there are called “辣妹”, or “spicy girl/spicy little sister”.
河南 (he2nan2). This name just means “south of the river,” i.e. the Yellow River, or “黄河” (huang2he2). “河” is the Chinese word for “river”.
郑州 (zheng4zhou1). Zhengzhou is the provincial capital of Henan.
睾丸 (gao1wan2).
炸蚕 (zha4can2). “炸” is the word for “fry/fried”. The second character can also be written as “蠶”.
炸苹果 (zha4ping2guo3).
蚂蚁 (ma3yi3).
蒙古 (men3gu3).
牛奶 (niu2nai3). “牛” is “cow”, while “奶” is “milk”.
骆驼奶 (luo4tuo5nai3). “骆驼” is the word for “camel”.
抽烟 (chou1yan1). “烟” means smoke and the “火” (huo3) character within this character, which means “fire”, gives a clue about its meaning.
马奶 (ma3nai3). “马” is not only the word for horse, but is also a Chinese family name.
牦牛奶 (mao2niu2nai3). “牦牛” is the word for “yak”.
发酵 (fa1jiao4).
酒 (jiu3). “酒” is a suffix that appears in all terms for alcoholic beverages, like “beer” (啤酒; pi2jiu3), “wine” (葡萄酒; pu2tao2jiu3), or literally “grape (葡萄) alchohol”, and last but certainly not least, that infamous and to my mind (and most other laowai), disgusting clear spirit, “baijiu” (白酒), or “white alcohol”.
很快喝醉 (hen3kuai4he1zui4). “很快” means “very fast”, while “喝醉” is the word for “drunk”. “喝” on its own means “to drink”.
伏特加 (fu2te4jia1).
甲虫 (jia3chong3). “甲” means “first in a series”, while “虫” means “insect/worm”.
成吉思汗 (cheng2ji2si1han2).
呼和浩特 (hu1he2hao4te4).
奶酪 (nai3lao4).
恐怖电影 (kong3bu4dian4ying3). “恐怖” is the word for “horror”, while “电影” means “film/movie”.
特技 (te4ji4). “特” is a shortened for of the word “special” (特别; te4bie2), while “技” is the word for “skill”. It's used to form the word for “technology”, which is “技术” (ji4shu4).

“As Long as You Don't Serve the Chicken that Way!”

While I generally really like the food in China, there is one aspect of Chinese cusine I still can't get used to. I'm talking about the way chicken is served here. If you order a chicken, chances are you'll get the whole chicken, including not just the chicken breast (鸡胸) and leg and thigh (鸡腿), but the feet (鸡爪) and head as well.

I had my first experience of this kind during my first year in China, when I taught English at a no-name university located in a small city in Henan Province. One day I had lunch with a student friend at a restaurant (饭馆) located near the university's main entrance. Another Chinese friend had told me that the restaurant's country style chicken was really tasty, so we ordered it as our main dish.

When we got the chicken, it was cut into pieces that were swimming in some kind of brownish sauce in a large bowl. I put my chopsticks (筷子) into the bowl and picked what seemed to be a big chunk of meet only to find the chicken's head, complete with its beak (鸡嘴) and eyes (眼睛), staring at me. I must say that the sauce and chicken tasted pretty good, even if all the chicken meat (鸡肉) came with quite a few bones (骨头) (the same holds true for the fish [鱼肉] here).

Ever since that day, I've pretty much stuck to Kung Pa chicken (宫爆鸡丁) when ordering chicken dishes at restaurants. However, for our lunch at Changyucheng village, we were served country style chicken. I suspect it was slaughtered, plucked, and cooked that very morning. And once again, I could see the head and feet, so I gave it a pass, even though I'm sure it was, like the rest of our food, very good.

A few days before going on this trip, I watched my DVD of Roman Polanski's film noir classic, “Chinatown”. The chicken reminded one of Jack Nicholson's many great lines in that movie. “Chinatown” is set in 1930s Los Angeles (洛杉矶) and Nicholson plays a private detective (私人侦探) named Jake Gittes.

Gittes begins the movie by investigating what appears to be an ordinary matrimonial case, albeit one involving Hollis Mullray, the chief engineer at the city's water and power department. The close resemblance between this name and that of William Mullholland, the famed real life water and power engineer from that period, is no accident. But he is quickly drawn into a sinister web of intrigue (阴谋) spun by a powerful behind the scenes hegemon, Noah Cross, who is brilliantly played by the aged John Huston.

