Bengfort.com

I was going to write about this a month ago when it happened, just never got around to it. I’m going to make an effort to write more blogs, even if they are short, poorly written and done on my lunch break. So here it goes:

The weather is getting warmer, and the government is doing something right, because Beijing has had an unprecedented beautiful spring. In the past there has been one week of nice weather, and then it just gets hot, stinky and muggy as summer descends on the city, prompting tubby middle age men to walk around with their shirts up to show off their summer figure… a nice round potbelly.

This year however, has been wonderful. Today is a balmy 70 degrees with crisp breeze and blue, blue sky. It’s amazing. Well, a month ago on one of these amazing days, my friend Pete had a BBQ at his place. He lives on the first floor, and has a little balcony attached to his bedroom, outside of which is a little fenced in patch of green. The public generally can’t access this patch of green, but since Pete’s balcony looks out over it, and we are on the first floor, it is perfectly easy to get over the balcony railing and just be outside on the grass. We figure this is the perfect place to have an outdoor grill.

The grill, two grills actually, were placed outside, literally two feet away from his balcony, and the grill masters get to work lighting it. Everything is going smoothly, we have it lit, and are just waiting for the flames to die down before we begin cooking the massive amounts of meat we prepared (I made a special tandoori chicken marinade). Then, all of a sudden, a guard notices us. There are guards manning every entrance to every housing complex. They are poor, uneducated people with a boring, useless job, so the chance to disrupt a foreigner’s party was a pretty welcome break from the doldrum of their normal purposeless occupation. The guard gets into the green space, and tells us that we can’t BBQ here. We ask where we can BBQ. The guard gets on his walkie talkie and asks someone. Another guard appears. Second guard says, I don’t know, you just can’t barbecue here. At this point, one of our Chinese friends comes to save the day, but she kind of makes the situation worse. She says, “why can’t we BBQ?” The answer is “it’s not allowed.” She asks “Why?” they say, it’s just not allowed. “Why?” It isn’t safe. “Why?” Because of the big flames. We look at the BBQ and it is just smoldering charcoal. There isn’t a flame. “So it’s not safe, that’s why we can’t BBQ?” The answer “Yes, it is not safe, so it isn’t allowed.” She replies “Well, where can we BBQ then?” The guard then says, if you put the grill on your balcony, then it will be okay, you just can’t BBQ here on this little green patch.” Reply: “but..if we put it on our balcony, won’t that be more dangerous, because it is closer to the building, and you are asking us to lift up two hot grills over a balcony railing. Isn’t that definitely more dangerous? Silence from the guards, and then “It just isn’t allowed to BBQ here. But you can BBQ on your balcony.”

Hence, going against all rationality, reason and safety, we moved two burning hot grills up over a 3 foot railing and onto the tiny little balcony to grill from there. Two feet from where we were previously, and probably much less safe. China.