Our trip to China was my third experience with an all inclusive vacation package. Egypt, Kenya, and now China it all works pretty much the same way. The guide is awesome, well educated, well spoken and there are always really fun and exiting opportunities if you just pay a little more money. When we pay for the trip we tell ourselves, this price which is huge is ok, because it is for everything, we will just need a few dollars for some cheap souvenirs, but then we get there and the guide entices us with once in a life time opportunities. We cave. This time it wasn't as traumatic because we are used to the way it works and ready to part with our money for these opportunities.
On our first night we were offered the opportunity to go out to dinner at a famous restaurant and try Peking Duck. After a long day of sightseeing we didn't think that a couple of hours in a fancy restaurant was a good idea for Lily, so Mandy and I went to get the duck while Jeff stayed back with Lily. Jeff and Lily ended up hooking up with another couple and their baby and they all went to the Hard Rock Café by taxi. So Mandy and I got a chance to go out without Lily and Jeff. Our guide, David (not his real name-this is his tour guide name, something we can pronounce, all my tour guides have had a tour guide name another similarity) he told us how this restaurant was very famous and two hundred years old. This is where heads of states and the rich and famous go to eat Peking Duck. Brushing shoulders with the rich and famous, that is what Mandy and I were off to do. Everyone dines in a private room, so if there was someone famous there, I didn't see them, still we ate the same food.
David explained to us several times the traditional way in which Chinese food is served. I never got the chance to hear the whole story, traveling with Miss Lily is not inductive to hearing everything the guide tells you. From what I heard every meal starts with something cold, goes on to the meat and veggies and then ends with some soup. There is more to it than that, but I missed it. Anyways we were going to be treated to many different parts of the duck, the liver, pancreases, feet, brain etc.
We sat down at the round table with the Lazy Suzan in the middle of the table. The table began to fill with appetizers, cold, including some pate. But, first we were invited to try a shot of Chinese liquor, 54% alcohol. It was quite smooth. Then there was Chinese red wine and Chinese beer, by the time I started eating I was quite warm and fuzzy. I love to eat a meal with a bit of a buzz, it was lovely. Poor Mandy tried all that food stone cold sober. She is so tall they put the liquor in front of her but she passed it all to me. I only had my share, you know the diet. I tried a little bit of everything they put on the table. Once in a life time opportunity. It was the best food I have ever eaten. I can't compliment it enough. The presentation and the taste was wonderful.
At this point it was time for the main event. A whole roasted duck was brought into the room on a separate table and the chef carved it up right in front of us. When I say whole duck I mean whole duck, head, beak, feet. The carving was amazing to watch, but the eating was out of this world. This is the part where we got those crêpes, some onion, some duck sauce and ate the quintessential meal of the evening. I only had one, a small one, but it was amazing. It was quite hard not to eat about 5 of these, but even full of liquor I refrained. As this course was winding down, David came by and offered to take me across the street to a fruit stand.
On the bus that day I had seen several fruit stands and asked David if he could direct me to one from our hotel. I was thinking with Lily's food allergies it would be nice to buy some bananas. I could bring a banana with me anywhere and have something handy for her to eat. We still had two more days of sightseeing ahead of us. David had told me there was a market very close to our duck restaurant and he would take me there. He offered to take other people from our group. My husband's commander was a part of our tour group and she went along with us. I thought that was very kind. David walks very fast. Even with my wicked hard body I had trouble keeping up.
This was a very busy part of Beijing, after dark. We crossed the street at an underground sidewalk. Walking as fast as we could to keep up with David. Still a bit tipsy from the food and liquor. Across the street we walked past tons of people, everyone was briskly walking here and there. Then we walked past an old man with a little girl, sitting on a blanket with a collection plate in front of them. They were very dirty. The plate had a bit of money on it, not much but a bit. The little girl was Lily's size. She was obviously starving and very dirty. She was staring out into space not really moving or looking at the busy people hurrying past. We slowed a little to take it in. David was still going along at a brisk pace, the Major was on his heels. Mandy and I hurried past and caught up with them. The fruit stand was a half a block in the distance and we lost track of the beggar and the little girl in our thoughts as we picked out some bananas, Mandy picked some strawberries and we paid our money. David took us a different way back to the restaurant, we three got back on our bus and waited while David went to round up the rest of the group.
We waited for about 20 minutes, or so it seemed. Mandy and I started to discuss the little girl. Mandy wanted to pick her up and take her home. She wanted to give them money. She wanted to give them the bananas at the very least. I tried to explain to her how I feel. I feel that if we were to give that old man money, we would be rewarding his exploitation of that little girl, he would continue to starve her and continue to use her to get money. If he is able to make a living this way, he will continue to sit on the sidewalk and beg. Best not to encourage that type of behavior, best to force him to find another way to make a living. And what about the little girl's mom. As I told Mandy all this, I looked in her eyes and I felt ashamed.
My whole ideology shifted there on that bus. Here I am fat and lazy eating duck and drinking liquor. I have a purse full of money that I am going to squander away on useless trinkets. I walked past a starving child and closed my heart, forgot her almost immediately. I can't save every starving child, but I could have given that girl a meal, I could have made a difference to her in that moment. I couldn't change her life, but I could have helped her to sleep well with a full belly on that night. And I didn't.
Every time we go on one of these adventures, it changes me. I have been forever changed by a duck, a banana and a beggar.
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