Cross not only seeks to control Los Angeles's water supply—he murders (被杀) Mullray because the chief engineer opposes his plans—but has also had an incestuous (乱伦的关系) relationship with his daughter Evelyn (Faye Dunaway). Cross wants to establish contact with his “other” daughter.

He thus gets an actress to impersonate Mrs. Mullray, and this woman then hires Gittes to tail the chief engineer, saying that she believes that her husband is having an affair (婚外情). Mullray married Cross's daughter and took care of the girl Evelyn gave birth to after she was raped (强暴) by her father (when the film begins, this daughter is a young woman).

After murdering Mullray, Cross hires Gittes to try and find his second daughter. Gittes mistakenly believes that Mullray was actually having an affair (婚外情) with this lady before he was murdered. At this point, of course, he doesn't know that Mullray was killed by Cross. Cross invites Gittes over to lunch at his private club on Catalina Island and serves him fish, with the heads. Cross says, “I think they (the fish) should be served with the heads.” Gittes responds, “That's fine, as long as you don't serve the chicken that way!”

One of the things I love about Gittes is that he is such a complete smart-ass (具有讽刺性). In this respect, he's very much like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, although, unlike Marlowe, he does matrimonial work and is proud of it. As Alain Silver writes in his entry on “Chinatown” in the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM NOIR, Gittes is very much a “two-bit gumshoe”.

Early on the film, Gittes gets his nose (鼻子) slashed (割) by one of Cross's goons (打手) while snooping about a reservoir (贮水池)—after Mullray is murdered he begins to suspect that something fishy (可疑) is going on with LA's water. Nicholson thus spends much of the film with his nose heavily bandaged (用绷带包着).

Toward the end of the movie, the actress who impersonated Mrs. Mullray is murdered, and Gittes is lured to her place by LA police detective Lou Escobar. Escobar's partner sees Gittes' nose and asks him, “What happened to your nose, Gittes? Did someone slam the bedroom door (卧室门) on it?” To which Gittes responds, “No, your wife got excited (激动) and crossed her legs (盘腿) a little too fast, know what I mean pal.”

The title of this film is very ironic (片名很有讽刺意味) because only its last few minutes actually take place in LA's Chinatown (唐人街). At the end of the film, Gittes has not only failed to persuade the police that Cross murdered Mullray and is scheming to control the water supply, but his efforts to aid Evelyn Mullray lead to her getting killed. The film ends Gittes' two associates leading him away from the scene and one of them telling him, “Forget it (忘了吧; 别去想) Jake, it's Chinatown.”

In Polanski's film, then, Chinatown is not a place but a metaphor (隐喻) for sordid and corrupt things (很腐败的事情), like Cross's efforts to seize the city's water, that go on and remained concealed under the surface. The Chinese would say that such matters are “内幕”, which literally means “inside the curtain” and is the Madnarin equivalent to the English expression “behind the curtain”.

“Chinatown” was released in 1974. Its screening thus came not only on the heels of the Watergate scandal and coverup, but the earlier coverups and secrecy on the Vietnam War perpetrated by both the Nixon and Johnson Administrations. And given what we now know about the lies and deception preceding the second Iraq War, not to mention the clandestine rendition and torture of terrorist suspects, “Chinatown” really does resonates with today's political climate as well. Even worse, much like Gittes' associate, the Obama (奥巴马) Administration's attitude regarding all this seems to be, “Forget it, it's Chinatown.”

That's more than a little unfortunate, as many of the officials, notably convicted perjurer Elliot Abrams, who were deeply involved in the Reagan Administration's Iran-Contra scandal, subsequently held key posts in the second Bush Administration. It's clear that failure to come come to grips with the past— what the Germans call “vergangenheitsbewägung”—ensures that history will repeat itself. The same, of course, can be said for the Middle Kingdom. We'll see if China's film industry manages in the future to produce its own version of “Chinatown”.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

