T A B L E_T A L K

Visitors to Japan share their cultural experiences in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

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__________OFF THE TOURIST TRACK, CHINA'S CAPITAL
__________OFFERS A WEALTH OF DAILY PLEASURES -- FROM
__________BIRD-LOUD MORNING MARKETS TO OLD PEOPLES'
__________AFTER-HOUR DANCE PARTIES.

BY CARRIE KIRBY | A few years ago, if you were a tourist in China, you were basically a prisoner of the state tourism agency. You stayed in overpriced, foreigner-only hotels, ate in restaurants with the same restrictions, and were chauffeured from sanitized historical attractions to model factories, all the while insulated from "the real China."

Now all those rules are gone, and the only restriction on a traveler is his or her own timidity. The best thing any visitor can do is walk out of the hotel, shake off the tour group and venture onto Beijing's streets alone.

If you don't speak Chinese, don't worry. Unlike some nationalities, the Chinese are anxious to communicate any way they can with foreigners. If you try to speak some Chinese, they will love you.

Get up early -- the noise will probably wake you anyway, and the best daylight comes just after dawn, before the smog settles in. Even if it's still dark, you will hear the rumble of horse-drawn carts coming into town and the nagging recorded bus lady, endlessly repeating in Chinese, "Boarding passengers, welcome ..."

As you step onto the street, be careful not to get hit by one of the legions of bicycles -- and if you are hit, don't expect any sympathy. I was run into once, and the biker just glared at me and rode off, while bystanders almost fell down laughing.

Take in the big groups of morning exercisers on the sides of the road. In time to an ancient tape recording, old ladies and well-dressed office workers, side-by-side, stretch and jog in place. Go to a park and you'll see old men hanging up their bird cages in the trees and settling down for a day of listening to their songs and playing go. Buy a Coke and stand at the booth drinking it (you have to give back the bottle when you're done). Notice how Beijing always employs three people when one would suffice: When you entered the park, one lady sold you a 3-cent ticket, while another took the ticket and tore it, then handed it to a third lady for disposal.

Follow the sound of roosters crowing into one of the little alleyways that hide inside Beijing's most modern city blocks. One of the cool things about Beijing is that you can pass a neon billboard hawking mobile phones, duck into a hutong (narrow lane) and step into another century. Some of these alleys hold morning markets with so many varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables that you can't believe China is still a communist country -- no bread lines here. Little old ladies use empty wooden baby carriages as shopping carts and bargain away the morning.

China's leaders have proclaimed a commitment to marketizing the economy, but in the back streets, the work is already done. It seems like every family has some kind of business going, if not a little kitchen store, then a "public" phone using their household line. (Since people still far outnumber phones in Beijing and the official public coin phones only take denominations of coins that almost no one has, these phones are very popular.)

The low brick houses that line the back streets are cramped, so families have to bring their living outside, year-round. Don't bother averting your eyes if you see a grandma helping a 2-year-old balance while he pees on the street -- they'll both be staring at your foreign nose anyway. Besides, privacy is not one of the Western concepts that has leaked into China. Kids even walk around with their bottoms exposed, summer and winter, because diapers are not customary in China.

Accept that you will be gawked at. In fact, people will shout at you: "Hello!" or "Laowai!" (Foreigner!) Remember that foreigners were completely driven out of China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and even though Beijing has a substantial foreign population, the city is full of migrant workers from rural parts of China. At major tourist attractions such as the Forbidden City, you will undoubtedly be asked to pose for pictures with people from other parts of China. Take it as permission to stare back, because the people are the most interesting sights in Beijing.

Stop at a sidewalk noodle shop for lunch. A big bowl of pulled-out knife-cut noodles with chunks of beef goes for about 60 cents. The proprietor is likely to be a southerner living in Beijing illegally (city residence papers are difficult to obtain). If you speak Chinese, he will probably insist that your Mandarin is better than his, since people from other provinces learn the Beijing dialect as a second language.

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