Timing is Everything

My friend Roxanne invited me and Kelly to go to a concert in the Opera Hall in the garden surrounding the Forbidden City. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally see the center of Beijing (a few months late.) We made the plan to get dinner at Ho Hai Lake, a beautiful stretch of the city that is lined with waterfront restaurants. This was the perfect chance to finally get Peking duck, which is a whole duck (head sold separately), that you put, sliced, into a thin tortilla-like wrapping with a little dark sauce, cucumber, and chives. Think Mu shu pancakes, except without the pre-made bowl of slop.

My friend Roxanne and I also took this opportunity to try some new drinks. The list was translated into English, but with no descriptions. I settled on a “grasshopper”, which turned out to taste exactly like mouthwash in a martini glass, complete with the bright green glow. Roxanne’s “White Angel” lacked any recognizable flavor, but let’s just say I wasn’t motivated to trade.

At this point of being in China, I’m starting to take some things for granted. At the beginning, I expected nothing and had no standards of normalcy. For days after I arrived I could barely get myself to a restaurant and even then I knew that ordering was always a gamble. (Kelly has completely cut off menu-pointing at corn ever since we ordered a corn dish that somehow came out tasting strongly of breaded fish.) One thing that has always been consistent in our meals is the timing. Everything is family style, so the dishes arrive quickly as soon as they are cooked. I suppose you can see where this is going…

We allotted an hour to eat our meal in order to make it to the concert in time, factoring in the variable of catching a cab and somehow communicating to the driver where we were going.

Our side dish of veggies arrived almost immediately after we closed our menus, along with our beverages. I spent the next 45 minutes in stressful silence, sipping mouthwash and giving my waitress far dirtier looks than she deserved. Our long-awaited duck finally arrived literally one minute before we were supposed to leave the restaurant.

I have never stuffed myself so quickly with duck-filled pancakes.

We ran out of the restaurant, cursing China and its consistent unpredictability, and managed to jump into a taxi right away. Our chosen strategy, showing the tickets for the opera to the taxi driver, actually worked and we were left, dumbfounded at the doors to the garden in no time. Then, by sheer miracle, the crowd of people that we followed through the dark and windy paths of the garden actually led us through a 10 minute stretch - straight to the opera house.

You can have your own theory, but I’m convinced that was Beijing’s apology.

I accept.