Susan Jackson

My obsession with ice cream dates back rather far—like, to the womb. When this bun was in the oven, my mother made so many trips to Steve’s Ice Cream for vanilla frappes that the employees gave her matching Steve’s t-shirts for us to sport once the stork finally dropped me off—all 9+ pounds of me. (Must have been before frozen yogurt hit the scene.) So naturally, one of my favorite things to do is scout out ice cream, and fortunately, Beijingers love it. In a city where summer temps can push into the 90s, there is no shortage of places to grab a bottle of cold tea and an ice cream pop.

If you’ve dined in a Chinese restaurant in America, you might think the Chinese sweets department is limited to pineapple chunks and fortune cookies. While it’s true that cakes, cookies, and pastries are not very prevalent, ice cream pops abound here and satisfy my periodic dessert cravings.

On a hot day, one of my favorite sights is the photo of a girl in a bright yellow “Abercrombif & and Titch” t-shirt smiling at me from the side of one of the city’s ubiquitous ice cream freezers. I’ve worked my way through most of the flavor options and have a recommendation if there are any U.S.-based ice cream novelty makers reading this—more hidden treats! My favorite pop to date, the cookie surprise (as I’ll call it since I can’t read Chinese characters), presents itself in an unassuming way. Covered in a standard crunchy chocolate shell, it looks similar to a Nestle Crunch ice cream bar. Inside though, the thing is a non-stop party of layered goodness. The fun starts with a large chocolate chunk on top and continues right on down to swaths of cookie, something gooey, and something yellow (which doesn’t sound appetizing, but is. Just go with me on this.)

While cookie surprise is a champ ready for export, the strongest contender for most unusual, hands down, is the corn pop. The pale yellow ice cream surrounded by a thin, rigged wafer legitimately looks like an ear of corn on a stick, and tastes like just like the butter that would drip down your arms from a piece at a summer barbecue. It is decent for the first few bites, but pretty intense to finish. Don’t forget to floss afterwards.

What corn ice cream mention would be complete without a bean ice cream mention? (They’re great together in chili after all.) Next up on the tasting list is something that looks remotely like a cousin of Pizza the Hut from the Mel Brooks classic, Spaceballs. A volcanic eruption of shaved ice topped with beans, fruit, and/or something gelatinous, it should be interesting. I’ll keep you posted.

Now, to gather all the people I know who like a scoop of bean-corn vanilla next to their chocolate chip cookie dough…

UPDATE: While this little beauty on the right may resemble a pile of cat vomit, it actually tasted awesome. Who knew that when red beans cheated on rice with ice, an equally delicious food would emerge. We could identify the red beans and shaved ice, as well as two kinds of tapioca balls and that flan-ish top hat, but the other ingredients are a mystery. A delicious mystery.

At the conclusion of the somewhat violent, yet satisfying, experience that was my first Chinese massage, I had a choice to make. My masseur brought a yellow plastic box into the room as the other masseur jabbed a final few fingers into Crysty’s back. Both started pointing to the box, and it didn’t take me long to say, “Yeah!” after one slid the lid off to reveal two dozen small, globe-shaped glass jars. We were about to be cupped.

Now, at this point, I wasn’t sure about the exact health benefits of cupping, but did know that fire, suction, and round purple bruises were in my future. Illogically enough, I popped my thumbs up, smiled, and rolled over to have the bad juju sucked out of me. My post-suck research uncovered that cupping is a form of acupressure used to improve circulation, and treat a host of ailments.

Pre-suck, the masseur fired-up the insides of each globe, creating low-pressure areas that would latch onto and pull our skin upwards into the glass. Minutes later, Crysty and I were outfitted to play a pair of dinosaurs on The Jetsons. After we snapped a few awkward photos and giggled a bit, the masseurs removed each cup with a thwunk sound and we skedaddled to discuss whether or not we felt any different than when we arrived.

It is honestly difficult to say whether or not the mild soreness I’m now experiencing in my back is from the intense massage, the cupping bruises, or both, but I’m not unhappy about it. The practice is thousands of years old and wouldn’t still be around if it…sucked.

