Ghost Street, Beijing

The start of my three month trip began with an 11 hour flight from London Heathrow into Beijing. My second day in the city, and cultural immersion is already in full force. Our first evening was spent wandering down the Wangfujing night market, a dizzying maze of alleys replete with street food stands and an overwhelming assault of strange sights and foreign scents, enticing, beckoning you forward with a clash of odors and an enigma for the eyes- a gigantic black scorpion roasted on a stick, next to it crunchy fried cicadas, millipedes lined up one after the other. I am ashamed to admit that my bravery on this first night only stretched so far as a cautious nibble on a starfish’s leg, but I think this is permissible considering I did not want to spend the next few days in agonizing pain before my adventures had even begun.

Wangfujing Night Market delicacies

So: Ghost Street. Perhaps an appropriate place to begin would be to answer the first question that leaps to mind- why the name?  It turns out, as a friend informed me, that the Chinese name for a drunken person literally translates into English as ‘white ghost’, apparently alluding to the zombie-like stumbling conduct of said inebriated denizens, who also tend to be the transient population of this twenty-four hour food street catering to the famished, alcohol-fuelled after clubbers. I found this to be quite funny as an officially recognized name of a street- “Wasted Street”, if you will.

The place is in itself quite striking, stretching on for several kilometers and lined on either side by hundreds of local Chinese dimsum haunts, hotpot restaurants, noodle bars and all types of Asian cuisine under the sun, with Beijingers grabbing a casual bite amongst friends. The air is filled with sounds of the hacking and gagging of countless locals clearing their throats and spitting up their elaborations wherever they may care, with withered old men exuding that wise Chinese demeanor, engrossed in their omnipresent board games, clustered around in circles, peering over and in, utterly focused, muttering and shouting out exclamations. There is no place for having a woman around in such moments.

Lanterns illuminating Ghost Street

Outside of the buildings lay multiple buckets, filled with at first what seemed to be a nauseating sight- writhing, grey, shiny and oily masses of scales and twigs, clambering over each other in a futile and pointless manner. On closer look, appetites might be aroused instead of disgust as it dawns on you that these are simply shrimp, ready to be sacrificed for a lovely evening’s meal. So goes the cycle of life, and I am personally all the more happy for it as I am quite fond of shrimp (however, that night no murder of these secondary residents of Ghost Street took place on my plate). Other buckets also contained large crabs, with their claws pathetically tied together with ragged pieces of cloth- somehow their impeding deaths elicited more pity from me, perhaps because they are nobler a creature than the prawns. And perhaps most strikingly of all, above the street a sea of red lanterns glow fiery orange and illuminate the path below with their incandescent light, linked by a maze of colored minute bulbs, making you feel oddly sheltered and cozily enclosed as you wander down the street.

Dinner, of course, hot pot. However, this was China, not Chinatown, so although we insisted repeatedly on ordering a mild bouillon, the boiling water placed in font of us was quite literally flaming liquid red pepper. But, hunger took precedence. Insider tip: watermelon soothes flaming tongues.

One of the many restaurants that line the street 

Afterwards we went to go visit my friend’s hutong, the traditional Beijing living arrangement of charming small courtyards and communal apartments and becoming increasingly rare in a city struggling between modernization and tradition. You entered in through one door, then another, into each little separate courtyard; quite a modest arrangement, but were I to live in Beijing I think I would like to live in such a place instead of moving straight to the high rises that one can get in any other world city. Another unique and appealing aspect of their hutong was a small ladder leading to the rooftop, decked out with some relaxed chairs on which I romantically pictured myself sitting and writing during those hazy, beautiful, pollution-promoted Beijing sunsets that turn the skyline deep orange and all shades of pink. My friend Alex told us a story that really stressed the sense of community you can get in these types of establishments, the types of human contacts and interactions that are unfortunately becoming all too rare in our modern day gated and glass walled communities their syphoned-off apartments. Upon returning home one evening around midnight after a round of the bars, he was intercepted by his Chinese neighbor who insisted on cooking him an elaborate meal, a several course affair lasting until 5am; the unelicited kindness of strangers. I found it to be an endearing and human story, one of these snippets that remains in your personal memory of a city for months afterwards.