Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Night on the Town Beijing Style

Last weekend contained a wholly uncharacteristic amount of socializing. Friday night I had a date with my Hong Kong hotel buddy, LH, who henceforth in this blog will be the Princess. We had agreed to meet at the Insitituto Cervantes to see a Spanish film (English subtitles). Does it seem random to be watching a Spanish movie in Beijing? It kind of was, but it was fun too. I hadn't seen a theater movie in--well, ages. Probably since before I got to Beijing, as far as I can recall.

I met the Princess in front of the theater around 6:45, after navigating there tremulously but successfully. When I have my map book, things usually work out! The Princess was looking a bit rough. I guess even princesses have rough patches. She looked tired, and her skin was noticeably dry from the desert air. She was flustered. She's house-sitting. She's trying to figure out her living situation. Her boyfriend's coming to visit in a week. She's still trying to get settled in. She is just starting her FB grant now, so all the discomforts and dislocations I had back in August are still swirling around her. I did my best to be soothing and give helpful advice.

Shortly thereafter, her friend joined us. I won't bother to think up a pseudonym for him, as I doubt I will run into him again: a metrosexual designer of Chinese origin who lived in NYC for 15 years and decided to come back to Beijing and make a go of it. Currently designing his own furniture for the expanded studio space their firm is moving into. The best coffee in Beijing is to be had chez lui, so the Princess assures me. Likes to talk about food, drink, style, and generally the good things in life that I tend to forego. Understandably, there was no particular spark of interest between us, though I suspect he would have enjoyed meeting my bro. Still, I was in a mood to get along, so I did my best to make conversation.

Here is the That's Beijing description of the movie we saw:

Film: Alone (Solas)
Set in a poor barrio of Seville, the loose-living, angry thirty-something María suddenly finds herself back in the maelstrom of family strife when her father is taken ill and brought to the hospital near her apartment. This is Spanish writer/director Benito Zambrano's first feature and offers a welcome retreat from the stylised chic of fellow countryman Pedro Almodóvar's box office smashes. In Spanish with English subtitles. Free. 7pm.

The key word in this description is angry. Very very angry. Actually it was not a bad film, and not nearly as depressing as it sounds. It was "a welcome retreat from stylized chic"--had rough edges to be sure, but in a good way. The story felt like a story about real people.

Some of the acting was admittedly a bit melodramatic. Maria's emotional range was almost exclusively limited to barely suppressed rage. But her mother's and the neighbor's acting was much much better. The script (I mean insofar as I can judge, not being a Spanish speaker) is really good, really restrained in places so they don't say too much, yet you can put the pieces together from what they say. One thing about it that I especially liked was the way it showed the richness of an elderly person's inner life. The older I get, the more I appreciate that this is true. I am a more interesting person than I was a decade ago, and also have an appreciation of the fact that I am less interesting than I will be a decade from now.

Anyway, the movie was of the form that everything started out awful and gradually got better. The leap at the end into a downright happy ending was too much, which is my only real complaint. Not to give too much away, but someone who drinks as much as that is not going to have such an easy time stopping, I think. It was too rosy a view of the world, and especially of alcoholism! Of it would be nice if it worked like that... I guess it was kind of like the movie ran out of time, or steam. I could have bought the happy ending if it didn't cut straight from the moment when she first sets foot on the path to redemption to the moment when it seems as if there is a happily every after in the cards for everyone. Setting foot on the path of redemption is important, but not straying is the thing that's really hard!

All the same, a pretty thoughtful movie with many touching scenes, and funny ones as well, totally worth a rent on Netflix. After all, you can imagine yourself a new ending if you want to.

After this, we walked across to Bellagio, of which the following (from here) is a totally apt description:

Bellagio
6 Gongti Xilu
Chaoyang
Tel: 86 10 6551 3533
Beijing's beautiful hipsters head here for casually elegant Taiwanese and Szechuan fare. Located near mega-nightclub Babyface and open till 4 a.m., it's popular for late-night feasts. A perennial standout is the Taiwanese dòufù bao, a savory mixture of ground pork, tofu strips, and sliced leeks, served in a sizzling stone pot. The laziji—tender morsels of chicken in a bright nest of chili peppers—is another sure bet. Desserts appear otherworldly, particularly the zonghe baobing, a mountain of shaved ice piled high with sweet red beans, condensed milk, tapioca pearls, sago chunks, and canned fruit cocktail (trust us, it tastes better than it sounds).

We didn't have any of the things recommended, but we had a nice light meal. I saw the mountains of shaved ice which were incredibly tall. I'm totally going there for dessert sometime. It was very expensive for a Beijing restaurant, but that still meant entrees weighing in at about $5. The portions were small but not ridiculously so. It was reasonable. Only the atmosphere was a bit intimidating. Beautiful hipsters is exactly the right description. Also, all the waitresses had the exact same hair-cut, a less shaggy and more styled variation of mine! It was a little embarrassing.

Speaking of embarrassing... although by and large I succeeded in doing a decent impression of a socially normal person, and successfully made small-talk with a couple of Chinese urbanite hipsters with whom I had next to nothing in common, even doing so with minimal anxiety because I didn't care too much about success or failure--I did slip once. The Princess was talking about her former boss in NYC (the Princess had been her personal assistant!). This woman had been giving her advice before her departure, and her advice was, that she should "cultivate a look". Without missing a beat (or thinking about what I was saying), I said, "I cultivate a 'look': the look of having only four sets of clothes total which get more worn-out every day." I became aware of four eyes and two cocked heads looking askance at me momentarily, and realized that to some people "cultivating a look" is not actually a totally ridiculous endeavor. But the conversation proceeded smoothly along as if my breach of manners had never occurred.

By the time we got out and parted company with the Designer, it was pretty late. But not, somehow, late enough to go home. So we followed up on the Princess's tentative plan to go to a spa and get a massage. Yeah, at 10:30 at night. It was awesome. We went in to a place called Firefly, and were given a menu of services. Then proceeded into little tatami rooms with sliding paper doors (we had chosen the Japanese massage), where we received hour-long full body massages (clothed in loose comfortable pyjama type garments) for the sinfully self-indulent price of $15 each. I am totally going to do this more often!!

I especially liked how we had rooms side by side, and they closed the adjoining doors between while we were changing but left them open by our heads the rest of the time--in case we wanted to chat or just to give a sense that we were there together. The whole thing made me feel really happy and relaxed. Every joint in my body crackled like a bowl of rice-crispies under the masseuse's ministrations. And I felt totally luxurious and elegant. I should really do this more often. The only thing that has stopped me is that massage is often a euphemism for prostitution--as the advertising cards sometimes left in my door clearly suggest. (Lingerie clad women looking VERY sketchy...)

So that was my Friday night, and you have to admit that it was an impressive one--I mean, for someone like me. If you want to know how to live the good life, consult a Princess!

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