Old Beijing - a personal journey of discovery
Staying at the hotel on Beixinqiao Santiao, I was becoming so immersed with the city's history that I would sit for hours at the window of a local restaurant looking out on the adjoining alley. This area had none of the international bar scene developing around Sanlitun, for example. Everything was local, providing an opportunity to develop language skills. Staff, increasingly knowing me would show patience and help in my usual linguistic struggles but the food, both inexpensive and plentiful was always good, particularly when washed down with local beers! Indeed my first call, returning to Beijing and after checking in, was to go across to a little Sichaun restaurant, have a cold drink and think, "I am back!" With many people eating out every night, such little diners were good places to meet some of the "laobaixing" or local long term residents.
In July 1994 I only had a few days in Beijing before heading southwest to Sichuan, but those precious days showed me that there was so much still to discover in this vast city. So much untold. I resolved that at every opportunity I would try to explore its many, intriguing corners. For, in my mind I also realized that what I had found would inevitably change as the development momentum gathering pace in southern China would surely spread northwards towards the capital. But when? Older Beijing inevitably became a place increasingly special to me to the point where I became known and still am as 'Bruce in Beijing'!
