In the Danger Zone

by Stefan Gates

  Do Not Speak to the Locals

  My guidebook to Beijing leads me to the legendary Quanjude. Abandon hope all ducks who enter here. This place is a veritable temple to roast Peking duck. Sadly, it's also a temple to tourism that's both a marvel and a travesty, an ersatz version of China – a vast corporate slice of tacky pseudo-culture done up in revolutionary red, with crap chandeliers, golden swathes of polyester curtains, gaudy gold fittings, glowing lanterns, women in polyestered traditional costume (offset by wireless order pads) and more roasted ducks than you can shake a chopper at.

  I open the menu and morph into Everytourist, squealing with delight at duck foot webs, grilled duck hearts and 'Authentic Whole Peking Duck'. My heart leaps with joy when I spot braised camel hump. I've never eaten camel's hump before.

  The duck is theatrically carved at our table by a chef/waiter in an absurdly tall chefs hat and a face-mask. He's taciturn and wearily familiar with Western tourists' wide-eyed inquisitiveness, but he's an expert carver, and he chops our duck into the traditional (or so he tells us) 60 individual pieces. It's predictably sweet and crispy for the first few slices, then cloying after that. The fat is great but so rich that it's hard to taste anything else. Luckily I've also ordered a wickedly harsh rice liquor that strips the fat (and a fair portion of epidermis) from my palate so that I can try the duck webs and hearts. The webs are the size of butterflies, slightly rubbery and very cold, as though they've come straight from the fridge, hence they taste of nothing, although the texture is interesting – like edible Marigold gloves. Someone must have had a beast of a time stripping the webs from the legs, and it's a shame because their time seems to have been wasted.

  The braised camel hump comes in chip-sized strips that have been slow-cooked then deep-fried in an eggy batter. They are delicious, a little like Spam, but in a good way. Less delicious are the gelatinous, braised mushrooms served, apparently, in a pond of frog vomit. Yuk.

  Yan Yan and Penny get tipsy on a single beer, while I sink half a bottle of the vicious rice liquor. It's only on the way back to the hotel that I realize what happened to the other half, as Mr Hoo, our driver, hoons down the highways.

  In a spirit of optimism I visit a vegetable market on the outskirts of the city to speak to some of the peasant farmers who drive in overnight with their produce, sleep in the city with their load until it's all sold, then drive home again. I should have known better, though, because when I get there I'm banned from talking to any truck drivers. It wouldn't paint China in a good light, apparently. Why can't I just go and speak to people? I ask Penny.

  'You can't do that in China. It's just not the way it works and we don't want you painting a bad picture of our country.'

  'But it would be a lie to show a sanitized version, wouldn't it? Come on, Penny, this is just a market and a bunch of farmers. You can come to my country and talk to anyone you want.'

  But Penny doesn't get it. This is a country that's hosting the Olympics next year – what are they going to do when a million visitors wander around with their video cameras? What is wrong with these people? It's a f***ing vegetable market, not a military installation.

  We persevere and meet up with the head of the market who, to Penny's exasperation, thinks it's a good chance to shake some hands. He takes us around to see a couple of new market buildings, and I try to speak to a couple of people selling their produce. I ask them where they've come from but the market head stops me and tells the people not to talk to me. 'I was only asking him about his bloody cauliflowers,' I say. But I'm not allowed to film.

  This is ridiculous. I throw a journalist's pointless hissy fit at the market manager, who's bewildered but unimpressed, so I leave. I drop into the fish market, where I can film at will, but no one comes from rural China. I do get the chance to see carp being filleted, though. As soon as they are cut open, their float bladders balloon up and sit there like little fishy inflatables. Interesting, but hardly cutting edge.

  I wander back to the city centre irritable and frustrated. It's not as though I'm asking particularly tricky questions or expecting to see the worst aspects of society – and I'm paying this annoying woman to be with me, so surely she could help me get to a story occasionally rather than just hinder me.

