BEIJING SUPER POP

(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE LIFESTYLE WEEKLY PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 8 AUGUST 2008)

Strung on a stick and dipped in hard sugar candy coating, the crab apples are a treat even before you have a taste of them, arranged like flowers on a basket at the back of a bicycle. Along Wangfujing, the shopping street in the middle of Beijing, these vendors on bikes look as ancient as the Great Wall of China, where it reveals itself at the Juyon Pass some 50 kilometers from the capital, and the skewers of miniature apples, also known as tang hu lu, that they peddle around town seem as Chinese as Tiananmen Square, except that, at least according to Wikipedia, the candied apple, otherwise known in America as caramel or toffee apple, owes its existence to New Jersey candy-maker William W. Kolb, who has been given historical credit for inventing it in 1908.

BLURB
Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? —Confucius (551-479 BC)

But in northern China, the pleasures of the tang hu lu are not limited to apples, which are just as famous as strawberries, blueberries, grapes, pineapples, and kiwifruit as street delicacies wrapped in a delightful sugar glaze, and not even quite as traditional as the Chinese hawthorne. Still, when I eat candied apples on a bamboo skewer, I always imagine myself walking down the banks of Houhai Lake, a leafy lakeside neighborhood that traces its origins to the Yuan Dynasty, sometime in the 14th century, when Houhai, along with two other lakes connected to it, was dug out to allow “barges to bring in goods from all around China and beyond to the emperor in his nearby Forbidden City.”

I heard that Houhai, which was a quiet park district abuzz only with the occasional tourist and some residents walking their dogs the last time I was in Beijing, has acquired some kind of a split-personality: a laidback lakeside promenade by day and a party-hearty zone by night, lined with bars and clubs and throbbing with teenagers no longer chained to Chinese traditions, as though influenced by the controversial novelist Wei Hu, whose Shanghai Baby was, at least in the ’90s and at least in the realm of the sexes, the literary equivalent of the War of Liberation. It is just as well now that Beijing has embraced the virtues as well as the vices of the modern world. Even within the ancient walls of the Forbidden City, once off-limits to the common folk, unless you were a concubine, a eunuch, or a servant, there is now room for such practicalities as hot pants and tubes, especially in the summer when throngs of tourists invade this portal to more rigid times.

Today, 08/08/08, an auspicious date in the Chinese calendar, temperatures in Beijing range between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius. It’s a terrible time to squeeze yourself into the crowded bleachers and, with adrenaline rushing and sweat pouring, cheer your country on, one voice in a world of nations all screaming for “One World, One Dream.” We have some 15 athletes going for gold there and, with hope, aside from the politicians and aside from Manny Pacquiao and his entourage of many, there will be more of us to raise the Philippine flag as well as the spirit of our representatives on the field, in the court, in the arena, in the ring, and elsewhere, where Olympic glory is at stake. I am no sports fan, but I envy those who now have the opportunity to be one with the world and to see Beijing as it has never been seen before.

In the meantime, when tourist arrivals drop a bit after all this Olympic frenzy and cold, bitter winter sets in toward the end of the year, I dream of visiting Beijing another time. With an apple skewer in hand and preferably snowflakes on my lashes, I dream to experience the Forbidden City yet again, crossing from the south through the Meridian Gate all the way to the north through the Gate of Divine Might. Without the crowds, at the top of the Yellow Crane Tower, I might catch a glimpse of a crane flying over the Yangtze. In the chill of winter, in the inner courts of the Forbidden City, and elsewhere in the old city of Beijing, visitors do not fill every gap in space and time with a Babel of awe. Instead of rushing headlong into a future where everything is the same here, there, everywhere, time stands still, caught in the arches and ridges and turrets of the towers and in the cracks on the weatherworn pavements.

And look! There ’s the Empress Dowager Cixi emerging from the Hall of Happiness and Longevity at the Summer Palace, undisturbed by the flash of cameras, where no tourist crowds around her for a shot at immortality. Now that’s Beijing before the future turned around to fetch her.

A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.