Smells Like... China

So one of the things about Beijing being a gigantic Asian city is that everything is very tightly packed.  There are tons of little hole-in-the-wall places to shop and eat.  From a foodie perspective, this is pretty great albeit a little overwhelming.  My dining adventures are generally limited by my vocabulary and the servers' ability to comprehend my point and gesture method of ordering food (Step1: Point to mouth. Step2: Rub belly).  Couple that nonsense with the inability to determine which of the million restaurants are actually decent and you can start seeing my dilemma.  I mostly rely on word of mouth recommendations from co-workers or other expats in the know and as a result I've had the opportunity to chow down on some excellent meals.  The only downside is that almost all my clothes now smell like food.

For the record, and I'm sure this comes as no surprise to you, Beijing has a particular smell.  Quipped a DC-based teammate, HotSexyDisco, on his recent visit here: "It tastes like... burning."  And that's not far from the truth.  The combination of smog, sewage, exhaust fumes, and cigarettes can be a constant source of nausea for the weak-stomached or deathly hungover.  If you go to a bar that allows smoking, be prepared to leave smelling like you've been rolling around in an ashtray.  You'll have the burn marks to prove it too as you'll inevitably bump into the business end of a cigarette multiple times in a crowd 'Jing bar.  If you're walking up a stairwell in any building, there will be at least one person smoking between you and your destination.  And even if it's 8am and you're groggily walking to the office, wiping the sleep from your eyes, you'll have to bat away the fumes from mopeds, scooters, cars, buses, hobos, and (of course) cigarettes.  I don't think I've ever hated smoking and air pollution more than after I moved to this city.

Adding to the urban musk you develop from walking around here, you also wear a little bit of what you eat too.  Close-quarters dining in your neighborhood restaurants can have you smelling like the dishes you ordered.  And no matter how delicious my meal was, I generally don't like smelling like it when I get home.  Ventilation systems and big open dining rooms, much like centralized air/heat, are really more of a luxury here than anything else; a helpful, yet ultimately ignored suggestion.  Often you'll dine only a few feet away from where your meal was cooked, which means you always get a hot meal served to you quickly but also means you smell a bit greasy after only a few minutes in a restaurant.  There are plenty of places with large dining spaces and even some with decent ventilation, but a majority of the meals that I consume are in the divey-er places in town keeping true to my natural dirtbag tendencies.  And normally, I don't complain about being a dirtbag (when I'm sober), but as I'm turning over a new leaf in an attempt to be more civilized and this sometimes necessitates clean, odorless laundry.  And as I mentioned in my last post, my washing machine is missing a few key parts and is out of commission.  So now I have a stack of smelly-ass clothes, a rapidly dwindling supply of clean underwear, and nowhere to conveniently wash them.  I fear a relapse back to my booze-hounding, hobo-fighting, Dirty McDirtbag days aren't far away....

Famous Duck Fixin's at Da Dong.  No dirtbags allowed.