A Very Merry Musical Month

Once again, I'm breaking the focus of this blog to talk about what is an incredibly exciting month for Beijing music fans. Over the next few weeks, we'll see Karen Mok come to Worker's Indoor Stadium (on the 11th), the "Godfather", Cui Jian, doing is thing at Capital Gymnasium once again on a very unique way to enjoy Christmas Eve, while on the 31st, Na Ying will play what is sure to be an extremely memorable New Year's Eve show after 7 years away from performing, word is that she's been preparing for over a year for this one.

If you haven't run off for the holidays, attending one (or all) of these shows is sure to be a lot of fun. Tickets are available at piao.com.

Thanksgiving 2009: East 33

Thanksgiving in Beijing has a very different meaning from in the US, where everyone gathers at home with family. In Beijing, its a time to get together with friends and head out to one of the city's few restaurants that serve turkey and follow this very American of traditions. The past few years, the Raffles Hotel has done Thanksgiving events at its restaurants East 33 and Jaan, once again this year we headed to East 33 to enjoy the Thanksgiving buffet.

As many Chinese don't fully grasp the "traditional Thanksgiving menu" of turkey with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc etc, a buffet is the perfect option to satisfy all tastes. Plus, this one is all-you-can-drink, need I say more? The other nice thing is that this year there was a real expansion of the offerings, including a large seafood raw bar.

my seafood bounty

Of course, the main reason to come is for the turkey. For me, turkey isn't the most flavorful of birds (then again, I've never done an organic, free range heritage turkey before) and it is far too often overcooked, but this one was well cooked and moist, I had no complaints. At the carving station, a nice honey baked ham was also available, offering a nice saltiness and deep flavor if turkey is too boring for you.

the turkey carver in action

Other stations included Italian pastas and Chinese noodles cooked to order with a variety of options as well as a grilled meats station. There was sushi and prepared hot foods of both western and Chinese provenience (seafood lasagne or lazi ji anyone?). Of course no buffet is complete without a dessert bar, this one was especially impressive, including cakes, tartlets, a cheese section, homemade ice cream, and some cute little dessert bites.

Just some of the dessert bar offerings

At RMB298, it wasn't cheap, but considering most the other options were above RMB200, comparatively, it was a bargain. The Raffles Thanksgiving buffet is quickly becoming my own Thanksgiving tradition in Beijing, this year's buffet offerings were even an improvement over last year and our party walked out completely stuffed. The only problem with attending a buffet is that you don't get turkey leftovers for Friday's lunch, oh well.


East 33 (东33)
Raffles at Beijing Hotel, Wangfujing
Price: ¥¥¥ out of ¥¥¥¥¥
Rating: 4 out of 5 (a damn good buffet and a great way to celebrate the holiday)

pro: all you can eat&drink, great turkey, excellent raw bar, nice dessert bar
con: RMB298 ain't cheap, no leftovers, some of the sashimi was still frozen

Finally, a Happy Thanksgiving to all!!!

Did the Economic Crisis Hit Thanksgiving?

Is it just me or are there far fewer restaurants, especially hotel buffets, putting on Thanksgiving events tomorrow? Last year, my email box was overwhelmed with 5 star hotels hoping for my presence at Thanksgiving dinners or buffets, this year, to my knowledge only Raffles Hotel and the Legendale have advertised Thanksgiving meals.

As for restaurants, its a lot of the usual suspects, Steak & Eggs, Chef Too, Blue Frog, All-Star, and Salt all have Thanksgiving offerings. Chef Too's home catering option is always popular and is pretty tasty, while Salt's 5-course menu this year looks tasty.

For all you Americans out there, where are you choosing to celebrate the holiday? For me, the hotel buffet is the way to go, the resulting food coma is the closest thing to tryptophan induced sleep, plus since we can't plop down on the couch and wallow away the hours watching football, why not simulate Black Friday and walk some of it off at Wangfujing?

The Coolest Thing I've Seen (This Week)

A basketball that opens up and turns into Yao Ming (hat tip to Complex)? A freaking Yao Ming basketball transformer? Seriously?!? This should be the Christmas Spring Festival gift of the year! From the BBS where this was originally found, there was a lot of leis (雷) and shan zhais (山寨 "ghetto") being thrown around, but no information as to where you can get one of these.

Anyone out there seen this in Beijing or Shanghai? Know where to get one?

Happy Single's Day

November 11th (11/11) is celebrated by young Chinese as "Single's Day" (光棍节). This "holiday" came about on university campuses in the early 1990s as an excuse for singles to get together and party, set up blind date events, or just take comfort in their own singleness. In China, being single and in your mid-20s, especially for females, is seen as a negative and causes them to face a lot of pressure from parents, relatives, and friends. It's an excuse for 20-somethings (in most cases) to go out and have fun or possibly find a mate. It's also part of the desire to "own" singledom and stand up in the face of all the pressure from those around them.

