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Who is Birt and how come he gets a day?
Entry 4 of 6 | show all | print this entry |
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My attempts to visit the Lama Temple -the Palace of Peace and Harmony (ref back to Confucius fridge poetry -blog 2) - have failed. Utterly. Completely. (W)Holy. Possibly because my life lacks both. Instead I seem to be lured by birthday treats, Eggs Bene-fish-al, new friends, scrabble, lakeside walks or guitar-playing Christian Pakistani captains.
Hmmm....
Having celebrated New Year let me take you back to the week before in a kind of hazy dream-like sequence....
I toasted in my birthday with a magnum of Champagne bought by some of my -many- admiring fans who stayed to see me into my 33rd year- which equates to (sung in 12 days of xmas stylee) 5 Bei-(ay)-jings, 4 French hens, 3 Ger-mans, 2 Australians, & a supporter of Coventry FC .
I had been planning to head out to the Lama temple on my actual birthday day for a little culture followed up with a film at the Vineyard. But as I had been up til 5am downing glasses of bubbles courtesy of Moet and Chandon, culture didn't feel to appealing.
Peace and Harmony is all well and good when it is inside somewhere toasty and warm but apparently Lamas didn't do central heating, comfy sofas and latte ...they even took the Starbucks out of the Forbidden City... AND it takes a tube ride to get there. So what could I possibly do instead of visiting the Temple? Shopping and nail extensions is the natural alternative! I am Woman! Hear. Me. Roar!
Birthday treats to self are the BEST kind. My birthday is going to last all year on this basis. I treated myself to a 3 hour session to get my nails 'gelled' in a french polish. As with everything here although there was an actual price at the salon I bartered them down. Because NOW I know how to count from 1-9999. And how to say 'too expensive'. And how to sing the mandarin version of the McDonalds Ad 'I'm Lovin' It' which is key to all conversations. I LOVE this country. I love it even more as, due to lack of mandarin beyond numbers I did not feel in anyway compelled to make conversation (all women reading this have had to endure the awkward trying-to-find-something-to-say salon session) so on went the ipod and several Radio 4 podcasts of the News Quiz which to me was a zen-like meditation of Lama proportions but would of course would look like I was having some kind of fit to those not privy to the ways of Sandi Toksvig & co. I was the crazy Euro girl sporadically giggling into the silence of the salon whilst the nail 'pratictioner' was performing the Art of Gel. This is a highly tricky thing where nails are cut, filed and basically sandpapered, card rammed between skin and nail so a clear substance can be painted on top of the nail from base to the tip and beyond to extend it by unrealistic amount. Hands are then stuck under what looks like a mini hand-sunbed to set the gel. Then follows paint, sunbed, paint, sunbed and so on until suddenly you have these long clear jagged nails that really belong on the fingers of the Narnian Ice Queen. These are then filed and painted with white tips to give the allusion of constantly beautifully painted nails demonstrating to those looking at you that you take care about your appearance down to the fingertips and, like your hands, you are graceful and delicate and feminine (and actually fake). This is actually something I feel, as a feminist, I should not do. I am a strong independent woman who is happy with her appearance...but now I am a strong independent woman with great nails who is even happier with her appearance.... (check out the nails on the photo)
I then faced the arduous task of the chinese foot massage and pedicure (given free by my hair salon as twas my special day)
(yes, I have not, as yet, needed the hair-dye lovingly given to me by my friends at RADA in case the roots started showing with no good hair salon to aid me in my crisis)
(I seem to have one of China's top European stylists in the hotel complex)
(one feels one's impressions of China/Beijing before one came here were somewhat out-dated)
(one also refers back to the fact that one is a strong independent woman who doesn't need good hair to hold her own in the world of men...but who will gleefully skip down the road - in a strong and independent way - at the thought that she can continue to pretend to be blonde)
(fake like her nails)
Anyone who has experienced a foot massage will know the mix of pain and pleasure that comes with having one's feet manipulated. And the times when you struggle not to laugh out loud due to the utter ticklishness of it all. Although why I felt compelled to quell my giggles I do not know. It is salon etiquette. Like an unspoken foot courtesy. This is a serious, reflective and relaxing process and should not be entered into unadvisedly or lightly but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly (um...), and in the fear of God (hang on, am I getting confused. Isn't that a marriage vow?). Please keep in your head the not so glamourous image of me waddling back from the salon in the complex to my hotel room in these slipper type things so as not to ruin one's strong & independent feminist nail polish - dahhhling!
The actual night was delightful. My room was awash with flowers (well ok, two bunches..but they were big ones) from the regulars & Beijing friends - what can I say? Everyone loves me! Naturally I was working but managed to convince most of the audience to buy me drinks and to clap after every single song/scat/solo I did because 'I am 32 today!'. (I never claimed to be a mature 32). Course it always kinda ruins it when you have to lead everyone else in singing Happy Birthday to yourself but I managed to deal with that. Attention seeking? Me!?
