DPRK: Prelude in Beijing, Lunch with Mr Liu

When we had all gathered we immediately split up again. Some of us had booked a tour of the Hutongs, the narrow alleyways that are the back streets of Beijing. Others were off to see the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium; others had their own individual plans. Those of us off to the Hutongs were taken by bus and dropped off in a small square where a row of pedal rickshaws were waiting.

First however we had a lunch. For this we were led into what appeared to be somebody's house. I wasn't very hungry so I just had a single bottle of beer while the others ate what seemed to be a very nice meal. As lunch was finishing we were joined by a local guide, a rather loud and confident young woman, and by Mr Liu, a man who though now retired was once a figure of some importance in the world of Singing Crickets and Fighting Grasshoppers. Mr Liu was a gap-toothed and weather-beaten elderly man carrying a rather odd assortment of items. His fame as a breeder of insects was readily apparent from the number of books he showed us featuring pictures of him with some of his prize specimens. Apparently, so our translator informed us, he was also famous for holding a record for cooking dumplings.

He showed us the tools of his trade: a fighting bowl, a living bowl complete with a separate connubial chamber, a long thin feeding spoon, a long flat (yet oddly delicate) cricket pooper-scooper, a long thin brush to encourage recalcitrant insects into the aforementioned connubial chamber.
Most intriguing were a set of miniscule scales for ensuring that the grasshoppers were fighting in the right weight class.
Someone asked, via our translator, how they knew who had won a fight. It seems that they operate not so much a "last-cricket-standing" as a "last-cricket-not-eaten" principal.
As he talked, Mr Liu bounced around the room with irrepressible energy, swooping and leaping like some demented thing. His enthusiasm was manic, his patter at a Gatling-gun speed that taxed the translator's abilities to the full. I felt worn out just watching him.

When he was finished he packed everything away - two ornate earthenware jars containing a grasshopper each vanishing into pockets in a trick worthy of Tommy Cooper.
It was fascinating but when I thought back to it later it reminded me of the last of the Rocky movies. In that film, Rocky is retired and running a restaurant. He is a convivial host, joining in with the guests, signing autographs and recounting tales of his past glories. Mr Liu seemed a little like that; a man who has seen some glory days and some acclaim now endlessly retelling his past for the tourists.
I felt a little sad at the idea.

Afterwards we went back into the square and into those bicycle rickshaws. They pedalled off down the streets and we sat back eager to see the famed Hutongs. I'm not sure what we had expected but what we got was a bit of a disappointment. The route led us through dull grey streets with dull grey walls. We stopped once at a gate but we didn't go through it, just looked at it. Finally we stopped at a market. It was predominantly a small local food market and not terribly interesting though it was, as markets almost always are, a good place to take pictures.