In China, a trend of marrying later, especially in cities, has been going on for the past 10 years or so. For some, this is a personal choice that they take pride in, for them, this day is a day of celebration and fun. For those who would prefer to succumb to familial pressure and get married, there are plenty of meet-up events in major cities offering the chance to meet that special someone. These two ways of celebrating Single's Day shows the interesting differences in young culture in China. So if you're still single, have a great Single's Day! If you're in China, we'd love to hear how you "celebrated" this "holiday".

The Empty Nest

So the Olympics and Paralympics are now over and the amazingly beautiful (and expensive) Bird's Nest, known officially as the Naitonal Stadium, sits empty. It is sure to be a major tourist attraction during the upcoming National Day holiday and will certainly be visited by Chinese and foreigners for years to come. Even after the Paralympics, tourist buses were pulling up to the perimeter and letting people off to get photos of the over $420 million entrancing architecture.

That's all well and good, but what about inside the stadium? The talk was originally that Beijing's Chinese Super League team, Beijing Guoan could use the stadium after the Games. Guoan, which has used Worker's Stadium (Gongti) since its inception in the 90s, was moved to Fengtai Stadium last year as minor renovations prevented them from using Gongti. The thing is, even at the height of their popularity, Guoan never sold out Gongti and in recent years is lucky to get over 20,000 per game. This was bad enough in Gongti, which holds 70,000, but would look a lot worse in the Bird's Nest, which can hold an additional 20,000.

Therefore, despite all the talk that Guoan would move into the Bird's Nest after the Olympics, it should come as no surprise when it was announced today that it is unlikely that the move will take place. It appears that for any event to come close to making money at the Bird's Nest, it needs to have an attendance of over 30,000. Anything under that and it's unlikely that the Bird's Nest will be considered as a venue. Also, there is still the (stupid) feeling that the Bird's Nest should only be used for large and unique sporting and cultural events.

While tickets will be sold to the Olympic Green during National Day and expectations are for over 80,000 visitors per day to get up close to the Nest, they won't be going inside. The Bird's Nest should not sit empty waiting to host another "large" event, hopefully it won't become an albatross along the lines of the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

Golden Week Tales

Having just returned from my first ever experience of a "golden week" its been difficult to get back into the flow of things, especially the habit of blogging, something I wasn't so good about even before golden week.

During the golden week, the rich head to Europe, Egypt, anywhere far, far away (or do the smart thing and stay at home), the middle class heads to south or southeast Asia, and everyone else travels around China (or does the smart thing and stays at home).

After originally planning on just taking it easy and exploring some nearby sites in the countryside, hoping for a bit of piece and quiet, I did the exact opposite and headed to the packed metropolis that is Shanghai. Shanghai, a city that is crowded enough when the entire country isn't on holiday, was insane during the holiday. On top of the insanity that was golden week, Shanghai's calender was chock full of interesting events, including: the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics (and all the international and Chinese celebs that came to town for that), Yue Festival and Talib Kweli's debut performance in Shanghai, and the F1 race that could have been the crowning of Lewis Hamilton.

That said, I was still able to have a wonderful time in the city (that I hate) and of course got some good street shots. The worst part of the trip was leaving out of Pudong, Shanghai's beautiful and still relatively new international airport. While the upstairs part of the terminal is all glistening and nice, the downstairs area where my flight was boarding out of resembled a run down old Chinese train station, with the amenities and (lack of) seats to go along with it. It was a startling end to what was otherwise an overall great trip to a place I don't usually enjoy going to.

Sunday Photo Thread - Lantern Festival Edition

I hope everyone had a nice Lantern Festival, did anyone partake in special activities? Eat a lot of tangyuan?

After School

Xihai Beiyan, Beijing - April 2006

Through the Glass
Shanghai Musem of Science, Shanghai - date unknown (2006?)

Coming this week: Honoring the site's namesake tomorrow, more on dining in the dark, sports talk including a look at the first weekend of the CSL, Sun Xiang in Holland, and Chinese in the NFL(?!), the monthly book review, and more!

Happy Chinese New Year!

With the coming of Spring Festival (or Chinese New Year), not only does the world's largest movement of people take place as Chinese from all over the country take planes, trains, and automobiles to get home to their families. I can't speak for my fellow writer of this blog, but having been away from China during the Spring Festival period for so long, there is a certain longing that I feel at this time every year. Despite the cold of a northeast winter there was always a feeling of warmth as the family would gather round, make dumplings, and watch the CCTV Spring Festival program.

More recently, there are the memories of cold winters in a midwestern "small town" where, again, it was about gathering with friends and making dumplings, sharing in our happiness to be together, but sadness for the many relatives who were so far away. There would be a party put on by the Chinese student's association which was always a great event, a chance to see "friends" in different departments that you'd only see a few times each year, but kind smiles and friendly greetings would always be exchanged at the party. Then, someone would somehow have a copy of the CCTV Spring Fest program and it would make its rounds throughout the community.

Nowadays, with the internet and bittorrent, its a lot easier to see the program, but many don't bother because they'd argue the quality of the show has gone down over the past few years.

So however you intend on enjoying this Spring Festival, we just want to wish everyone out there a very happy new year!

I'll leave you with this from youtube, Zhao Wei from a Spring Fest show a few years back: