*I'm afraid I'm mis-characterizing Jared here as a man of mystery and bizarre culinary obsessions (he also took exception to my earlier suggestion that he is kind of sleepy, but has done little to dispel this notion). Despite his erstwhile Ahab-like fixation on finding Chinese KFC (analysis: disappointing) early in September, I admit that neither of these adjectives really fit. I would probably use other, less sinister and more positive modifiers, but this is neither the time nor place to sing praises to either of my roommates Jared and Mark learnèd as they may be.
When our band of four arrived at the place, I understood fairly quickly. The 'yangrou place' consists of a husband and wife with a grill, loads of coals, food, and a bicycle. It is entirely outside, on what is ambiguously either a sidewalk or a parking lot. When we arrived, the wife took out four small stools, arranged them in a circle, and placed a small coal grill in the middle of our circle. We ordered several dozen skewers of mutton (by American kebab standards, these were fairly small, so we are talking about a smallish meal for four) and several slices of what would only be described as Chinese garlic bread.
At Jared's urging, I took an opportunity between waves of skewers to ask the man manning the grill about himself. I've found that in Beijing, the order in which you ask personal questions is fairly important. The primary rule that the first question should never be "Where are you from?". I previously mentioned the hukou (户口, or residence cards) system, in which you are assigned social services according to your residence (or in practice, your place of birth). Between the CCP's goal for China to provide for 90-95% of its own agricultural needs and previous Mao-era agricultural disasters, the CCP is fairly paranoid about mass migration from the agricultural sector (it also prevents the urban social security system from becoming over-burdened). By making it particularly difficult to receive an urban hukou, theoretically there should be more farmers and more agricultural production, although enforcement of the system has dropped over time (which isn't to say that it goes entirely unenforced, hence the skittishness about the question "Where are you from?").
In fact, I had heard that these particular mutton-grillers had, on one occasion, heard a police car was coming and simply picked up their grill - coals and all - and ran out of sight (returning as soon as the police left). I've heard other stories about entire streets with vendors scrambling to clear out with all of their wares, so a couple running around carrying a still-burning grill off into the dark doesn't seem so far-fetched. So instead I started with my favorite, "Do you have a kid?" Skipping the embarrassing "How many kids do you have?" question (remember: One Child Policy), I found out that they had a daughter who was married and eighteen years old (I think they tried to tell us what she or her husband did for work, but I didn't understand). She and the rest of their family lived in Anhui province (mid-east China, just one province away from the coast). Finally, I figured out that they had been in Beijing for just two years. After this we blathered a bit about Huang Shan (黄山/ Mount Huang/ Yellow Mountain), which is to say they spoke fondly of it and I rambled incoherently about my desire to see it. Getting this far without horrible communication missteps, I returned satisfied to my meal. When we finished, they thanked us and we promised we would return.
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