鸡胸 (ji1xiong1). As is often the case in Chinese, there's a separate word for a woman's breasts, “乳房” (ru3fang2).
鸡腿 (ji1tui3). “腿” is the Chinese word for “leg”, and a human leg is also called a “腿”.
鸡爪 (ji1zhua2). “鸡” is the word for “chicken”, while “爪” is the word for “claw” or “talon”. The character actually looks like a claw too!
饭馆 (fan4guan3). “饭” is one word for food, and the left side of the character has the cooking ladle radical. “馆” on its own can mean any public building.
筷子 (kuai4zi5).
鸡嘴 (niao3zui3). “嘴” can mean “mouth”, “snout”, or “bill”.
眼睛 (yan3jing1). “眼” on its own can also mean “hole” or “aperture”, while “睛” means “eyeball”.
鸡肉 (ji1rou4). As noted in earlier posts, “肉” is the Chinese word for “meat”.
骨头 (gu3tou2).
鱼肉 (yu2rou4). As with chicken, the same logic applies to fish. Unlike English speakers, Chinese people say they’re eating fish (鱼) meat (肉), rather than just “fish”. For readers who are interested, “fishing” in Mandarin is “钓鱼” (diao4yu2).
宫爆鸡丁 (gong1bao4ji1ding4). A big reason we laowai like eating this dish because the chicken meat consists of diced chicken breast without any bones. Plus all the peanuts (花生; hua1sheng1) help make it really.
洛杉矶 (luo4shan1ji1). The Chinese word for “Hollywood” is “好莱坞” (hao3lai2wu1).
私人侦探 (si1ren2zhen1tan1). “私人” is the “private” part of “private detective”, while “侦探” means “do detective work” or “spy”. “侦” by itself means “investigate”.
阴谋 (yin1mou2). This word can also mean “plot”.
被杀 (bei4sha1). “被” is used in Chinese passive voice sentences, typically when something bad occurs to some or something, such as being murdered (杀). “Kill” or “murder” can also be translated into Mandarin as “暗杀”.
乱伦的关系 (luan4lun2de5guan1xi1). In addition to “incest,” “乱伦” can mean to violate a natural law. “关系” is the Chinese word for “relationship”. Of course when Gittes confronts Evelyn Mullray about her daughter, she famously says, “She’s my sister … She’s my daughter … She’s my sister … She’s my sister and my daughter!!”
婚外情 (hun2wai5qing2). This literally means “marriage” (婚) “outside” (外) “affection” (情).
强暴 (qiang2bao4). “强” means “strong”, while “爆” is the Mandarin word for “violent.”
具有讽刺性 (ju4you3feng3ci4xing4). This means that someone's verbal speech is full of sarcasm and irony; it's about the closest way of translating “smart-ass” into Mandarin. “讽刺” can also be translated as “ironic.”
鼻子 (bi2zi5).
割 (ge1).
打手 (da3shou3). This literally means “hit (打) hand (手)”, and can be also be translated as “thug” or “roughneck”.
贮水池 (zhu4shui3chi2). “Dam” is “水坝” (shui3ba4).
可疑 (ke3yi2). If you're saying this word, be sure to say the second character as a rising, not a falling rising tone. Otherwise, a Chinese person will think you’re saying “可以” (ke3yi3), which means “can” in the sense of getting formal permission to do something.
用绷带包着 (yong4beng1dai4bao1zhao). This literally means “wrapped (带包着) in bandages” (绷).
卧室门 (wo4shi4men2). “卧室” is the room for “bedroom”, “门” is the word for “gate” and “door”. It actually looks like a gate or door.
激动 (ji1dong4). If one is romantically attracted to someone, Mandarin speakers will use the verb “心动” (xin1dong4), which means that the person’s heart (心) moved (动).
盘腿 (pan2tui3). I got this word for a Chinesepod.com upper intermediate lesson about yoga (瑜伽; yu2jia1), but I suspect it's used in this context as well.
片名很有讽刺意味 (pian4ming2hen3feng3ci4yi4wei4). This phrase basically means that the movie's (片) name/title (名) has (有) an ironic (讽刺) meaning/flavor (意味).
唐人街 (tang2ren2jie1). The Mandarin word for town doesn’t appear in this character combination. Literally translated they mean, “Street (街) of boastful (唐; also the name of Chinese imperial dynasty) people (人)”.
忘了吧 (wang4le5ba5). This just means “forget” (忘了) it”; “吧” is a suggestive particle used when issuing suggestions or mild commands.
别去想 (bie2qu4xiang3). “别去想” can mean “forget about it”. However, it can also mean “Don't (别) think (想) about it”.
隐喻 (yin3yu4).
很腐败的事情 (hen3fu3bai4de5shi4qing2). “腐败” is the word for “corrupt” and can also be translated as “rotten” or “putrid”. “事情” means “matter” or “affair”.
内幕 (nei4mu4). “内幕” is the Chinese equivalent to the English “behind the curtain”; however, Mandarin speakers say “inside (内) the curtain (幕)”.
奥巴马 (ao4ba5ma3). At least this translition sounds pretty much like Obama's name; the same can't be said for his predecssor's Chinese name “布什” (bu4shi2), which is pronounced like “Boo-sure.”