Chinese Morning

Beijing, 2002

TOM BURST INTO THE HOTEL ROOM. “I’ve found the market!” he said. “It’s just around the corner.” His enthusiasm pulled me out of my jet-lagged stupor more effectively than the two cups of tea I had just drunk.

We had arrived in Beijing the afternoon before. After eating a Chinese meal in a dining room filled with Western tourists and wandering Tiananmen Square in the falling dusk, we fell into bed, heavy with travel fatigue. The next morning, our body clocks still on California time, we were both wide awake as Beijing eased from night into day. My husband, an early riser even at home, decided to explore the neighborhood as dawn slowly crept through the alleyways. I opted for a quiet moment with hot tea and a guidebook.

When Tom burst into the room an hour later, his news energized me. I grabbed my shoes, my camera, and my shopping bag.

Morning mist hovered in the air as we crossed a wide boulevard clogged with bicycles. Thirty years before, we had started our travels together with a two-year journey in a Volkswagen camper equipped with a two-burner stove and a nested set of cookware. We spent uncountable hours shopping for ingredients to accommodate my attempts to duplicate local cuisine. Across four continents, markets were our favorite window into the prosperity and friendliness of local culture. Though we had been to many other places on the Asian continent since then, this was our first time inside China. We were eager for a glimpse of everyday people in a country famous for its cuisine.

After crossing the boulevard, we turned down a narrow lane that dead-ended at another alley. At this T-shaped intersection the world of food began with steam and fire. Steel drums, their hollowed centers hot with charcoal cooking fires, dominated the sidewalk. A tower of aluminum steamers balanced atop the drums and emitted vapors redolent with garlic and ginger. Jostling lines of customers waited for their order of breakfast dumplings.

Tom and I hesitated, our mouths watering from the aromas. Should we join the hungry shoppers? But to our right, the wide-open door of the market building beckoned to us. We worked our way past a clutter of parked bicycles, pushcarts, and cages of live chickens and entered an immense space.

Dimly lit by incandescent bulbs hanging from the high ceiling, the market greeted us with a cacophony of sounds. Shafts of early sunlight lit up the shoppers and vendors who clogged the narrow aisles. Men pushed wagons of produce between rainbow-hued rows of vegetables and fruit. Bent women in plain-colored pajama-style clothing lugged heavy bags and boxes into their stalls. Vendors bagged sales, made change, yelled, argued, and gestured behind counters heaped with goods. The floor was clean and wet from a recent hosing with fresh water, and we had to step carefully to avoid puddles.

On one side of the building, banks of fruit rose almost to the ceiling. It was barely March, early for the variety we saw—watermelons, bananas, mangos, papayas, bright red apples, round Asian pears nested in Styrofoam netting, and citrus of all kinds, including tangerines wrapped in vivid orange tissue. Across the aisle, mounds of vegetables in shades of green, white, and yellow stood in towering displays—firm cabbages, drooping Chinese chives, leafy dark green bok choy, snowy-white giant Daikon radishes, bundles of thin Chinese long-beans, and the knobby green shapes of bitter melon. Tubs of bean sprouts and trays of tofu were arranged next to displays of hunks of bean curd in shades from creamy white to golden brown, fresh, smoked, baked, and pressed. Across the bustling center aisle, dried and powdered things of all kinds filled small specialty shops. Herbs, spices, dried shrimps, and bottles of oyster sauce were stacked on shelves that reached the roof. The air was filled with the blended odors of onions, garlic, citrus, chilies, moisture, and people.

I looked around the market and took in the abundance. So much potential! If only I had a wok and a single burner, I thought. To tamp down my sense of frustration, I pulled out my camera and began to snap photos I hoped would capture the visual essence of the market and remind me of the sounds and smells.

Though we were the only Western faces in the entire market, there was no pushing, yelling, or staring at the foreigners. Everyone was courteous and friendly, from the sweating men pushing loaded carts through the clogged aisles to the vendors and shoppers. The vegetable sellers smiled with pride as I focused for a tight shot of bok choy or snow peas, winter melon or watercress.

After the produce section, the market widened into a spacious area lined with glass-fronted shops. More wonders surrounded us. Live fish swam in tanks, and glistening fillets of salmon and white fish lay on a clean marble counter. Nearby sides of lamb and beef hung from hooks, and two men in the white caps of the Moslem minority butchered them, creating shank, rib, and loin cuts. At another stand, two men and a woman were busy making fresh noodles and a kind of round flat bread. We stood, stomachs rumbling, and watched the bread being rolled out and cooked on a griddle. Both the bread and noodles were selling as fast as they were made. A pretty girl stuffed the yummy-looking products into bulging plastic bags and handed them to shoppers who stood patiently in line.

Across the shed, plucked birds were displayed in lines, pressed wing to wing, waiting to be chopped for stir-fry. One narrow-breasted, black-skinned bird lay surrounded by other lighter chickens. We wondered, “What is he?” I have since learned that these skinny, dark-skinned fowl are prized for their flavor. The aromas and sights made me long to fill a shopping bag. If my van kitchen had been waiting for me, I would have bought the black fowl and made soup that evening. I was both thrilled by the sights and sounds and disappointed to be unable to participate.

Tom looked at his watch and pulled me away from the poultry display. “We have to go,” he said. “We’ll miss the prepaid breakfast at the hotel.” On our return through the market, we could not resist a stop at a glass-fronted bakery. We walked away clutching a small bag of crisp, seed-studded rolls. We slowed down in the produce section as well and purchased two Asian pears from one of the smiling vendors. She grinned broadly at our efforts to communicate pleasure through gesture and smile. Finally I had Chinese groceries in my string shopping bag, a souvenir from France purchased thirty years before.

As we headed back toward the hotel, the aroma from the steamers on the lane called to us. The lines were shorter now, and we looked longingly at the row of dumpling sellers.

Suddenly neither of us had any interest in the breakfast in the hotel dining room. Tom grabbed my hand, and we shouldered into the queue near one of the steamers. We pointed to our choice, nodded, and smiled. I held out my hand and allowed the vendor to select the coins he wanted. Unable to wait, we stood on the sidewalk at the edge of the road and savored each bite of our fluffy white steamed buns. They were hot and succulent—a layer of light dough enclosing a tangy filling of chopped pork, leeks, and garlic. I peeked into the brown paper bag of pastry we had bought earlier. “Shall we?” I asked, and Tom nodded. The flaky rolls were still warm, sweet, and rich with a crust of sesame seeds. Each bite made us less interested in the hotel breakfast waiting in the dining room.

We fell in love with China on that first morning as we wandered the Beijing market. The people were friendly, the country galloped toward prosperity, and, best of all, Chinese food was ample and lived up to its reputation. My only disappointment was that I was unable to cook a meal using freshly bought market treasures in my own tiny VW kitchen.

If you enjoyed this short travel story, you might also enjoy my travel memoir, Wherever the Road Leads, about our two-year, four-continent journey in a VW van in the 1970s.

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