Lair Shopping
If my husband and I ever become billionaires, we’re going to build an underground lair. Every so often we embellish the lair, leaving taste and plausibility for another lifetime.
Today we encountered the stellar work of the Empress Cixi – specifically, The Summer Palace. It was RATHER large, and stamped with the kind of genius that marks true insanity. I took careful note. Because maybe someday I’ll have a lake, and a hill, and a national budget, and an infinite number of servants.
If I’m like the empress, I’ll honour the cash-strapped navy by building something a little bit like this:
It might not look too hydrodynamic, but that’s okay, since it’s made of marble. (For some bizarre reason, the navy didn’t appreciate it).
If I get sick of people gaping at me when I shop, I’ll follow the empress’ lead once again and build me my OWN, much BETTER, shopping zone (preferably with a river. Rivers are fun, right?)
No-one likes a boring ceiling.
Ooh! And I like rocks, so I’ll get several tonnes of those and arrange them all pretty-like, here and there.
With, ya know, staircases and caves and subterranean bits and stuff:
Lakes are fun. I can have twelve or so barges (wooden ones this time), and go skating on it in Winter. Of course, if I’m gonna have a lake I should build an island. And bridges are pretty, too. I’ll get one of those. (And, since I live in Canberra, several snow machines and a SERIOUS refrigerator unit).
This is the seventeen-arch bridge, which has 500 unique hand-carved lions on it. Why not?
The Summer Palace in Winter is starkly beautiful and utterly elegant.
Crazy people make the best lairs, and that’s all there is to it.
My feet hurt.
Today’s taste of the day is an easy choice. We finally had Beijing Duck.
The duck was traditionally cooked in a wood oven, and the chef sliced it up in front of us. It was crispy and moist and wonderful, and I ate it hand-wrapped in super-thin rice pancakes with sauce ( a little like a sweet barbeque sauce) and shallots. It was exquisite, and probably the best thing I’ve eaten here (that is a tough call). It cost us around $15 each, including other dishes (all good), and dessert. The restaurant was called So-and-so’s Bistro (I can’t remember the name right) and the wallpaper alone could have kept me entertained for days:
At the end of the meal they gave us a fruit platter and individually-wrapped sticks of gum. They also gave each girl a long-stemmed red rose.
The moral of this blog is: Go to China. See stuff. Eat.
We’re travelling a bit over the weekend (to Indonesia, where it’s ever so warm), so don’t freak out if you don’t read anything new until Monday (or later).
Despite the excellence of the day, it wasn’t done with us yet. . .
Mature Content
So things got a little weird tonight after church. Bil was meant to have a gig at an African bar, but his French gypsy jazz band friend called and asked if he was free. He called the Africans, and that gig was cancelled (not that they’d mentioned it to him). So gypsy jazz it was. My husband had particularly wanted to hear them play, so he was delighted.
We left church early and caught a taxi to the approximate location (the gypsy jazz band works through an agent, which means they never know exactly where they’re playing until they get there – agents keep the mystery alive so they can be sure they’ll still get their cut). We were met out the front by – oh, let’s be stereotypical and call him Jacques, and the other band member Pierre. Pierre plays guitar, Jacques plays guitar and sings, and Bil plays bass. It’s a moderately well-known group here.
Jacques was clean-shaven and very French looking. He had a slightly hesitant look about him, and a lovely accent. We were in the Russian district, so there was heaps of Russian writing on the buildngs, and people kept walking past (through the snow) in fur hats. I wished I knew more Russian than, “Vodka, da!”
“I’m not too sure about this place,” Jacques began. “I do not believe it is a nightclub. I believe it is a whorehouse.”
The three band members were all willing to go home if any one of them wasn’t willing to play, but they decided to battle through, which delighted me no end. There were a few subtle clues about the club as we made our way in: six burly security guards at the entrance; almost no-one buying any drinks (and the drinks were insanely overpriced); lots of fake furnishings including warped mirrors and semi-exposed plumbing; a huge display of mindless flashing neon; and of course, the whores. That was a pretty strong clue.
I saw lots of long bottle-blonde hair, and lots of tiny skirts and tiny shirts. They all seemed to get on fine, which is nice in any workplace, don’t you think?
