July 13 C

...in to have tea with Mr. Wong.

Ni hao, Mr. Wong!
This was Mr. Wong's living area. Through a curtain to the left was his bedroom.

Our rickshaws stopped and we were ushered into an entrance way inside the wall of the compound. A little bit inside of the entrance way, Mr. Wong met us at the door of his living area. There were cookies and tea waiting on us.

Nancy translated for us as we asked him questions about his life and about living in the Hutong Village. Until 2008, his home had been heated with coal. I made the comment that he'd seen many changes in his lifetime to which he answered (Nancy translated) that he "liked it better during the Chairman Mao times because everybody was equal then. People, now, have gotten selfish."  (An opinion held by the "older generation" Nancy would tell us later, implying that the younger generations were "not so much" when it came to the Chairman.)

Mr. Wong had been a restaurant chef in his days before he retired and began having tea with tourists on the Hutong Village Tour so he took us across the small common area "street" to see his kitchen.  (Above his kitchen, accessible by stairway, he'd built a "bedroom" -more like a small building on stilts- for his daughter.)

Mr. Wong's kitchen.  Notice the running water in his sink in the picture below.  This is a very big deal in an area where indoor plumbing is a hard thing to come by.  Nancy told us that Mr.Wong still cooks for tons of people from inside of this wonderful kitchen.

Mr. Wong, a true treasure! Ding ding how!

Mr. Wong's neighbor's door (and window, below.) California Dude asked him, what do you do if you have a disagreement with one of your neighbors since you live so close to them (and there are so many of them)?  He answered, "You just have to get along."

 Here are some pictures of the market near where Mr. Wong lives in the Hutong Village:

Down front, those are bags of noodles.

All of this food had made me hungry and it was a good thing because California Dude and California Chick had invited us out to eat Peking Duck since we were, of course, in Peking!

(I forgot my camera! Egads! So, these were taken with my camera phone.)

Just a bunch of hungry tourists waiting anxiously on our food.

This thing, besides having a beautiful presentation, left me in quite a conundrum:  How to Eat Peas with Chopsticks (not easy!) Out of a Spoon? The irony of it was awesome. We sorta giggled to ourselves about the proper way to handle this situation until Cal Dude said, "I know what I'm gonna do," unstuck the spoon from the plate and stuck the whole thing in his mouth. Thank god! I did the same.  They were yummy.

Peking Duck, brought to your table, carved, and served- oh, delicious!!!!

Not long after this we all escaped to our hotel and crashed. Not a moment too soon.