  That night we all visit Little World hotpot restaurant. The system of eating in China is, unlike journalism, very interactive and inclusive, and the hotpot is the perfect example of this. We sit at a table and select from a menu that lists ingredients rather than dishes. We choose a variety of the stranger ones, and the waiter brings a large stockpot divided into two chambers, each filled with a different stock: one chilli hot and the other fragrant. This stockpot is set in a hole in the table, with a gas ring below that will keep it simmering throughout the meal. Into these stocks we throw a handful at a time of chicken gizzards, squid, chrysanthemum stalks, thin-sliced beef, water spinach, shiitake mushrooms, mutton – lettuce, dried bean curd skin, fried bean curd, aubergine with garlic, fish balls and tomatoes. We poach the ingredients to our liking, and scoff them down. Then we throw noodles into the pot to make noodle soup, and by the end of the meal we are stuffed to bursting.

  Mr Hwong

  I fly to Henan Province to try to get a feel for what's happening in rural communities. I hope that I'll be given a freer rein there, away from the power-base of Beijing.

  Oh, how wrong I am.

  I am met almost immediately by Mr Hwong and another minder who have been tasked with ensuring that we don't speak to . . . well, anyone really. It's additionally galling that I have to pay him as well as Penny – I've had to bring her with me and pay for her flights. Hwong drives us to our hotel, but Yan Yan whispers that he's taking us on a roundabout route to make sure that we don't see any poor parts of the city.

  Hwong is good, blaming bureaucracy, shyness of the peasants, and all manner of delays, sudden sicknesses and interference from above for why we can't film . . . anything. Despite holding his arms out wide and claiming we can film anything we want, Hwong's basic attitude is to bore us into submission with red tape so that we just find it easier not to bother. That night I get slaughtered on strong rice liquor with him, and even though my glasses steam up with the liquor fumes, I never lose sight of my new-found enemy.

  It takes quite a while to leave the hotel in the morning – our posse of minders have to bundle into separate cars, swap maps and lay down plans to avoid taking us anywhere that the party deems unacceptable for foreigners to see. The modern facade of prosperous China starts to crack the minute we leave the metropolis and we begin to take in the poverty of rural areas, but filming becomes unpleasant and desperately frustrating. The frustration is orchestrated by Hwong, who has an interesting approach to censorship: whenever I ask him anything he really doesn't like, he ignores me.

  Hwong's task is to stop us filming anything that doesn't fit in with the Party image of a perfect, happy, wealthy country, and the fact that this sort of clumsy censorship makes China look ludicrous simply never occurs to him. Despite taking long, circuitous routes to try to avoid poor neighbourhoods, we spot lots of grim peasant shacks set back from the road, and each time I ask Hwong if we can stop, he doesn't even bother to reply.

  Months before, Yan Yan had set off around Henan finding rural farmers that we could talk to, but she was accompanied throughout by local Communist party officials – and whenever she found someone talkative and interesting, the officials said 'No'. Instead Hwong and his cronies claim to have decided that we can visit a farmer that they've chosen.

  This farmer must be very special because finding him is exceedingly difficult. We meet up with another carload of Communist party officials and everyone consults maps and haggles about exactly where he lives. There are now about 12 minders and officials with us. Eventually we arrive at a laughably cheesy Communist party-run model village. I am unsure why we're here, and my confusion deepens when Hwong drags us off to meet the official in charge of the village, who, for no apparent reason, takes me into a mee
ting-room filled with photos of him shaking hands with various higher-ranking party members.

  I ask Hwong what we're doing here, irritated that we've used up most of a day from our tight schedule, but he assures me we're going to meet a farmer and we're dragged around the ridiculous village, despite my protests. It's a lavish, brutally symmetrical estate of marble-lined houses, and we are led into one particularly smart number where I'm finally introduced to a sweet, smiling lady. I tell her how nice her house is, and how unusual it is for a farmer to live on a smart estate but she looks confused. I ask her what sort of farming she does and she tells me that she works in the office of a state-owned oil company. Aaaargh!

  My head minder doesn't bat an eyelid when I tell him that in Britain, farmers don't usually work in oil companies. Again, I ask Hwong why on earth we are here – we'd asked to meet a farmer. And he mumbles that he thought maybe she used to be a farmer. Then his friend says that people who live outside the cities are all farmers in a funny sort of way. Aaaargh and more aaaargh!