I was too scared to use the bathrooms, especially after the boys told me that when they went, they were followed in by a bouncer. After doing what was necessary, they were underwhelmed when their follower pressed the button for soap, then waited pointedly for a tip.
Apart from anything else, I’m pretty sure I was the only woman in the bar who wasn’t working. It’s possible the female bathrooms were just for staff.
I was pretty nervous. I happened to be wearing red and pink (everything else needs a wash), and most of it velvet, with see-through windows on the sides (to the shirt below). Probably not the best outfit for fading into the background. What was the safest thing for me to do? Should I “do as the Romans do” and drape myself over my husband as if he was a high-rolling customer? Would ANYONE believe that?
(You’ll notice this photo is somewhat blurry. I can only assume it’s because my husband was laughing too hard at my hooker face to take the shot. We were too scared to take photos inside the club itself.)
Clearly, that plan was out. So I should be all demure then, and clearly NOT a whore. But what if someone came in with a mad fetish for blue caterpillar women, or for intensely scarf-staticked hair? What if they took a shine to me, and wouldn’t take no for an answer? What then?!?!
Fortunately no-one approached either of us – although I don’t think I let go of my partner the whole time. A girl’s gotta mark her territory these days.
Back when we were all outside discussing whether or not to simply leave, I specified that a whorehouse was okay but a strip joint was not (if badness is out of sight, there’s no long-term scarring). Jacques remembered that condition vividly between the second and third set, when the lighting suddenly got a LOT better and a girl emerged from backstage wearing stilettos and a shiny gold bikini. She proceeded to dance with lots of hip movements and much tossing of her long, bottle-blonde hair. Bil and my husband studied the table, and I kept them informed as to what was happening. I confess I was a LITTLE disappointed when she strode away, still wearing all the clothes she’d started with. (Such as they were.)
No one else ventured onto the dance floor at any point in the night.
My favourite part of all, though, was the little wall running alongside most of the inner booths. Each table had a lamp screwed to the wall — all fake brass and flourescence, covered in sheer red cloth and dangling with plastic beads. But the wall itself. . . oh, the wall! You know those old fashioned plush armchairs – overstuffed and studded, and sewn into diamond shapes? It was like that, but made of deep red velvet (fake, of course).
Best. Padded Wall. Ever.
The band took rather short breaks, and we were out of there by midnight. As Jacques picked up their money, the proprieter said, “Couldn’t you have played some rock?” I suppose he was as surprised by the night’s events as we were.
I think every holiday in Beijing needs a French gypsy jazz band playing in a Russion brothel. Don’t you?
January 9: Who the Fu are you?
Mr Fu is a master of disguise, who once lived in the Scottish highlands for three months disguised as a sheep (never mind why). He has a deep mistrust of. . . well, everyone – and has at least twenty different lairs in different countries. All of them are underground, and all of them have giant world maps that rise out of the floor in response to the phrase, “Yes, pumpkin.”
Despite all his talents, he’s considered the black sheep of the family. Which, technically, is quite true.
Here’s a rare photo of Mr Fu (cunning, isn’t he?):
January 8: Story so far
PS photo cable is still AWOL. Photos for yesterday may or may not appear in their own post at some point.
Sun3
The name’s Bind. Jimmy Bind. On mission to China. I can tell the flight attendant wants me diced on a tiny tray. Time for some airline food.
*
He comes at me with a poison toothpick. I click my pen and squirt gas in his eye. He reels and hits the Wong twins. Two Wongs make it right.
*
The Wongs knock the flight attendant out cold. I unclick my pen and accidentally poison myself. When I wake up, we’re in Beijing. Smooth.
Mon4
Tracked the faux attendant to a meeting in Chinatown. Too bad Beijing IS Chinatown. Got distracted buying shoes. Stumbled across baddie.
*
Baddie is Mr Fu. The girl with him is Yen. I chase him and he throws a shoe at me. It explodes. He runs. I bind my wounds with duct tape.
*
I follow Fu and corner him in an alley. He throws some kung fu, and I throw some bricks. “Who’s your boss?” I scream.
“It’s her!” he weeps.
Tue5
I’ve a yen for Yen. She’s small, dark, and deadly, like an expresso. I track her by smell and find her sleeping. “Where’s the jewel?” I ask.
