Rooftops, Bars, and Marathons-oh my

This past week was characterized in large part by failures and victories of varying degrees. I guess that really describes any period of time, but what are you going to do? I had a couple days off mid week (my schedule is highly erratic and frequently subject to change) and decided to spend them pretending to be the freelance journalist that I keep pretending I am. So on Wednesday, I took a bus, walked, took a subway, walked, and took another bus a couple hours out of town (it could have been simpler if I had just taken the bus to the subway in the first place, but I was trying to find a different bus stop) to go try to talk my way into a daoist temple that was under construction. The problem was that it wasn’t. The snipped I’d read online had been incorrect, and refurbishment had been completed prior to national day. So instead of just buying a ticket and checking it out anyway, I wandered off to find another temple under construction. There was one, actually, just down by the parking lot, and I spent about an hour talking to a variety of people in my best freelance journalist manner, explaining carefully that it was just because people were not allowed in that I wanted to be let in. They understood, but they also didn’t let me in. So I got back on the bus and took a nap on the way home. Abject failure.

Thursday I decided to figure out how to go to bars alone. To this end I got in a cab (something I try not to do unless it’s really necessary) and went to San Li Tun, which used to be the center of western drinking in Beijing. It’s a has been now, populated by tourists, pimps, and pushers. I walked around a bit, but there wasn’t a place that I actually wanted to try to spend any time in, so I started home. But then I ran into people I knew. This happens frighteningly frequently for a city this big, but then again there are only 5 neighborhoods where foreigners go drinking generally speaking, so maybe it’s not that weird. My friends brought me into a club (and even got me in for free) where a finish electronica musician was playing…and he actually turned out to be really good. So that was fun, and I’ve decided that I don’t actually want to go to bars alone (if for no other reason than that beer is marked up to around 20 times its real price) so I guess that counts as a win.

I also talked to one of the pushers for a while, which was an interesting experience. I had previously thought that getting drugs in china was quite difficult, but since being here everyone I’ve met has told me that all one needs to do is go to San Li Tun and talk to a black guy. After walking around for a night in the area, I was inclined to agree with the rule, and went so far as to ask of the guys (who was from Nigeria I think) about it. He didn’t get mad, but replied with a 5-minute outpouring of mile a minute jive. I caught one of every four words or so, and had to employ my nodding skills usually reserved for toothless Chinese grandparents (who are almost wholly unintelligible). So that was interesting, and I’m thinking about looking more into the phenomenon.

Friday I went walking around the old hutongs south of Tian An Men Square. This in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Beijing, and much of it is currently in the process of getting knocked down, which is really a damn shame to top most damn shames. It’s not really that hard to explain my fascination with hutongs. They feel real, in a way that much of Beijing, and most modern, shiny, cities for that matter do not. They’re narrow, dirty, and old. Full of old people and children, real people going about daily life. After around 45 minutes of walking and talking (not at the same time) I found myself at the back gate to one of the construction sites. They hadn’t started digging holes yet (one of the reason for many of the demolitions is that the city planners are putting new pipes underground…. not little dinky ones either, these are Pipes) so it was effectively just an area of cleared rubble surrounded by abandoned houses. Naturally, I climbed up on the roof of one of these, and spent about an hour clambering over rooftops and into empty buildings. I took a bunch of pictures…but then managed to delete them all, one of the most annoying things I’ve done in a long time. Many I was able to take again, but some are lost forever. I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. Being up on those rooftops was an interesting mix of exhilarating (I mean, how often do you get to climb around on rooftops) and about as sad as it gets. It was interesting, and it was lonely, and I think I’ll go back on a clear night sometime soon.

This weekend, I’ve been working the graveyard shift, which is rather awful not so much because of the hour but because there’s virtually no work to do. But we call ourselves a 24 hour English station so there’s a live broadcast at 3 am, and then nothing till 8. If I had work to do I could stay awake no sweat. But just sitting around is rather rough, though not, I guess, in the grand scheme of things. This morning I was going home to go to bed, snoozing on the bus, when it stopped, and didn’t start again, about a kilometer from my home. Nobody got off the bus, and really it seemed like everything was normal. I went back to sleep but 15 minutes later we still hadn’t moved. Cursing under my breath, I grabbed my bag and got off…to see a sea of stopped cars and busses. Nobody was going anywhere in on our side of the road. Somewhat mystified I started walking, until I got to ZhicunLu (called by us the third and a half ring road {because, naturally, its about halfway between the north third and the north forth ring roads}) that was blocked off by a line of cops and army guys. Down the road ran scores of people, huffing and puffing and looking very much like the marathon runners that they were. It was ridiculous. I had to go and stand in a throng of people inching its way over a single overpass, pushing the kids in front of me and getting elbowed from behind by old ladies. Not really what I wanted to be doing after a night of sitting in the newsroom.

Otherwise, life continues. Work is work, and free time is taken up sending lots of emails pretending to be a journalist. I’ve been talking to a bunch of train enthusiasts recently, and might go up to Manchuria to see some of the last big steam engines in the world. Tomorrow morning I head down to Kaifeng, where a community of Jews settled in the Song Dynasty. Should be a good trip. Until later then. Peas and carrots, --martin.