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TRAVEL Beijing
is not for casual sauntering around, unless you know and can speak Mandarin. So, a visit to city has to be focused and organised in advance. That done, you will find it worth it because very few cities can match what this one has to offer. The Great Wall is the most talked about of its attractions. There are five different points close to Beijing where one can access it. We did it at Mutianyu, about an hour away. A cable car takes you to the top at 640 metres high. Coming down one also has the option of tobogganing, which is an exciting experience in itself. The Wall itself, built in bits and pieces for over 2000 years, is said to be 6,259 km long, good enough for a really long walk on its ramparts. This palace was built between 1406 and 1436. Fourteen Ming and 10 Qing rulers lived here. The Palace Museum is among the must-see places within. The exit on the south side takes you right into the vast Tiananmen Square. Within the city, the ancient Temple of Heaven and the modern Bird’s Nest (Olympic stadium) are among the other attractions. On outskirts of the city, the Ming tombs, dating to the 14th century, beckon. These lie about 50 km away, at the foot of the Tianshou Mountains. There are 13 tombs of the 16 Ming rulers (1368-1644), of which three have been opened to visitors so far. The one at Dingling was built in 1584 and excavated in 1957. It lies about 110 steps below the ground level and has the graves and marble thrones of Emperor Zhu Yi Jun and two of his queens. After going around the tourist sites, there is enough by way of eating and shopping in China’s capital. The stores are of two kinds — ones with fixed prices, and others where you can bargain like hell. Silk Street and Yashow Market are among the bazaars where bargaining is a challenge to savour. These places have hundreds of little shops that sell anything from antiques to apparel to hi-tech gizmos. The opening gambit of any negotiation should be to knock one zero off the price quoted. Eventually you will be able to close the deal at about a third of what was originally demanded, and everybody is happy. These markets sell high-quality fakes as well. It is not uncommon to have someone nudge close to you with a conspiratorial whisper, “Lolex. Only for you. Ten dolla.” In Beijing one can get genuine Chinese food and if one is not too squeamish, the experience can be fantastic. There are two ways to approach Chinese cuisine. One can either scan the menu and chose. But the drawback is that sometimes the description can make one lose appetite. The other option is to leave it to the host, as long as he knows where you draw the line. Vegetarians will get a raw deal generally, but off Beijing’s Chouyang Park South Road there is a Tibetan restaurant, Pure Lotus. This serves mock non-vegetarian food. Sausages that taste of bacon are actually soybean. A salad wrapped in kelp smells of salmon. Likewise, we had veggie dishes that had the taste and texture of chicken and fish. In dealing with the Chinese one would do well to learn nuances of Chinese social etiquette. And try and say a few words in Chinese. Even just a hello, “Ni hao”, will earn goodwill. Eating with chopsticks will fetch special brownie points.
FACT FILE
Getting there: Air China has three direct flights from Delhi to Beijing every week. Other connections are available via Hong Kong, Shanghai and Guangdong. Return economy fare is about Rs 30,000. The direct journey takes about six hours. Getting around: For a first visit, at least, it is advisable to book a stay in Beijing through a good travel agency. Even visits to places of tourist interest are best undertaken with local guides who can be hired in advance by groups, or at the locations individually. Language is a major problem in China because even proper names when written in Mandarin, sound different. For example ‘Hilton’ in Chinese is ‘Shi Er Dun’. When venturing out alone, make sure that your hotel, or host, writes their address in the local language. Otherwise you could be doing involuntary Beijing-darshan in an attempt to get back to your lodgings!
Chinese bacteria improves smelly Japanese dish
Natto,
the Japanese breakfast dish of fermented soybeans, has a smell likened to sweaty feet but researchers have come up with an unlikely way of making it less whiffy — using bacteria from Chinese dust clouds. Microscopic organisms found in the yellow fug that drifts over from China are almost identical to the reagent usually added to the beans to start the decomposition process, said Teruya Maki, an assistant professor at Kanazawa University. The end result labelled ‘Sky Natto’, tastes like normal natto but doesn't have the overpowering smell that puts off so many first timers of this protein-rich dish. “We spotted these bacteria which is the same as that used for making natto,” said Maki, who was studying the organisms in the Chinese dust cloud for potential risks to human health. Maki and his team persuaded a local natto manufacturer to adopt the recipe and produce Sky Natto for sale at the university, with an eye on cracking the local market. Sky Natto has a much less overwhelming smell than regular natto and has greater nutritional value because it contains more magnesium and calcium, he said. Clouds of yellow dust travel from northern China during spring when winds whip up sand and transport it thousands of kilometres, sometimes shrouding parts of Japan and the Korean peninsula. Natto, while not widely known outside Japan, can be found in health food shops in the West. — AFP
Globetrotting
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