*
She yawns, briefly distracting me. Her leg wraps around my neck (also distracting). Suddenly she yields to my good looks and leans closer.
*
I wake up strapped to the side of the Great Wall; tied firmly with two rolls of my own duct tape. Curses!
Wed6
After a surprisingly good night’s sleep, I notice writing on the wall: “Forgive me, mother. The ruby is at. . .”
I fall.
*
I fall among Shaolin monks, who immediately attack! Luckily I have my blow-up gum and I spit it at them just in time. Kaboom! No more monks.
*
Due to budget cuts, my car is a matchbox car. Luckily it has vertical grip and a camera. I discover the ruby is at Solo – in Indonesia.
Th7
I go shoe-shopping, hoping to dispatch Yen and/or get hiking boots before I leave. An old saleswoman is suspiciously attractive.
*
I neck-chop the woman and she says blearily, “Yen? Is that you?”
“Yes,” I say (femininely).
She says, “Your stupid brother stole the ruby.”
*
Is my wall-writer Yen’s naughty brother? Is Fu as powerless as he seems? Is the boss Yen or her Mum? And are these boots the best or what?!
Fri8
Another flight. Fu appears dressed as a fat woman and slips me a note. “Meet me in Solo,” it says – “come solo!” I nod.
*
“Yen’s my sister,” Fu explains over unripe-coconut milk. He tells me to search in the temple.
I put sleeping-gas in his drink just in case.
January 7: Chair Skating
It’s skating. On a chair.
Specifically, chair skating is skating on a pair of chairs made of cheap iron (and plywood for the seats), welded onto an iron frame at the bottom. The whole thing is like a sled with two chairs welded onto it (one behind the other).
Since the Great Wall, our camera is NOT HAPPY. It’s functional inside (where it’s warm), but lasts about three seconds outside, and only then if it’s been in your armpit for at least half an hour. It’s a good camera, too. Fortunately we have at least one chair-skating photo, which (when we have the cable again later today) I’ll add here:
The chair skating was great. Other than the sled-chair, you get two iron thingies that resemble ski poles (sharp on the end). You use these to push yourself around. The whole place was outside, on one section of a frozen lake (which is used for paddle-boating in the summer). I’ve never seen natural ice thick enough to stand on. It was beautiful. We could clearly see through the ice, and it was about 15cm deep. Many fault lines spidered across the surface of the ice in fine lines, and shone pure white all the way down through the ice to the water. Inside the ice there were patches of snow and curious formations of bubbles, like forests of white fungus under my feet.
A lot of young children (as wide in their down coats as they are high) were there with a parent or grandparent. Three 16-year old girls gathered their courage and actually had a conversation with me (I really don’t think Beijing people care about seeing foreigners much – unless they’re selling something and you foolishly made eye contact).
Readers familiar with aerodynamics will realise at once that sled-chairs don’t turn particularly well. They don’t turn at all, unless you’re actually moving – and the only way to turn is to slide. Which is great 🙂
We also went and visited the CCTV Headquarters (aka the “underpants building” because it’s roughly the shape of a person’s legs if they were sitting in a chair with their legs far apart). It is a ridiculous building, and I don’t blame people for not wanting to go inside – it really doesn’t look like there’s any good reason for it to stay up. And it’s huge.
Interestingly, there’s a burnt-out shell of a high-rise hotel next to it (Chinese New Year fireworks happened rather too close last year). It’s so badly burnt that one wall is completely peeled away, showing hundreds of individual rooms. The rest of it is black.
Other than building a giant keep-out fence around it, no-one has done anything about the burnt hotel. Rumour has it that it’s built on the same concrete foundation as the underpants building, and helps to balance it. So if the burnt-out shell is removed, the underpants fall down.
That’s pretty much not good.
Today’s taste of the day is some kind of lolly. It’s made of gelatinous rice (similar in taste and texture to the inside of a jelly bean) coated in sesame seeds. I like it.
So tired now that when I walk I veer left.
Each morning when I wake up, I hear the scrape, scrape, scrape of the snow shovellers. There is still heaps of snow and ice and slush everywhere, and trucks are constantly passing with piles of snow in the back. Even though the scraping is unusual, I will always associate the sound of a shovel on concrete with Beijing.
