After our great wall adventure, we decided it was high time for a traditional Chinese massage. Our driver Victor recommended a place near our hostel that was next to a Peking duck restaurant (one that was cheaper than the touristy one the guidebooks and internet recommends), which we had expressed interest in.
The owner of the massage parlor, Fora, began chatting with us and it turns out she studied at Texas Tech before finishing her degree at UTD. Small world! She was stoked to tell us about her conversion to Christianity, and that all of her employees are Christians as well. Very cool. The massages were awesome and super cheap, just what we needed after our rainy wall hike.
We went next door to the Peking duck restaurant. There were raw ducks hanging from hooks in the kitchen that we could see from the dining area. We sat down and told the waiter we were there for the duck! He brought us two plates of condiments and a steam box thingy with one pancake thing.
Then the duck showed up, complete with a chef to carve it table side. While he was quickly carving, some of which was delicately slicing off the roasted skin, a waitress came over to show us the drill.
The pancake was actually layered, and our demonstrator peeled a very thin layer off the top with chopsticks, put some meat into it, some radish, onion, garlic and goo (maybe soy sauce?), wrapped it up like a tiny burrito, and handed it to me. Then she made one for mom, who handed it over to me like the gluten-free champ that she is!
Turns out I didn’t really like the pancake, it had gone cold and gummy while the demonstration was going on. Part of the delay in eating was the carver offered me the duck’s head – several times! I asked him what to do with it, and he just kept shrugging and finally gave up and took it away with the bones. We got a pretty big kick out of that. Can anybody tell me what to do with a duck head??
The duck was good, though – and Mom very much enjoyed the skin. One of the condiments was sugar, which we were told was for dipping the skin in. In fact, you could just order duck skin with sugar a la carte from the menu.
For dessert, we walked a block to Beijing’s night market. The stalls offered up snakes, tarantulas, centipedes, starfish, testes of various sizes, silk worm cocoons, sparrows and various other things on a stick.
I decided to go with the scorpions.
That’s right, I ATE TWO SCORPIONS.
I paid the guy, and he assured me I was making the deliciously right decision as he threw some oil in a pan and fried those suckers up for me. Early there had been a tour group passing around a scorpion for pictures before they returned it to the vendor, but it’s all about the authenticity for me.
I chose the stick with two smaller scorpions. We stepped aside, my mom ready to hit record, and a tourist family stopped to watch. I was a little worried about the stinger (hey, it was my first scorpion – don’t judge!) but I popped one in my mouth….and it was no big deal. Tasted like a fried crunchy thing. I offered the second one to my mom, but she politely declined. As I ate the second one, my mom expressed her shock that the worlds pickiest eater had just liked a scorpion enough to have a second helping.
It was a glorious moment in my life.
Meredith R. Allen 