Downtown Beijing bustles with life

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 6 p.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – Live scorpions squirmed while impaled on wooden sticks that sat upright in a bowl atop a counter as a group of workers urged passersby to buy them for a snack.
And if that didn't whet anyone's appetite, then maybe they would want the starfish on a stick, or the sea horses on a stick, or the grashoppers on a stick. And inside the case was squid on a stick along with the more traditional Western favorites as chicken on a stick and beef on a stick.
Welcome to downtown Beijing where hundreds of residents, business people and visitors cram the streets, huge four-story department stores and back alley shops and restaurants everyday looking for a bargain or just taking a break from work or life.
Pam and I joind the crowd on Thursday. We didn't dine on such delicacies as scorpions, starfish, sea horses or grasshoppers. We didn't even go for the chicken, a personal favorite of mine that I could literally eat every day ofgthe week.
We just walked, talked and watched. And it was exciting. This truly is an international city with folks from all over the world including other parts of China, Asia, Europe and the United States. Many are here as tourists, while others are here for the same reason we are: to adopt an abandoned child.
Some people are even here on business – incuding Jay Moon, the head of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association in Jackson who I just happened to literally shock when I ran into him accidentally outside a hotel near downtown Beijing. Talk about conicidence.
Jay and I go back alomost 20 years when he was head of the Community Development Department for the city of Gulfport and I worked for The Sun Herald in Gulfport-Biloxi. Jay, wearing a Mississippi jacket in the chilly afternoon weather, just happened to be in Beijing on a business trip.
Whatever reason people are here, one thing was certain: They enjoyed the thriving life of this historic, huge, growing city. There's an electricuity in the air here and everyone feeds off of it; people are friendly, outgoing and helpful.
Pam and I even found that to be true in the back alleys where we wandered looking for bargains among vendor after vendor displaying his or her crafts. Chinese workers stopped to chat and practice their English; some were excited that we tried to talk to them in Mandarin.
And everyone had something to sell – from classic, floor-legth Chinese dresses to kitschy ceramic and marble paper weights depicting the Great Wall; from caps with braided pony tails in the back to magic tricks that seem complicated but are simple; and from fried fish balls to live grasshoppers.
Welcome to Beijing.



Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino