Dim Sum Times: Beijing in 24 Hours: a professional traveler's guide

The chaos of Shanghai station.

We didn't actually set out to see this 2500 year old capital in only one day. We had planned on spending a full weekend there. It wasn't until after we had boarded our over-night train that we learned our 11 hour express train was actually a 21 hour local train. Luckily, we were prepared:

Christine and I traveled with our friends Stephanie and James. For all of you Indy folks, James will be moving to Fishers in 3 weeks, so be friendly.

We were soon discovered by our neighbors, two women from the states who had come to Shanghai for a wedding. After spending a week with the teetotaller groom, these two were ready to par-tay. They thought they were providing us with some quality sake, but it turned out to be baijiu (buy-jeeyo). If you've never tasted baijiu before, consider yourself lucky. Just imagine that a really cheap bottle of sake got drunk and slept with moonshine. Their love child would be baijiu. Blech.

Anyway, after we made friends with those two, the train officials came by to see what all the commotion was about. We asked them to have a drink with us, so they went and got their friend.

Next, we went to the dining car to play cards. It was dinner time for the staff, so we were able to make some more friends.

The next day, we got into Beijing at 2:30 pm (instead of 4:30 am, as planned).

We were starving, so we headed toward the center of the city and found a restaurant. Being such worldly adventure seekers, we naturally opted for Outback Steakhouse. It doesn't get any more Chinese than that. It's actually hard to explain how happy we had been to find such a gem. Two months of weird Chinese cooking had left all of our stomachs a little homesick. Christine and I even eat at Applebees here on purpose. After our hearty meal, we realized we were running out of time to get to the Forbidden City (which stops selling tickets at 4:30). We hustled over to it, but were too late. It turned out to be a good thing we didn't make it in on the first day, since our second day in Beijing turned out to be much more efficient than the first. On our way out, we stumbled on the main entrance, which has been co-opted by Mao's happy mug.

For some reason, all of the soldiers guarding the entrance to this ancient seat of Chinese power didn't want us to take pictures. Here is a picture we got after hiding from them:

Tienanmen square is right across the street from the Forbidden City, so we went there next. The

Here's a monument built to honor the millions who died during the Cultural Revolution in the name of Progress:

We got pretty lost trying to find our hotel. We were confused because the address listed was a hutong, and we didn't really know what a hutong was. We followed the directions of random people on the street, and gradually homed in on the right place. In case your curious, a hutong is a kind of alley lined with homes built in a traditional style. The houses are all arranged around a common square where everyone can hang out and eat sea cucumber. The hotel was nice, and their travel desk turned out to be a trip saver. We were able to book tickets to Beijing Opera and hire a car to drive us to the Great Wall the next morning. We made it there just in time, because we only had 20 minutes to get ready for the Opera. It was then that we learned our bathrooms followed a uniquely Chinese design. Instead of putting the shower over a tub, or in its own waterproof room, they had opted to just stick the shower head right above the toilet. I imagine their typical guest must be in much more of a hurry than I am.

I don't know how else to describe Beijing Opera- this stuff is really, really weird. An actor or actress plays only one role for his or her entire life (there aren't a lot of new operas being written apparently), and it revolves around a very strict sort of singing and speaking style. Our evening was emceed by this young lady, who was wearing a gold sequined prom dress for some reason (sorry for the blurry pictures, there wasn't much light and I didn't want to disturb the performance by using flash):

Act 1 introduced the heroine and her hand maiden (little sister? Slave?) They held notes for awkwardly long amounts of time, and stared into the distance with robot eyes. The whole thing is very stylized. The actresses movements were very precise, down to the way they always held their hands like they were Chinese Spidermen trying to cover us all in silk.

The next scene was the best, a little comedic relief. This guy in an ornate costume twirled a sword around and did spins and kicks. He was wearing a number of masks, and would switch them quickly when he was turned around, or when he was stomping on the ground to distract us. Some of the masks were dark and menacing, and others were clown like. One had a long red mustache that he held by the ends while he hopped from side to side. At the end, he took off his last mask and showed his face. He looked to be about 50-55 years old, and by the way he was panting he was either going to retire soon or his act was about to get a lot slower.

The last few scenes revolved around the heroine and her husband (courtier? Boyfriend? Fatter, uglier step sister?). His makeup and costume was similar to those of the women, and he sang with the same falsetto lilt. I'm not sure if the rising and falling of his voice was following the tones of Mandarin or not, but sometimes he would sing and speak in a normal voice only to jump back up to his squeaky soprano for short outbursts.

We finally meet the girl's father (local wise man? Dog faced boy?), whose beard was strung from a wire coat hanger. He seemed to help the two lovers work out their differences. I wish I had a recording to share with you, because the stuff sounds hilarious to the untrained ear. Happily, the crowd had plenty of locals. At parts, they were giddy with the performance and yelled out “Hao! Hao! Hao!” They liked the heroine the most and cheered every time she held an especially long note. The venue was fun, because we were sitting around a dinner table with tea and snacks instead of sitting in theater seats.