Under construction

Everywhere you look in Beijing today you see a new building that was not there two weeks earlier. Walk through a Hutong, and cement mixers and dirt piles spill into the alleys. Building supplies, like pipes and lumber, arrive balanced on bicycles or packed into small trucks. Bricklayers find steady work. A fresh storefront. Expanded living quarters. There’s always something new.

The city skyline gives a different perspective. Tall construction cranes rise above the roofs, marking the spot of the next big office, fancy hotel, or apartment complex. Beams and concrete walls arrive on huge trucks. The scale is enormous but so is the pace. Buildings seem to go up overnight. Sometimes the cranes are for lowering, not lifting. The expansion of the city’s subway, in preparation for the Olympic games, has created construction holes the size of large craters.

Food is a profound element of the Chinese character and a very important aspect of how we live. We care not only about the things we eat, but also the environment in which we eat and the patterns of how we eat. For example, you can never eat roast duck in a small fast restaurant by the road. To really taste its delicate flavors, you have to roll the pieces into a bing to make Beijing Roast Duck and eat it slowly. Elegant restaurants that mix Eastern and Western food have also begun to appear in Beijing. The presentation is precise, the napkins laid out just right.

Some kinds of Chinese food are less delicate, or even coarse. This is where most of us eat, when not at home. These small restaurants and food stands by the road offer very simple Chinese fare, to take as you like: steam-filled buns, flaky dough pastry, grilled meat on skewers. Simple as these dishes are, you can’t find them in a bigger restaurant or hotel. The only problem is that sometimes the seller can’t guarantee food safety. We should pay more attention to making this kind of food safe. It is an important part of our food culture, nowhere else to be found.