  I am furious. I tell Hwong that he's wasting my time and money and lying to me. He knows damn well that this woman isn't a farmer. He looks at me haughtily, knowing that he is in complete control of the situation and that he can do whatever he likes – can't we see that it's his job to hinder us? My impotent rage isn't helping so I take a breath and try another tack. I'm going to report you to your superiors. He smiles – they will clearly be very pleased at his hampering of our plans. Then I hit on the one thing that makes him quake in his boots: 'You're making yourself look ridiculous – can't you see that we're filming this charade, and we'll go home and make a film about how silly and deceiving you look?'

  That does the trick: his attitude suddenly shifts and he becomes both angry and scared. His official smiling and bureaucratic gerrymandering end abruptly and he finally agrees to take us to a real village the next day.

  On the way back, we visit a restaurant in Henan for some local food. Hwong tries to drag us off to a private room so that we don't see anyone eating, but I insist on sitting in the huge main dining room. We eat sharks' lungs (I didn't realize that they had lungs, but there you go), which are like crispy sponges, and sea slugs, which are so slimy that it's impossible to pick them up with chopsticks, and chicken heads, which are poached and gruesome, but interesting.

  The Great Escape

  Hwong is in a bad mood today, which is fine by me. Again, I am driven on an absurdly long detour through pretty orchards and smartly planted fields. Eventually we arrive at a small village surrounded by rice paddies and fish-farming ponds. I'm dragged straight off to visit the wealthiest family here, and Hwong urges me to cook with them. I politely decline. We are taken to meet someone else – a man who owns a vast picture of Mao. He knows nothing about food, but says that his daughter-in-law is a good cook, and that she could cook for us, but our minder takes him aside and forces him to retract his offer.

  'Why are you stopping us from talking to people?' I ask.

  Hwong says that I can't just stop and talk to anyone.

  'Why not?' I ask – on the first day here he had specifically said we could talk to anyone we want.

  He refuses to discuss it further.

  On the way back to the car I meet a woman walking along the street with a bag of flower buds and ask her what she's doing with them. Hwong tries to stop me from talking to her, but I ignore him and we carry on filming. She's a gorgeous, proud and friendly woman and she says that she's going to cook them for supper. I plead with her to show us how to cook them, drowning out Hwong's objections, and then I practically drag her away from the crowd. She makes the mistake of pointing out where she lives, so I march her across the rice paddies – if Hwong wants to stop us now, he's going to have to physically manhandle me.

  This woman is as close as I'm going to get to meeting a farmer – she has a fish-farming pond and lives in a grimy little shack next to it, although she has another house in the village too. She's the sweetest, loveliest lady, and inside her house I discover her ancient mother and aunt, both of them also beaming with joy and oozing hospitality. Fantastic.

  'Let's cook your flowers,' I say, as Hwong and his cronies arrive to try to stop us. I ignore him and urge her to persevere. The house is dark and ragged, and the kitchen a picture of peasantly poverty, but the women are wonderful and friendly. We wash the blossoms in water, scatter them in rice flour, then steam the whole lot, wrapped in a cotton cloth. After ten minutes, we turn it through to make sure it cooks evenly.

  The event is soured only by the presence of Hwong and his gang. I tell them to go away, but they don't, so I begin to yell at them to leave us alone. They finally retreat when the camera is pointed at them as I'm telling them to stop intimidating the women. They eventually storm back off to the van in a fury. I don't care any more – I am paying them $200 a day to help us. The women are great. I ask them if they would like to move to the model village we saw yesterday. They say no, they want to live here in the countryside.

  The flowers are delicious, like eating steamed jasmine, and our lovely lady packs me off with a huge carrier bag full of them. It's an uplifting moment for me – finally I've seen a tiny bit of rural life – albeit in a pretty wealthy village, and I feel a wave of relief that subdues the rising anger in my gut.

  Hwong is furious, and he tells me that I shouldn't just talk to anyone I want to. 'Why can't I talk to people?' I ask.

  'Because they don't give a fair picture of China.'