Tomorrow is our last day here, and we’ll spend Saturday travelling to Indonesia (at roughly the same time as our hero). You can read more of our adventures at https://felicitybloomfield.wordpress.com
The Heroic Sidekick
Today’s Beijing adventures will be posted around 9pm Canberra time at http://twittertales.wordpress.com . Our plans for today are just too cool to share here and spoil the surprise. I will say that (a) I’m wearing pants today – no dress. (b) There’s a chair involved. A very special chair.
——————————-
Not everyone should be a hero. Some people are made to be the heroic sidekick. A mum or dad is a hero of their family story, but a marriage often has an epic member and a supporting member (which tends to work better than two heroes). Or, outside of the home, the story of a mum or dad might be a sidekick story eg they’re the support staff for a politician running for office (we’re assuming here that the politician is worth following). Most of us are a mix of heroic sidekick and hero, with a weighting toward heroic sidekick.
I’m a rubbish sidekick, which is unfortunate. Sidekicks made the world go around, and they are necessary to every hero. Nothing actually gets done without sidekicks. Sidekicks are perceived to be less attractive (usually – although Legolas is a heroic sidekick), and they don’t wield as much influence as heroes do. (One reason I need to be a hero – if I’m going to inspire others, being a hero works much better than being a sidekick.) They’re also more adaptable than heroes (something I observed in psych class many years ago), MUCH happier, better company, and much funnier. They usually get the girl – certainly more often than the hero, because the hero is so wrapped up in their epic they rarely touch the earth. Plus I think the girl can see that the sidekick will treat them better than the hero ever will (he’s too busy saving the world).
Frodo is the main hero of “Lord of the Rings”. (Aragorn, too, but that’s literally another story. Aragorn is also Frodo’s sidekick. Everyone plays more than one part.) Samwise Gamgee is the ultimate heroic sidekick. He suffers a huge amount for a great cause (because he’s an epic sidekick), which happens to also be a personal cause – I would argue that his cause is NOT actually destroying the ring, but being Frodo’s friend. His story is more beautiful than Frodo’s for that reason.
He also fights really well, cooks well, and ultimately – when Frodo’s strength is utterly gone – literally carries the hero. He is stronger than Frodo, and is never corrupted by the ring. His fight scenes are also more interesting, because a sidekick isn’t quite so deadly serious all the time.
Heroes don’t make good friends. (Mother Theresa, incidentally, was often invited to address influential people, and never failed to offend every single person in the room. She’d also withhold painkillers from her patients, because pain builds character. Betcha didn’t know that.) Sidekicks make the best friends, the most memorable characters, and the most noble heroes.
Yep, still cold
Today I rested (except for going out and having lunch by myself – I didn’t speak a word of English the whole time, yay!), and tonight we’ll go back to Lush for dinner (mostly because my partner and I have about $1 left, and the bar owes Bil a huge pile of free food for all the work he does).
It’s still cold outside, and my face is still attempting to fall off around the nose, but I was perfectly comfortable outside in just my voluminious skirts and down jacket (and gloves, hat, scarf and boots).
I’m still thinking about the “hero” thing, and what I can do about it. It goes without saying that my story MUST be an epic one – I’ve always known that. I have the first half of an epic tale already, with my writing. Thirteen years of trying to get novels published, plus five years of mental illness (while still writing positive, hopeful books) is certainly epic. I’m just not so sure about the self-sacrifice part.
I guess arguably I’m sacrificing good pay to write good books, but I simply can’t stomach doing anything else (oddly, even my tutoring work isn’t satisfying enough to do full-time – but it IS satisfying enough to do for the rest of my life). But I suppose a hero is meant to not be able to stomach an ordinary life – that’s what makes them a hero.
The song “What About Me” (most recently sung by Shannon Noll) tells a story about a pretty girl at a corner shop writing a novel, who has a heart’s cry of, “What about me? It isn’t fair. I’ve had enough and I want my share. Can’t you see?” Even just her desire to break out of the constraints of her small-town existence makes her a hero (at least a little bit). And small towns really aren’t a bad place to live. So it’s her passion that makes her interesting. I have plenty of passion, courage, and determination, which gives me a great start on being a hero. All I need is a deeper sense of purpose. I need to make the world better. When I’m not making the world better, staying alive is a chore. (That has been abundantly clear to me for a long time.)
