Duck No. 1.15 098564

Beijing, China

First, let me say I'm not sure whether I'm writing this to myself or for an audience or both, so I'm going to switch on and off the pretense randomly, so that is part fo the ride.

On Beijing generally, after the first full day (now two) the most noticeable thing after seeing the standard tourist sights (Tienanmen, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, etc.) is the love affair with euphemism in place names("Hall of Heavenly Peace, Eternal Joy, Ultimate Wisdom etc etc etc". During the Qing dynasty when most of this stuff was built & restored, there was anything but joy, wisdom, peace, tranquility both within and without. That sort of thing doesn't seem to vary with politics here, since even the more modern stuff bears the same hallmarks (e.g., the "Great Hall of the People" isn't really that great, nor do the people have much input). I'm sure I'm not the first to make this observation in a cynical Western way, but at least we're honest about that sort of thing when naming stuff back in the US; take the White House for example, its inhabited by and largely run for the benefit of rich white guys. It's easier that way.

On to the less weighty stuff - the real reason I came to Beijing was to try out to become a eunuch. Since the application was Chinese, my second real reason for being here was to eat a duck. So last night I rolled up to the signature location of the massive Quanjude roast duck empire, a seven story avian graveyard. After cruising through the requisite gleaming lobby (btw, Chinese architectural schools must have like, a whole freaking year of courses on how to cram in as much marble and chrome as you can per square meter; I knew that coming in, but still, man...) I was directed up to the 5th floor and the end of a long hallway.

So I grabbed a seat in a smoky roomful of Chinese duck eaters who mercifully paid no heed to the weird foreigner eating alone. Afer a few minutes I hailed the waitstaff and stalked my prey - one roast duck and 24 oz's of Yanjing beer. The language barrier presented little problem, by now, I've resorted to talking loudly and ridiculously in English to all Chinese, hoping that body language can get the meaning through, which it usually does. Plus it allows me to laugh at my own jokes. They don't mind, I don't think, because they talk really loud too naturally so at least we've got one thing in common, and they already think I'm weird anyway.

What made them thik I was weirder was that I ordered a whole roast duck. As you might know, Peking Duck comfortably serves 2-4. But I knew this and wanted the damned duck anyway, so I sort of played off the gluttonous American role and boasted to the waitstaff that I was going to finish the whole duck since I was from Texas. For additional effect, I drained the rest of my Yanjing and ordered another. I think this went over pretty well or not at all.

When the duck finally arrived, I reiterated this pledge to the duck carving chef and started pointing to my stomach, and said "I'm taking this duck down", which generated much levity, or mockery, not sure which. The train started to go off the tracks almost immediately. Here one is expected to roll up your own duck into little pancakes, while stateside the duck chef usually does it for us gringos. My first duck roll was a disaster. To make things worse, the waitstaff was watching, and my chopstick control was badly affected by nerves - it was like Uma Thurman trying to eat rice in Kill Bill vol. 2. By the second roll, the waiter stepped in and rolled it up for me. This was doubly insulting as I've eaten enough things in tortillas in my life to feel really bad about this.

I started to improve my rolling a bit after that, but that was when the scale of the task before me began to sink in. I had two plates of duck meat in front of me stacked up like the Petronas Towers and a whole lot of boasting to back up. 4-6 rolls later I had chopped down the first tower, but I was in a bad way and had the second plate, plus the split duck head to go. 2-3 rolls into plate 2 I hit the Great Wall. By the last roll, not only did my rolling form revert to shit, but I had to take super small bites and chew it up into paste since my esophogus was pretty much 95% duck. Slightly after this, and to avoid further loss of face by hurling in the Quanjude Duck house, I hung up my chopsticks and was presented with a certificate by the waitstaff indicating that I had consumed Duck No. 1.15 098564 - which at that point was being packed into a doggy bag that I had no intention of eating but asked for anyway for appearances' sake.

As I sat sipping my Yanjing, watching as the duck head was lovingly packed for me to consume today, I thought about a lot of things about east & west, but mostly, I thought "son of a bitch, that was a shitload of duck."