Teresa

Faye

The Rose Girl

The main man of the band.

The alleyway

Down an alleyway on Sanlitun Street is a bar where you can buy American beer for three dollars a bottle and listen to a Philipino singer belt out Bye Bye Miss American Pie so perfectly that if you close your eyes you'd swear it was the record. Everyone sings along. Everyone. All the Americans and Germans and Tunesians and Cote d'Ivorians and other people with exotic faces from places you never heard of. When Teresa moved here a little more than two years ago, she says, there was only the Hard Rock Cafe. When I came last fall there were four or five little hole in the wall bars like this, and barely a half a year later Sanlitun Street is lit up like a Christmas tree with white lights strung over the bamboo chairs on the terrasses where hip Chinese smoke Marlboros with the same bored look as the embassy brats.

• Bye, bye Miss American Pie,
  Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry.
  Them good ol' boys were drinkin whisky and rye
  singin' "this'll be the day that I die,"
  This'll be the day that I die....

The death of Beijing as Beijing knows it is coming fast. The population is being supplemented with a large number of foreigners. The hutongs are being replaced by wide streets lined with white-tiled highrises, and the rickshaws are being replaced by Japanese taxis. We take one to Sanlitun Street -- me and Teresa and Jon Ann and David, and take our pick from the scenes. Bars called Nashville, The Hidden Tree, Minders and The Jam House are the most popular. We end up at The Jam House where the Philipino singer morphs from a Philipino singer into Joe Cocker then Eric Clapton then B.B.King. He is joined for a few songs by a skinny white American guy playing fiddle so furiously that his strings pop.

A bass player and drummer are added to the mix and things get really hot with the expat crowd for a while until they take us down with Stairway to Heaven, break, and return with an American rock star wannabe who shakes his hair around a lot and does a decent imitation Mick Jagger.

By this time Teresa and Jon Ann, an economist from D.C. on her last night of a two-week Asian blitz who has the look of a jazz singer, are downing shots of tequila that come with wedges of lemon and a plate of salt. "What a great way to finish up Asia," says Jon Ann, but my eyes are watering from the smoke and I suddenly long for California where there is no smoking in bars, no smoking anywhere inside any more. But the Chinese still think it's cool to smoke and the tobacco companies in America aren't telling it's not. It's probably no worse than just breathing the air here. It's so bad that Teresa, like many people, has recently developed asthma.

The little rose girl came through the bar three times during the evening. The first time I saw her I bought one of her roses, and she was pleased to pose for a picture. "Maybe if you come again I can see it," she said, hopefully. The last time I saw her was at 1 am. She sells more roses at 1 am than she did at 10 pm. The rembi is flowing more freely and by now almost everyone has roses, even the Philipino musician has one tucked into his guitar strings.

A Tunesian who has been courting Jon Ann stops the little rose girl who is looking a little lost in the drastically wilder rock and roll din that has developed in the hour since she left, despite the fact she must have been coming in here -- and into the other bars on Sanlitun Street -- for quite a while now. The Tunesian takes an extremely long time to choose a rose and pay. He sorts through a handful of those worthless small bills that are Chinese change, but the exchange goes on for much too long, making me uncomfortable because it shouldn't be so complicated. The rose girl holds lots of small bills and looks sweetly up at him as the change flies. He is very drunk, and for some reason I feel like he's ripping her off, but then why would a grown man rip off a little flower girl for a few rembi? But she counts the money, looks happy, and walks away.

The rose is for Jon Ann who is telling me about her experiences in Asia. "I look like I can sing but I can't," she tells me, as the Tunesian puts the rose on the table in front of her, sits down, and stares at her. She interrupts herself just long enough to pick up the rose and nod politely in his direction before continuing. "People always ask me and I say I wish I could." Jon Ann has a Tennesse drawl, and I like the way she pronounces "ask" just a tiny bit like "axe." The Tunesian leans back in his chair to look at her. Conversation with anyone but the person directly next to you is impossible because of the music, which reverberates in my ear. He can't stop looking at her, she is admittedly really very striking in this crowd of mostly Chinese and whites. But she'd already had two weeks to get used to the staring. "I swear, an entire street of at least a hundred people stopped everything they were doing and called to their families to come look at me." she said, incredulously. "I kind of wish I could sing because I probably would the next time that happens."

By then everyone in the bar was either singing or dancing or falling over or looking extremely bored. Especially bored was an impeccably dressed Chinese woman with a wide square jaw. She held her cigarette like a prop, and watched the crowd through half closed eyes. It was time to go.

The potty, with restrictions.
Unfortunately, this is typical... BYOTP.

Egg and scallion crepes from a cart on the back of a three-wheeled bicycle.

More egg and scallion crepes. These had hot red peppers in them.

Haircut row. There were about a dozen barber stands set up here trimming men, women, and children, all.

A young victim braving the torture.

Whew! Glad it's over and ready to roll.

The Morning After

Morning came much too soon. Teresa and I dragged around the apartment until we were hungry enough to go out for food. Near the Workers Stadium we inadvertantly joined a huge crowd of people just exiting some event, still excitely blowing plastic horns and waving flags around.

The sidewalk was lined with a row of glass-covered bulletin boards where it seemed that every newspaper in the country was posted. There were many people looking at them intently. Barbers and food carts lined the rest of the sidewalk where we bought some omlet-type crepes. "Chinese Egg McMuffins," joked Teresa. They were amazingly cheap, something like 50 cents, folded in quarters and handed to us in brown paper. It was Sunday, and everyone was out and about. We strolled along with them. Here are some photos.

Reading the newspapers. It seems that every newspaper in the country is displayed here, daily, for public consumption at no cost.

Stealing a public private moment, despite a disapproving glance.

A common sight in Beijing is the old men in Mao blue who walk their birds. They hang the cages in trees next to other caged birds so they they (and the men) can have a social life.