A converted industrial area, Beijing’s 798 district houses more contemporary art galleries, book stores, and cafes than anyone could visit in one day, but we still tried. For me, casually wandering from gallery to gallery stirred up many questions about contemporary China, freedom, and expression. I don’t know much about art, but there was no end to my fascination with most of what I saw in 798. Though subversive, it was first time I encountered something in China that could be considered contrary to the status quo. It was refreshing to see a scratch in the veneer of perfect contentment, however small.

The Fifth Element Gallery housed the pieces that struck me the most. Artist Xiao Se’s paintings featured a common theme of distorted, anime faces, stark landscapes, subtle jabs at technology, and broken or stitched-up apples—an element I don’t quite understand.

While it was (strangely) acceptable to photograph the art in a number of galleries, I mainly stuck to snapping shots of the graffiti peppered throughout the area. You can see more in my photo gallery.

Every American college kid knows the recipe for quick, cheap, and intense food-happiness is simple—just add hot water and a seasoning packet. Of course, I’m talking about that staple of campus life, the Ramen noodle. Ramen’s reign as king of the collegiate food chain is historic, but there is treason in my heart. The Communication University of China is blowing my mind with it’s dining hall gladiator—the freshly made and ridiculously delicious hand-rolled noodles I just had for lunch.

For the bargain price of about $.55, I had the pleasure of watching someone take a lump of dough and work it into a pile of foot-long noodles, cover it with some slightly identifiable brown and green stuff, and throw it in a big bowl for me to slurp up.

Long live the new noodle dynasty.

Now you can see it too.

For those who haven’t picked up one of the 14 Chinese newspapers featuring a few familiar faces enjoying Oolong in a Beijing tea shop, let me get you up to speed. Our boy Bob is not only a civil servant when he isn’t working for the Olympics, but he also owns a tea shop together with his wife. Tian Si Yuan, or Heaven 4 Source (4 being a lucky number), is located a block or two from a busy road in a Beijing suburb. Technically, it is in Beijing, but because the city is so huge, the locals consider the outermost reaches of the subway system to be the suburbs.

Crysty, Janis, my roommate Anna and I, and our local friends Sally and Yonny arrived there one day with a box of Chinese pastries that easily weighed-in at 12 pounds, no joke. The bakery we had visited on our way offered an array of goodies, including a version of the minced-meat-rock-candy pastries (actually they are meatless and called moon cakes) I mentioned having at the Peking Opera. All together, the dense treats tipped the scale towards “need two hands to carry.” We weren’t sure if the custom of giving a host a gift translated to our situation, but fortunately, Bob accepted. As volunteers dining with a superior, we didn’t want to embarrass him with too big a display of generosity, a bit of a quandary in a place where the exchange rate is so in our favor.

It turns out that nothing less than 12 pounds of pastry would have been enough to say thank you. We spent the entire day drinking tea, eating dumplings, learning to write Chinese characters, and getting to see another side of our coworkers at the venue, many of whom joined us. A journalist and photographer from China’s Xinhua News also sat in on the fun. Their interview and photos of us ran the next day and Bob let us know the astounding (to us) number of publications that picked up the story.

More exciting to my stomach than national news coverage though, the dumplings Bob and his wife made from scratch were amazing. One batch featured egg and Chinese green onion, and the other pork. I’ve never had better, and may never again as the next time I eat them, they might partially be made by me. Bob extended us a standing invitation to come to the shop, drink tea, play Mahjong, and learn how to make dumplings ourselves. While I’m not too shabby in the kitchen, I’m not sure if even years of practice could duplicate the deliciousness of the dumplings, enhanced by the care put into making them to honor budding friendships. Bookending the dumpling lunch and dessert of dragon fruit, watermelon, and pastries, Bob’s tea master brought us through the different tea ceremonies for Oolong and a black tea aged 38 years. The procedures for properly preparing both teas are very different, but equally fascinating.

Check out a clip from the Oolong ceremony where Yonny explains the reasons for drinking each tiny cup of tea in three sips, and the rest of the photos in the gallery.