If You Lived Right Up There?

Down into the city.  Inert.  Grumpy because a cabby won’t break the law and ride up on the service lane.  I don’t press.  I stew.  I’m late.  No surprise.  I am like a bad lab rat that won’t learn a basic piece of shock therapy:  the way you usually use to get into the city ain’t working.  Because that entrance is under repair it will take much, much longer.  Hence you need to budget more time than it takes to travel to the capital of a nearby province on a train.  You need to budget two hours for something that would take twenty minutes at 2:00AM. 

This prospect is one I’ve had many meetings with over he last two years since my first visit when the paint was still fresh on this new building.  Elevators are particularly jammed.  This has been consistent, with every visit.  To go down we capitulate and ride the elevator up and up first.  Otherwise we wouldn’t stand a chance of boarding this box on the way back down.  Pull your ID sticker off.  Go through security.  A photo by the logo?   Sure.  And that lunch place you recommended?  It’s just down this way?  Next block?

Nearby is the 798 Art Zone.  Unexpectedly we’re visiting in the middle of an intoxicating spring day.  The feeling is that sharp, because our alternatives are so dire.  What we’ve been through was so glum.  We were told to find a Hunan restaurant but it’s not on the first corner where it’s supposed to be.  Nor is it on the second.  Who cares?  I know another place.  The trees are all yielding.  Everyone is dressed for spring.  Suddenly everyone in the jungle wants to be seen.  Much of the jungle wants to look.  We find a table out of doors.  Last time I visited this place we were huddled back indoors, near the heating duct.  I consider, as one does, whether or not there wasn’t some hipper-than-though bargain right here in 798.  What if you lived right up there?

I get my salad.  I get my soup.  One colleague does, as well.  But the other gentleman is left hanging.   So those of us with food stare at it and sip at our drinks.  I want to ingest that sliced avocado.  I try not to stare.  “Yes.  Precisely!  I agree.  Good point.”  The chicken has dressing on it.  Behind: “you go ahead!” To the man beside:  “No.  We’ll wait.”  We do.  Eight hairy-eyeball stares at the staff, three interjections later, my neighbor finally has his noodles and soup and we formally dive in.  I’m staring at a wall full of very purposeful graffiti.  It is better than staring at a wall.  And people are walking by, pausing, strolling on and three old Beijing laowai have a jolly little lunch of it.  We all know this won’t last long.