It also takes the edge off when someone else tries to muscle in on your celebrations by selfishly sharing the same birthday! Pah! Just cos you are a customer! So I have to begrudgingly make out as though I am happy about the misdirection of attention! I was then presented with a highly unexpected cake from the hotel - a beautiful concoction made by the hotel's Swiss confectioner, it had kiwi, strawberry, orange, cherry and chocolate twists and sugar wafers, such a pretty sight to see, delicately finished off by the vanilla & chocolate icing carefully spelling out the message HAPPY BRITHDAY (no dad this is not a mistype by me). Maybe it was a silent 'h' and was a British thing....surely a 5 star hotel could get that right.....no, no for the card accompanying the bottle of champagne the Bar staff gave me asked me to Have a Happy Birtday. How come Birt gets a day?
But the real fun came with birtday Sunday. The plan? To head up north to the Vineyard with Sam (he of blog 2 fame), Sam's mates Matt (surrogate brother) and Agnes (the most Russian looking Australian ever) and my mad American mate Danielle then have a wonder around, yes you've guessed it, The Lama Temple. The Vineyard is not some China wine haven, so do not get excited mum, this is an English cafe run by Ollie and Will and I-can't-remember-which-one's Chinese wife. Actually they are like Ant and Dec in that they introduce themselves at the same time so you are never quite sure who is who. Like many foreign businesses here I believe that it is owned in name by the wife. A foreigner finds it hard to have his/her own business. It is not allowed (unless paper changes hands so I hear). So many get married to locals and their spouses assume control. Course the problem here is that these 'convenient' other-halves have been known to inconveniently run off with the cash and the business ideas leaving said foreigner up the Great Wall without their thermals on. Unlike the Rickshaw which is there for all the world to see (and smell) (it isn't that bad really), the Vineyard is secreted in a Hutong in Houhei (April in Paris, Hutong in Houhei...). Apparently you know you are losing your Beijing visitor virgin status when you happen upon places like this (or so my friend Danielle told me) as you can't actually find places like this without knowing places like this exist. And how does one know they do? If a cafe opens in the Hutong and noone knows about it does it make a sale? Ah the left bank cafe philosophy.
Now as those who have visited will know, the hutongs are the poor backstreets of Beijing.
For some reason tourists are expected to go round them (sometimes in RIckshaws) and look at where the poor people live. Rather like telling someone to go to Gipton on a bike when visiting Leeds. Most do not have bathrooms so there are shared toilets/washrooms. Most are grey. Most have bicycles leaning against them and various bits of metal and wood. Most have rubble in random places and small neat piles of rubbish. Most have been torn down by the Government to make way for the all-new, all-tower-blocked all-modern Beijing.
However, some remain. And within them are the shops, cafes, fruit stands, the bicycle repair men (thanks Monty Python), that the locals use.
The directions to get to the Vineyard are very difficult to follow. I am sure that in some Labyrinth-ine way it actually moves everytime you try to find it again unless you have David Bowie playing with his glass balls (People without knowledge of 80s culture should be a)ashamed b) made aware that Labyrinth is a film with the Bowie as the leggings-wearing, madly be-wigged Goblin King stealing babies and taunting a young Jennifer Connelly).
The taxi had no idea where it was. But then Beijing taxi drivers don't have ideas, any knowledge of the city, any ability to read or any sense of direction. It is not like The Knowledge. You can give them a business card with a map and directions on in mandarin and they still manage not to know. Then when you get to the Hutongs you then find yourself in the middle of buildings that all look the same with pathways in various directions and no signs. We almost lost people. It was like Saving Private Ryan. But goal was achieved. And no-one died. And there was no war. So actually not like Saving Private Ryan. At all.
Needless to say that once we were ensconced in toasty warm cafe a walk outside looking at peaceful and harmonizing buildings with curved roofs became less appealing. Even more so when, after wolfing down my eggs bene-fish-al (salmon) and kicking Matt everytime he 'accidently' drank/ate everything belonging to me (surrogate brother), we discovered Jenga and scrabble.
Hours of fun had by us. Hours of annoyance for everyone else in the cafe as we shouted at each other over the rules of scrabble and whether smutfestorgy could be allowed as a word. Can one get further from peace and harmony even though it was only across the road?
Apparently we were not using the Oxford English Dictionary but the Dictionary of Smat (def not missing an 'r' tile and could possibly do with a vowel tile change to the 'u') which sources words from the brains of Sam and Matt. We also discovered that rules such as not being allowed to turn over a letter and pretend it is a blank did not apply. I am happy to say that Danielle and I won AND we were the only team that did not cheat or use made-up words. God how boring! Oh no. And look at that. It is too dark to see the temple now.....
I shall leave you to wonder how a guitar-playing Pakistani Christian pilot singing Elton John's greatest hits on the sixth floor prevented me from seeing the Lama Temple until next time....
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| 4. | Who is Birt and how come he gets a day? - Beijing, China Feb 12, 2008 (  30 ) |
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