  'Why not? They are real people – you just want me to interview the wealthiest party members – what kind of reality is that?'

  I'm feeling mischievous now, so as all the minders stomp off towards the cars, I ask Ruhi to hang back, and when they all round a corner, we both leg it up a side road like little kids, excited at the inevitable prospect of being caught. We spot a woman in a run-down house surrounded by goats – she waves at us. Then we are beckoned over by another woman who is feeding her kids outside a little shack by the road. We're hampered by our lack of a translator, but she offers us tea and proudly shows off her two boys, then takes us into her kitchen to offer us some of the dumplings she's steaming for supper. At this point, our minders find us and storm into the room, yelling that we can't just enter anyone's kitchen.

  'Why?' I ask.

  'Because the woman might be offended.'

  I explain that she had invited us in, and Hwong is speechless. He marches us back to the car. On the way, I pass a group of beautiful, ancient men sitting smoking outside a house, and try to speak to them.

  'No!' shouts Hwong.

  I decide not to pursue this last one in case Hwong tries to confiscate our tapes.

  The drive back to the hotel is gloriously tortuous, and Hwong's anger is written all over his irritating face. I feel jubilant.

  When we get back to the hotel, the two local minders take Yan Yan and Penny aside and give them a thorough roasting, saying that we were being rude by running away from them. You bet we were. Yan Yan is scared – they have clearly threatened her in some way. She says that she's worried because she has to come back to work in China, and these Party members are powerful people – they could cause big problems for her. It's a dilemma – I don't want anyone to get in trouble but on the other hand I'm spending a large amount of the BBC's money to give a fair, unbiased view of modern China, and these people are stopping me. I can't just let myself be dragged around the show homes of China.

  When the time comes to leave for our flight back to Beijing, Hwong is terrified that I will try to cut loose and film something I shouldn't, so he insists on escorting us to the airport. I interview him in the van, asking why he wouldn't let us film anything in Henan. He says he wants to make sure we showed the best of it. I ask why he's so scared of us filming the place on our own, and he says that if he came to London as a friend, we would want to show him our hospitality. I say that although I wouldn't class him as a friend, if he came to London I'd show him around, and then he can go off and see
whatever he wants – there's nothing to hide. He ignores me.

  Just before we check in, I find an extraordinary cartoon in the government-controlled China Daily, which shows a party official putting a smart new model of a house over a peasant's shack. It couldn't have been a more perfect parody of what Hwong had tried to do. I show him the cartoon and I ask if it reminds him of anything. A look of terror crosses his face and he backs away from me. His stumble turns into a run, and eventually he dashes right out of the airport, with me running after him, demanding to know what the cartoon means. He gets into the van and drives off, with a rictus grin still spread across his face.

  Meat and Two Veg

  Back in Beijing I visit Guo-li-zhuang restaurant. There's no point beating about the bush: this place is a cock-and-bollock joint, a specialist penis and testicle emporium that caters mainly to wealthy businessmen and Communist party officials (who are often one and the same, truth be told). It offers every conceivable John Thomas you could ever want, which probably isn't very many, but nonetheless, their menu is extensive and impressive. The place looks like a smart kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine) formal restaurant, complete with underfloor stream, secluded separate dining rooms and hushed, discreet staff. I have come determined to avoid euphemisms – we're making a current affairs programme after all – but I'll admit the temptation is strong.

  I ask a chef to show us the preparation of a penis first so that I can get a feel for the process. He enters holding aloft an eye-wateringly large yak's knob. It's about 45cm long, but thin, so thin. It's been boiled gently and – I can't believe I'm writing this – peeled, except for a hunk of foreskin still clinging on to the end. He cuts the thing in half lengthways with a pair of scissors. As he chops through the very tip of this impressive member, I get an undeniable empathy twitch in my own penis and a bizarre feeling of nausea in my groin (I didn't think that groins could experience nausea). I can't help myself yelping in sympathy. He then uses a knife to make hundreds of little snips along the side of the penis and chops these into 5-cm long pieces. When these are dropped into boiling stock they curl up into little flower shapes that are so incongruous, I can barely believe my eyes.