I was writing not so long ago (see “The Art of Baguette”) about the fact that I find amazing the lunches in Provence, with barbecue all the time and fresh salads and baguette of course. I had also praised for a long time what I call “the Art of Leisure” in most of the Mediterranean Europe which consists of drinking a good coffee and chatting with friends all day long; something that I haven’t found in North America and that I miss very much.

Well I found it very much in China. The cliché of Chinese people hurrying all the time to “work more to earn more” (as our dear president Sarkozy loves to say) is really just a cliché. People are just hanging around, chilling, having nice time, drinking beer and having street barbecues everynights! It is absolutely wonderfull! And it’s great food for almost nothing (ok sometimes it can be a bit weird, but still)!

I feel absolutely respectful toward their ability of enjoying… life! That’s something that is too often forgotten in our mighty and so developed Occidental World!

And that’s without even mentionning the dancing! But this is for tomorrow (I have been invited to dance lessons by a Chinese grandma…).

Beijing Blast...

Yes, I though myself prepared but it was a blast. People are just crazy here, as the above picture shows fairly well… But the fact is that I had really forgotten about Beijing since last year. Yet I could not stop thinking that there was something else; and I remembered a phrase that I heard many times last summer: “because of the Olympics!” Yes, because of the Olympics Beijing was sleeping last year, probably because everyone had been kicked out for the summer holidays.

This times the Wudakou neighborhood is bustling with life and street vendors of all kind and food smelling all sorts of… flavors, for the best and the worst. But it is amazing how the sidewalks are crowded with T-shirts racks and handicrafts and weights and pots and toys and all what you could ever think about.

So the usual unthinkable mix of a high tech Wudakou (Google and Microsoft have their offices here) and Bangkok style mess is quite funny. And Chinese people have a particular custom to be strange, so the result is brilliant. For example the guy on the photo just above wearing his Cowboy hat with all the assurance of a Cowboy, in Wudakou… I really love it.

And as I was taking my little pictures as a good tourist I met my new Uighur friend, from Kashgar. When he told me he was from there I jumped on the discussion telling that I was going there in a couple of weeks. We then talked for about half an hour; he offered me a cigarette, of course, and he told me that he was soon coming back because he couldn’t find a proper place to stay since people here refuse to rent a room to Uighurs… I feel I’ll have a lot to talk about in there! Anyways, he taught me a couple of sentences in Uighur, such Assalai Alaikum (same as Arabic for ‘Peace upon You’).