The New Ping'an
Take a walk on the wide side

So you walked the Great Wall. And you frolicked through the Forbidden City. Maybe even meandered with a Minaudiere amidst the mighty Ming Tombs.

Congratulations. You know a little about China, but chances are, nothing at all about Beijing. You can spend a lifetime searching exotic corners and ancient cubbyholes or instead, just take a walk down the street.

"The common man marvels at uncommon things; the wise man marvels at the commonplace.

"Confucius' dictum in mind, Beijing This Month's tour team set out from Dongsishitiao Dajie east to west right across the city to Chengongzhuang down the newly widened Ping'an Avenue.

Our five-hour mission to seek out new work the developers had done unto the avenue ended up taking all of a day as professionalism obliged us to record every detail.

We walked in and out of just about every door along the way solely for you, the virgin reader. More than a few people told us to get out, go away or generally mind our own business.

But still we walked on, walked on with a song in our hearts. And this is what we found.

First stop, the Wholesale Building (Pi Fa Da Lou) at 21 Dongsishitiao. This very gray, completely nondescript building defines this tour. It's the kind of monotonous monolith any foreigner in his right mind would pass by without a second glance at the indecipherable Chinese characters.

And what a fool that foreigner might be. For if it's wholesale toiletries and bathroom products you're after, this is Fragrant City. Stocking up on soapy fixin's has never been so easy.

A box of 48 liang mian zhen (125 gram) toothpaste tubes for 36 yuan makes an ideal stocking filler and 40 rolls of White Cat toilet paper at only 5 yuan 6 jiao ought to be enough for anyone.

Laden with sweet smells, we set a course for further fapiao. Incidentally, this store delivers.

Next door, the Dao Jia Chang Restaurant, is a new place only 50 meters from the Dongsishitiao flyover (Dongsishitiao Qiao) on the north side of road. We spent an hour or so here.

It's one of those increasingly popular "traditional old Beijing"-style restaurants and to get straight to the point, we loved it. The "Dao Jia Chang" (Come home and have a try) is run by the owner of the previous "Tang Ren Jia" (Chinatown's home restaurant), which was torn down at the end of last year to make way for the avenue's reconstruction.

Last time we went, it was packed. Waiters yell the number of guests and take you to your table. Owner Lin Xuefeng gave us the lowdown on how to address the dudes at the tables.

"Er" is for waiters who serve the dishes, do the menu, or present the bill. "San'r" or "Si'r" is what to call the tea servers, who all are all courteous, well-trained and loud, very loud.

We recommend the 8 kuai zha jiang mian, which comes in four sauces, fungus, egg, pork, eggplant and tomato. Cold dishes include the spice-is-right jie mo dun'r, cabbage with mustard at 6 yuan. Men su yu (stewed and pickled fish is 12 yuan, dou jiang (beans, beancurd, carrot chips with starch costs 6 yuan.

For hot dishes, try yang you chao ma dou fu (fried bean and bean powder) at 8 yuan, zheng mi fen rou (pork steamed with ground glutinous rice) at 12 yuan, cong bao yang rou (mutton with spring onion) at 16 yuan. A kind of Beijing 'lazy dragon' dim sum lan long are 5 yuan each.

Any authentic Beijing experience ought to include the disgusting dou zhi'r, said by manager Wang Ligang to be the best in Beijing. "Many foreigners come here especially for the dou zhi'r they knew from our previous Tang Ren Jia restaurant," he claimed. Add: 23 Dongsishitiao.

It's important to pick any old store and the best one we stopped at was the Jingdezhen Porcelain Store, selling products from the Jingdezhen Chengguan Porcelain Factory. The shop opened for business in December.

More porcelain products will be brought from the famous factory in Jingdezhen, the "capital of porcelain" dating back to the Song Dynasty (961-1234).

By lucky chance, the factory director Wu Jihuan was in town at the time and proudly talked us through his wares. He suggested the best buy for foreigners was the thin blue and white porcelain. We thoroughly enjoyed browsing, and didn't break a thing.

Further down the road is a grand entrance to the former Duan Qirui Government Office, which tourists are not supposed to enter and of course only a very rude person indeed would just walk right in.

What makes this place so important is not that it is the Book and Document Center of the People's University, but that it is original site of the warlord Duan Qirui's interim government office in 1924.

On March 18, 1926, there was a demonstration here to protest the Japanese invasion of Manchuria(man zhou li). When the demonstrators team reached here, things turned nasty. Guards started shooting and 47 people died, with about 200 injured. A plaque on the wall marks the spot.

In 1992, this beautiful building was listed as the Dongcheng Juvenile Patriotism Educational Base. We don't know why. Proof if it were ever needed of China's opening up is the Beijing WJW Obesity Center, on the opposite side of the road. The center attacks flab by means of massage, adjusting the functions of the stomach to ease hunger and fatigue.

Since founding its first center in Xi'an, the center says it has successfully treated 10,049 people. Price: 624 yuan below 85 kilograms, 12 treatments. It's 120 yuan extra for every extra 10 kilograms.

So far, Ping'an had impressed us, but we wanted the word on the street.

We got that word at number 45 Dianmen Dajie, where Granny Li and Granny Yang told us about their home, a traditional siheyuan courtyard.

The courtyard was formerly the home of the doorkeeper of the emperor's treasury, surnamed Li. After liberation, he sold his house to the government, just before the Communists started to confiscate the property of rich people owning more than 50 rooms.

He used the money to buy another two courtyards somewhere near Gulou. Li was luck to have died before Cultural Revolution (1966-76). The courtyard is now the dormitory of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"I used to work with the granddaughter of the treasury keeper Li at Beijng Textile Factory. That's how I know the story," said Granny Li. It was just too impolite to ask for a full name.

Granny Zhang pointed to an old tree at another corner: "I had a beautiful house before, but unfortunately it was torn down for the reconstruction of street.

"It had two beautiful mendun'r. I don't know where they are now. It's a pity to lose it, but I think maybe it's worth the sacrifice for such a beautiful street.

"I got two beautiful tiles from my old house. I saw them on TV showing off the ancient tiles, but the two I kept are much better than them. I have to keep them for my granddaughter. She is an art student," she said. Granny Zhang now lives at Chaoyangmen.

About two thirds of the way along we passed the north side of the beautiful Beihai Park and the south entrance to Shichahai, which on any other day would have been our journey's end. We hesitated, bewitched at the prospect of bicycling or boating around two of the most beautiful places in Beijing.

But this was no tour of the extraordinary. Any fool can duck around the guidebook sites and regular readers of this magazine ought to be familiar with these places by now. We stuck to our game plan and we did not stray from the path. We took the road less traveled and the allusion did us good.

The aforementioned parks are famously romantic, but Beijing families already know what foreigners have been missing for decades: the National Children's Activity Center, with its fairground rides and silly statues, is good old-fashioned fun. There's even a sports center and gallery. We stepped into the funky Science Palace (8.30am-4.30pm) and found they were running regular pottery classes. We figured we'd write it all down for you, just in case you fancied your hand.

A pottery training course costs 80 yuan, with materials at 40 yuan. The
course runs 8:30am-11:30am every day.

The center is only a minute or two from our final destination. The Chegongzhuang Dajie Stop may be about as interesting as the front page of a daily official newspaper, but as any Beijinger might tell you, if it wasn't duller than dishwater, then that would be truly disconcerting.