Hustle and bustle

Every Sunday morning cars pile up along curbs in front of the farmer's market around the corner from our apartment. Despite having 2 malls right next to the Taiyanggong subway shop, tons of people choose instead to buy their weekly groceries outdoors, at the old-fashioned, dirty and disheveled stalls and carts, even in the cold of late wintertime. Throngs of people bouncing off one another, not apologizing but just accepting the bounces, with leafy tops of spring onions sticking out of canvas bags. People are smiling, today they were enjoying the sunshine and what the local gov't refers to as a "blue sky day."

A friend returning to Beijing from studying over in the Bay Area mentioned over dinner how one of the biggest things he missed was Chinese restaurants--not for the food, which he missed, but more for the "busy atmosphere." People having overloud conversations with one another, glasses clinking, chaunr sticks all over the ground, fuwuyuan hurrying between crowded tables, barking orders to one another--in other words, a chaotic mess. The locals, as well as out-of-towners who spend more than just a 60-day tourist visa's worth of time in Beijing, know this scene. At first, you might like the city despite it, but eventually those who stick around, or tourists who want to come back, like China because of the mess.