I hate “Twilight”. I really do. Stephanie Meyer isn’t a bad writer, but the story is worse than hollow, it’s twisted (a 107-year old man picking up a 17-year old girl? So NOT romantic). I’m proud to recognise that my books are, in some ways, the anti-Twilight. The characters have far more interesting goals that to be super-obsessed with one another. When they ARE super-obsessed, it’s always revealed to be a mistake. Relationships in my books fail if the characters don’t have anything in common (and being emo simply isn’t enough. Ever). My characters are heroes – and reading the books has the potential to make readers into heroes, too.
The bit in the Donald Miller book that really got to me was a story about his friend, who I’ll call Frank. Frank’s thirteen-year old daughter was in a dodgy relationship with an older guy, and she’d begun taking drugs. When Frank talked to Don, he realised his daughter was choosing the best story available to her – and exciting and risk-taking one, even if it wasn’t a good one. So he thought hard and then called a family conference where he said the family was going to raise $25,000 to build an orphanage in Mexico. Not surprisingly, this was NOT received well. But after a few days, the daughter came to her parents and asked if they could travel together to Mexico, so she could write about the whole process on her blog, and show pictures of the changes in the orphans’ lives. Some months later, the daughter dumped her boyfriend, because he’d told her she was fat. The book points out that NO girl who sees herself as a hero would date such a loser.
So why can’t I (through my books) show girls and boys between 6 and 16 what a hero looks like? One of the best things about the story structure is that the hero doesn’t always win. But they’re still a hero.
I’m also hyper-protective of children and young adults, especially girls. I really like the idea of them having books that are worth reading. If I can internalise what I have felt for years, then my books really are worth building my life around (books, and God, and my husband and future children – but, although I gain more happiness from my husband than my books, I have an innate need for a more unusual story).
And here, for those who are visiting to hear about China, rather than my internal monologue, is another photo (this is made of jade, in a shop full of jade and other cool stuff – but because it was in Badaling, it was all stupidly expensive):
January 6: Blow-Up Gum
I stumbled across this story just after writing “The Spy Who Shoved Me”. It’s horrible, tragic. . . and funny.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/981756/exploding-gum-kills-chemistry-student
January 5: Real Life Adventures
Today I walked on the Great Wall with my husband and Bil (my Brother In Law), who lives in Beijing.
I should probably mention about now that, on Saturday and (especially) on Sunday, Beijing had the heaviest snowfall it’s had in sixty years (you can read more at https://felicitybloomfield.wordpress.com ).
So we caught a train (10 points for awesomeness) through the countryside (10×10 points for awesomeness) after heavy snow (10x10x10 points for awesomeness). The day reached maximum awesomeness before we even reached the Wall.
Beijing is a beautiful urban landscape made even more beautiful by the snow. I woke up at 7:30, with the sun, and saw a perfect blue sky. By midday the sky above still looked good, but every horizon was hazy with pollution.
I realised today that the reason I keep coughing when I go outside is that the pollution outside is even worse than inside the house (because the outside pollution is refreshed daily, and the filthy stuff takes a little while to really get inside – which, of course, it does. It’s the same air). The air of Beijing is so bad it irritates my throat. Yet it still has blue sky.
As we rode the train to Badaling we passed several industrial places belching smoke into the bright blue sky. Over the course of the day, the pollution grew visibly worse. For the first time, I realised that pollution isn’t something that makes things worse over decades and generations – it makes things worse minute by minute. I saw it with my own (swollen and irritated) eyes.
But it was still a beautiful day.
My partner has never been overseas, so the sudden change from flat Beijing land to instant sharp mountain peaks blew him away. Me too 😉 We saw several small structures perched in unlikely places on the way.
***
We were hungry and cold by the time we reached Badaling, so we had lunch. I remembered having “thousand year old eggs” in China when I visited many years ago, and how it looked like boiled egg that was turning black with age, but tasted just fine – so I ordered something translated as, “Preserved eggs”. I thought it’d be the same thing (and maybe it was, just a regional variation).
