Qianmen and the quest for Peking duck

After our depressing day at the zoo yesterday, Ted an I decided that we needed the ultimate pick-me-up: a traditional Peking duck meal. Ted, being the ultimate foodie, had already researched where to get the best duck in town, and declared we would head down to the Qianmen neighborhood in search of this culinary delight.

On the way we couldn't help but stop by Tienanmen Square again, as there were only thousands of people there today in contrast with the millions on national day. But to tell you the truth, we were drawn to the area by catching a glimpse of this sight through a hutong:












It was the new national theater which was just completed this year, and Ted and I couldn't help but be drawn to it like a fat kid to a twinkie. I have to say, it looked beautiful in the pollution filtered morning light, as Chinese tourists walked around its moat taking in the sight before moving on to the Great Hall of the People. Complete with Egyptian-inspired papyrus bundle capitals and red flags waving for national week, the building was quite impressive, and made a powerful impact upon the square.

The square itself is also quite impressive, as it is surrounded by massive government buildings that were built to inspire. There are also monuments to laborers on the square which flank Chairman Mao's mausoleum, which was closed for the day. Too bad, considering I got all worked up to see the man after being offered the coolest item I've spotted in Beijing thus far: the Chairman Mao watch, complete with "solute to the people" action, as demonstrated on Ted's blog.

After completing the tourist's loop of the monuments, we shuffled through the crowds to get to the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall. A magnet for laowai like ourselves, we joined other white tourists to see all of the wonderful plans that Beijing has for the future. Or we all just came to see the huge model of the city of Beijing. Whatever.

Covering a whole floor, the model shows every little detail of metropolitan Beijing. But being the history nerd I am, I was immediately drawn to the preservation section of the planning hall, which went into detail about the evolution of preservation agendas implemented by the municipal government. It was very informative, so I took a picture of every single display they had, models of siheyuan and all (siheyuan are the traditional courtyard houses of the hutong).

Being that I was inspired by the planning hall, Ted and I decided to swing through the Qianmen hutongs to get a glimpse of the neighborhoods that inspired my thesis topic, which was an eye opening experience. As you can see, it looked as if a bomb went off in these areas, as walls were missing, bricks were wearing away, and the streets hadn't even been paved, which is a luxury that most hutongs have been afforded over the years in Beijing. What was even more interesting is that we had entered from a back area that was not blocked off, but it was obviously a construction zone. It was hard to tell what kind of work they were doing, but by comparing it to work that had already been done on the main street to the west, they were preparing to build a wall in front of the homes to block them from view.

Seeing this, and then immediately walking onto the main street where they had constructed new walls in attempt to hide the homes from view was a huge wake-up call. Ted and I had seen many new walls around the city and got small glimpses here and there of the crumbling buildings behind them, but we had not yet actually walked behind any of these walls to see the utter destruction that lay behind them. In our little hutong the homes are fairly run down, and also stand behind new walls that hide the true state of the structures, but it comes nothing close to this. We found out today that our hutong is actually one of the protected areas under a new conservation plan in Beijing, which means that new buildings going up here are in the old style, and the ones that remain are kept in at least standing condition. Here, who knows what will happen to these structures, how long they have been ignored, and if people will continue to live here in the future. I do have to admit though that I laughed most of the way through the hutong, as the construction workers got a kick out of the laowai walking through that part of town, laughing at us and saying hello. Those Beijingers and their sense of humor ...

After trekking down to Tienanmen and Qianmen, Ted and I had worked up an appetite, and decided upon a place in a still-standing and decent hutong a little west of the bomb site seen above to dine on duck. While we really got the laowai price (240 yuan! What?), we also got one superb meal that we will still be drooling about when we get home. I took a picture so we could share it all with you:

The one and only Peking duck, sliced table side, with plum sauce, pancakes, what we identified as slivered daikon radish, cucumber bites doused in vinegar dressing, duck soup made from the leftovers after slicing, and no meal would be complete without a glass (or six) of Tsingtao. Enjoy!