By Elyse Ribbons

I awoke that morning at around 6:30am, to the sounds of the fireworks exploding in my apartment complex. After grumbling a bit over some tea, I managed to fall back asleep, but only briefly, as my alarm then went off at 8:00am and I had to wake up to get ready for my day at the temple fair.  

As a certifiable zhongguotong who has lived in Beijing for nearly 7 years now, this was not my first visit to a temple fair, and I usually try to visit the Ditan temple fair each year. This year I was to meet a Chinese girl, Jessica, who was also assigned to write a story about visiting the Ditan temple fair. We'd arranged to meet up at the Yonghegong subway station at 9:00am, so after a big breakfast of oatmeal and earl grey tea, I put on my 4 layers of clothing (temple fairs are cold!) and went down to the subway.

As I had a friend who was stuck in town for the holiday, Julie, and another friend who was visiting from the States, Jeff, I also called them up and had them join Jessica and I for the day. The four of us met up relatively easily (there weren't many laowai wandering around, so Jessica managed to pick me out instantly as I arrived) and then wandered over to the gate for tickets. I'd been warned by friends who had earlier in the week gone to Ditan to discover a huge line at the gate that we should try to get there early, which turned out to have been a great idea. No line at all, and after buying the 10 kuai tickets, we all wandered into the park together at a leisurely pace.

The first thing you notice about a temple fair are the lanterns, bright and red, hanging, floating, and decorating every nook and cranny available. The second thing you notice are the children sitting atop their father's or uncle's shoulders. In their hands are balloons or the brightly spinning Chinese whirligigs that we all associate with temple fairs. I had to refrain from taking too many pictures of these kids, but they were so incredibly cute, and happy.

As it was a cold morning, we all bee lined our way over to the food kiosks, where we all jumped in with big appetites and open pockets. The 10 kuai chuars were really overpriced, as most of the meat was fat, but they certainly looked and smelled very good. While Jessica and Jeff partook of those smoky treats, Julie bought some light pink cotton candy (which she kindly shared with everyone) and I bought buns with beef. We then moved on to fried noodles and some sweet fried desserts. All of us avoided the stinky tofu, though I overheard other people claiming that it tasted fabulous. I broke up with a boyfriend once (a Chinese guy) because I couldn't stand his breath after he ate stinky tofu, but he loved the stinky tofu more than he loved me, so we parted ways.

After making our way through the crowds at the food kiosks, we watched a performance of an imperial procession, complete with a sickly looking emperor. Its amazing to think about the fact that a little over 100 years ago, these processions were probably taking place all the time. Beautiful clothing, even for the imperial guards, and the flags and banners gave the whole parade a very festive feeling. It made me wish that I could film a historical tv drama, and get the chance to wear that style of clothing. I'll have to get to work on a script... anyone know if there were any imported concubines back then?

My musings were interrupted by Jessica and Jeff, who pulled me over to another performance of a Beijing-style street caller, who was selling something, but was doing so in a very humorous manner. We wandered from there to the bell tower to watch people trying their luck at throwing coins at a large metal slab, it's supposed to bring good fortune. The crowds, however, were starting to thicken, so we hurried on from there to go to the market stalls and make some fun festival purchases. Julie bought some lovely fake flowers (which were useful for keeping track of where she was wandering in the sea of black heads) and I bought a pretty silver Yunnan hair pin.

Of course, it was required that we try on the funny hats and silly wigs, and I even conned Jeff into wearing a pair of bunny ears that I bought him. Best part of the day: watching all of the Chinese people taking a double-glance at the tall red-headed laowai guy wearing the pink bunny ears. Haha. Best 10 kuai I spent the whole day.

Our fingers soon started to go numb, and our toes weren't far behind, so after wandering a bit more to see a puppet show and try to bargain for other trinkets, we decided to try to make our way back to the main gate and go to a warm restaurant for a proper lunch. Before we left, we tried vainly to find a 'tanghulu' stand (these are my favorite of the traditional Chinese treats, and I can think of nothing finer than walking around a temple fair with these tart haw berries) but no luck. I don't know why they weren't available this year, but it was certainly a disappointment.

The games were also a bit of a disappointment, as the effort of having to go buy the special coins to play them slightly outweighed any of the prizes you could win. Jessica tried her hand at one of them, and won a small stuffed monkey. She wasn't interested in this prize (she wanted one of the big teddy bears) but when I told her that my company was called "Cheeky Monkey" she quickly passed the monkey over to me, with a big smile on her face. The monkey is now sitting on a chair at my office.

As we left the temple fair that morning, we were all very satisfied with our time there, though we were happy that we had decided to come so early. It was hard to even walk out of the gate, there were so many people trying to get in. Walking against the current towards the giant dim sum restaurant at the gate, we were very happy to get a table right before the lunch rush. Of course, I was even happier to discover that they had fresh tanghulu available, so we ended our fabulous lunch of dim sum with sticky sweet haw berries. Yum!

This was by far the best temple fair experience I'd had so far, and I'm really looking forward to going next year. Much like the city surrounding Ditan park, these temple fairs seem to change a lot every year, though not so much as to lose the traditions that make them so great. Next year I'm definitely bringing some heat packs with me though, to keep my fingers from turning into icicles. A great way to start out the year of the Ox, here's to hoping that the rest of the year will go this well!

Elyse Ribbons is an American playwright, actress and theater director that produces shows in Mandarin and English in Beijing, China with Cheeky Monkey Theater and writes the blog: http://www.iheartbeijing.com/blog

(China.org.cn February 4, 2009)