Beijing smog, National Day and Peking Duck

Greetings all from the Chaoyang district of Beijing, the historic capital of China. My apologies for not being more regular with this. The mainland government maintains rather strict control on information, including the web. One form that takes is that web sites that are based outside of China are often very difficult, if not impossible, to access, even if they are not restricted by the government.

This included Blogger. However, I learned from an expat here that this can be circumvented by the use of a VPN (virtual private network). I actually use VPN for work to access alumni data that is confidential. Anyway, as the expat explained to me, the government will know I am using VPN, but the system won't know what sites I am visiting. As long as I am not fomenting revolt, and am not Chinese, it's no big deal, he said. I hope he's right because here I sit, using my VPN to make this post.

Beijing is very, very different from Hong Kong, as one should expect. Where westerners were a common site in Hong Kong, they are rare here. Some guys from Michigan that were staying in my hotel told me of being approached to have their picture taken with a group of Chinese that were, probably, themselves tourists in town for the Mid-Autumn Festival (roughly equivalent to Thanksgiving) and National Day (similar to the 4th of July) which happened to fall on consecutive days this year, giving most Chinese a week-long holiday.

The first thing I noticed upon arrival here was the pollution. My eyes started burning as soon as I got off the plane. As the sun came up the next morning, I could see why.

That's not fog folks, that's air pollution. I was told by one local that, during the summer, it can sometimes be difficult to see across the street. I just can't imagine. Luckily, the next day, it rained and a cold front with strong winds moved through. The view changed dramatically.

As I mentioned above, two huge holidays fell during my visit to Beijing, drawing hundreds of thousands of people to the city. The "China Daily" was full of stories of motorists stranded for hours on the country's interstate system. Nearly all of China's highways are toll roads and the tolls nearly double the cost of any road trip. For the holidays, the government called a moratorium on tolls and Chinese flocked to the highways, only to find themselves trapped in gridlock.

National Day marks the day when Mao unveiled the PRC flag for the first time on Tienanmen Square. Chinese mark that day as the birth of modern China. So, Chinese regard being on Tienanmen Square on Oct. 1 the way we would feel about being in Washington, D.C. on the Fourth. There were an estimated 300,000 people on the square that day, and I was one of them.

  

I met a group of guys from Michigan here with the father of one who was checking things off his "bucket list". In this case seeing the Great Wall of China. Anyway, we all hit it off and on our last night decided we had to go out for "Peking Duck." If you've never done this, find somewhere that does it right, roasting the duck whole, serving it head and all, with every bit of crispy skin.

The duck is served table-side and the first thing the carver presents are perfect little pieces of the crispy skin from the back. The skin is served with a small bowl of sugar. You dip the skin in the sugar and pop it in your mouth. The bite is so perfectly Chinese in that it takes two things you would not expect to go together and gives them to you in a way that is harmonious and delicious. Trust me, you want this. The duck skin is fatty, slightly smokey and gamy, that is all cleaned up and balanced by the sweetness of the sugar. OMG!

The rest of the duck is then carved and served with small rice flour tortillas, vegetables and plum sauce. You build your own bites and mix in servings of salads and an incredible egg custard topped with broth and ground duck. This is definitely a multiple foodgasm.

In a couple hours, I'm off to Shanghai, which I am expecting to be nothing like either Hong Kong or Beijing. I'll let you know. 

谢谢您的阅读

Scott