It was a little like egg-flavoured jello, and I barely managed to finish a single bite (the yolk part left a green residue on my chopsticks, too). Fortunately the boys were fine with it.
And then we went to the Wall. Because of the bitter cold Winter, there weren’t many people. We walked to the highest nearby tower (leftward, for those who’ve been there) and it was very very cold and very very hard. My legs shook with exhaustion, and breathing hard just brought Siberian wind into my lungs. Being in the mountains meant it was much colder than Beijing. Being ON the mountain was much worse. Wind hits the mountain and flies up it, gathering friends along the way, then BAM it rushes straight over the wall and then (presumably) wanders off at a more sedate pace. Many snow scrapers were at work, and we saw several trucks taking away loads of snow (to dump in the next province over, I bet).
Bil’s drinking water was increasingly solid (he says that “usually happens at around -15 degrees”), my pen stopped working (not that I attempted to write anything until we were back down at Badaling), and although I’m usually comfortable in just my voluminious skirts in Beijing, I was very uncomfortable today in my thermals, tracksuit pants, AND voluminious skirts. Much urg. My super-powered down jacket didn’t stop the wind any more.
But it was utterly stunning, and worth every second.
***
Every day I’m in China, I try to eat as much interesting Chinese food as possible, and blog about the most delicious one. (So far, the preserved egg is the only thing I haven’t loved.)
Today’s taste of the day is actually Vietnamese. Although my partner and I are SOMEWHAT excited about the huge and delicious variety of Chinese food on offer (most Australian Chinese food is very Southern in style, which leaves out a lot of excellent stuff), Beijing is truly a world city, with spectacularly good food from. . . everywhere. (Bil’s Chinese housemate is becoming an Italian chef, for example.)
I ordered a dish I unfortunately can’t remember the name of. But it was a deliciously thin, crispy pancake (my absolute favourite kind) wrapped around mushroom, shrimp and shredded chicken and served with lettuce, crispy bean sprouts, and a sauce (which I also can’t remember the name of, but it was like honey and lemon with chilli pieces). The menu instructed me to cut up the crepe, wrap the pieces in lettuce, and dip them in the sauce. I did, and it was excellent.
A random man wandered by and asked about our food. We swooned a little, and said it was delicious. “Oh good,” he said, “because I own this restaurant.”
When we were on the wall, I kept an eye out for Jimmy Bind, but didn’t see him. I hope for his sake he was taped to the lee side of the wall. Wherever he was, he was freezing his shapely arse off. (But is just too darn heroic to whine about it like I am.)
The prince, the princess, and the dragon
PS: I’m just about to go and write up today’s adventures at http://twittertales.wordpress.com and YES we made it to the Great Wall at last.
————
I’m reading, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller (the guy who wrote, “Blue Like Jazz”, and who is sort of like the biological biproduct of Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, and Adrian Plass).
It’s about the structure of a story (an interesting character with a serious problem, who fights to overcome their problem) and how to make your life a more interesting story, based on the idea that we’re hard-wired to enjoy stories with the above structure, because God made us that way. (This theory also explains suffering in a way that works for me better than any other – suffering ultimately makes the story better.)
At one point, the author said that the next level up from basic story structure is an epic story – when the problem is VERY difficult, and involves selfless sacrifice.
When I began to feel I wasn’t meant/able to be a full-time aid worker in Indonesia, it broke my heart. I’d lost the epic story of my life, and I knew it. My substitute story for my life is my writing, but it just doesn’t seem as hard OR as worthwhile to me. Plus, being mentally ill, I suddenly can’t do a lot of things that I used to be able to do.
You all know how the fairy tale goes – the dragon has the princess and the prince rescues her. I used to be the prince (rescuing others), I HATED being the princess (dependent on others; the least interesting and least active character of the three), and I felt that with my mental illness I was slowly turning into the dragon – someone who caused harm to the world instead of good.
I’ve always thought of myself in terms of story. Always. It’s wonderful to hear it set out by Donald Miller, because it gives me permission to look at the way my story is now, and see what I can do to be a hero I really admire.
Maybe 🙂
Five minutes until we head off for attempt #2 at the Great Wall. Should probably brush my teeth 🙂
Felicity Banks 