The final fling in Beijing

Well here I am, back in my beloved flat in Budapest, with the morning light, grey though it is, barging through my front windows. For the sake of my fair and gentle readers I will cast my mind back across continents and timezones to recount my last adventures in and around Beijing.

"Bu dao Chang Cheng fei hao han" says the scrawly handwriting of Mr Mao at the Great Wall of China - "No arrive Great Wall never good person", by which I suppose he means that one may never consider oneself truly worthy or fulfilled without having taken the 919 bus from Beijing to Badaling and scaled this unbelievable product of human endeavour and imperial grandiosity. Happily I can now aspire to be a "hao han" and even more happily I had a most brilliant day of days in the completion of the preliminary stage.

The Great Wall adventure of Hailing and myself began with a real struggle to bypass the chancers and find the correct bus from Beijing. Everywhere we went we were descended upon by entrepreneurs of the more intrusive variety who assured us that despite the big signs on the front saying "this bus goes to the Great Wall", the no. 919 we were looking for only departed in the early morning, that we had missed all the public buses and had no choice but to avail of their superior private service, for an inflated fee. Hailing's characteristic stubbornness and persistent desire to find the genuine article prevailed, however, and having stridden from pillar to post more times than Lot's wife buying stamps we finally found what we were looking for: safety and comfort for the 1.5 hour trip costing less than a pint of cider.

We've all seen pictures of the Great Wall, but the first glimpse from the bus really is something special. The surrounding mountainous terrain is spectacular and the Wall itself is absolutely totally incredibly breath-takingly amazingly incomparably mind-blowingly (twas a bit windy) blah blah blah add whatever adjectives you want yourself and look at the photos. Up on the wall I was something of a celebrity: no less than 4 times people came and asked if they could take a photo with this wild-looking, white, laughing, hopping, skipping laowai (foreigner). Hailing was highly amused. I enjoyed the attention. I think I'd like to be famous when I grow up. After paying our 4 euro entry fee (and having passed the inevitable Starbucks), we walked, jumped, staggered and dragged ourselves a few hundred metres, maybe a kilometre, in one direction, a direction which seemed to me to be mostly up. Parts of the wall are very steep, the legs have a serious bit of work to do, but invigoration is in the air. We were in our elements. A great day was had by all, especially me.

The good old 919 brought us reliably and cheaply back to the capital, and the next stop was a restaurant specialising in the famous and delicious "Beijing Duck", a gastronomical must for the visitor. While a chef carves the duck before your very eyes, a senior waitress gives details of the unfortunate creature's provenance: parentage, primary education, derby victories, recent form, before presenting the visitor (me) with his identity card and demonstrating the process of dipping the meat in sauce and delicately creating a work of art using chopsticks, a silver spoon, a wrap, and some spring onions. Like hell...I was using my hands within seconds, as were my more chopstickly adept companions. This was by far the most expensive meal I had in China, at 46 euro for four people, but you should have seen and tasted all the dishes, both duck-related and other. Mighty quack. We ended the day with cocktails, beer, wine and a song on another of Beijing's pub streets.

During my days in Beijing I couldn't fail to notice the difference in appearance between the people of this city and the Shanghainese. The Shanghainese in general ooze fashion, style, city slickness and ultimately a desire to look the same as everyone else. The Beijingnese, on t'other hand, display a much more individual dress sense, hair style, and size. No trouble to buy big clothes here! Nevertheless, Shanghai was my home from home in China and I love it!

The first part of my final day in China was devoted to my readers, as I lovingly added literary musings and photos to my little online portal for your delectation, while Song taught solfege in the next room and Hailing put our entire photo collection on CDs for me. We followed that with an upbeat discussion about music education and watched a very interesting DVD about the educational method created by the Swiss teacher Jacques Dalcroze. Sure what better way could one spend one's last day in China? {Ailie you would love Dalcroze - music and movement/dance, I think we'll pack you off to Geneva to study it as soon as possible. Trés bien ma chérie.} After a little bit of souvenir shopping and a flying dinner the dreaded task of packing was quickly despatched (not helped by all the little gifts Song kept throwing in) and Hailing and I bade farewell to our Beijing hostess and hopped in a taxi to the airport. Plain sailing all the way. I headed for Budapest, she for Shanghai.

Thank you for reading and for all comments and messages.
Til next time...zaijian, viszontlátásra, aufwiedersehen, sayonara, au revoir, adios, slán go fóill.
This is your Chinese correspondent signing off, and going out to buy milk.

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