Taking a bite of the burgeoning Chinese tourism market
August 1, 2006 | 12:00am
There are several things that one must do when one gets to Beijing. Among these is the mandatory visit to the Great Wall of China, and another is to sample the famous Peking (Beijing) duck.
Thus two hours after getting off the plane from Manila we were huffing and puffing our way across a portion of the Great Wall, the only man-made structure visible from outer space. The stone blocks were smooth and well worn in areas frequented by tourists, but I imagine the 6,000-kilometer-long trek becomes much rougher and steeper as one proceeds. The staggering number of tourists visiting the Great Wall is proof that China’s travel and tourism industry is currently one of the country’s main growth drivers.
We were in China to attend the Beijing International Tourism Expo (BITE) 2006, an international tourism and consumer fair with more than 200 exhibitors from over 60 countries. The Philippines Department of Tourism and several Filipino exhibitors including Philippine Airlines, Marco Polo Hotel (Davao), Dos Palmas Arreceffi, Patio Pacific, Tambuli Resorts, the City Government of Davao, and others are keen on capturing a portion of the outbound tourist market from Mainland China.
The statistics are impressive. Figures show that China’s economy has consistently grown by 10 percent each year and is currently the sixth largest in the world. An estimated US$1 billion per week represents the foreign investment infusion and average annual incomes have increased by 50 percent since 2000. With growing economic prosperity, outbound tourists from the Chinese mainland constitute a potential goldmine for the Philippine tourism industry.
However, with a few days before the BITE opening we had some time to discover the other lures of Beijing. Among these were Tiananmen ("The Gate of Heavenly Peace"), the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace with its imperial garden beside Kunming Lake. Visiting these places entailed a lot of walking, and made our sumptuous Chinese meals more guilt-free.
Apart from culture, shopping tops the agenda of many a Filipino. As members of the group clamored for a shopping expedition we embarked on a visit to Silk Alley which was touted to be "a paradise for silk items, clothing, jewelry, toys" and, of course, shoes. After all, out of 13 billion pairs of shoes manufactured worldwide, around 54 percent or an estimated 7 billion pairs are made in China.
I set my heart on buying one of those antique Little Red Books, which was mandatory reading during the reign of Chairman Mao. To my chagrin, the red books sold in Silk Alley were printed in English – certainly not the real McCoy. Definitely, I would have had better luck exploring the antique shops in Luilichang Culture Street. Less intrepid shoppers may also try their luck down Xidan Commercial Street where the bargaining is less manic.
Leafing through an English-language Beijing magazine I stumbled upon a survey revealing that the residents of Beijing "are the ones with the biggest smiles on their faces." A "City Happiness Index" survey conducted by Renmin University indicated that Beijing residents are happy with their jobs and, perhaps, the increasing prosperity of the city. In 2008, the city is set to host the Olympic Games. This preparation accounts for all the building activity during our visit, and could account for the thin-yet-palpable layer of dust that we washed off when showering at night – and not the sandstorms reportedly beleaguering Beijing in the recent past.
Before the Tourism Expo a Philippine Tourism Conference was held at the Marco Polo, Beijing. The event included an exhibition of traditional Filipino dances by members of the respected Ramon Obusan dance troupe and a well-applauded fashion show featuring creations by "fashion ambassador" Rene Salud.
Tourism Secretary Joseph "Ace" Durano remarked that although China was not among the top ten source markets for the Philippines before, it is now the fourth largest source of tourist arrivals following Korea, the US and Japan. Tourist arrivals from Mainland China increased by more than 400 percent since the start of 2005. "Because of the collaboration among the Chinese travel agencies, the Philippine tour operators and resorts, and the Department of Tourism, we are now sustaining monthly numbers that are about four to five times historical levels," Durano said.
To be able to take a bigger bite from the Chinese tourism pie, Davao City was highlighted in the conference as an alternative tourism and business destination in the Philippines. City Government of Davao representative Atty. Melchor Quitain and Davao Investment Promotion Center’s Roberto Teo introduced the city to Chinese media and travel operators as a culturally rich destination that teems with natural beauty and business opportunity.
You don’t really know a place until you’ve checked out the food. Even before leaving for Beijing, I checked the Internet for possible dining destinations and exotic culinary fare. A site listed fried caterpillars, which I resolved to try; and I found some interesting trivia about dining out in old Peking.
It seems that in 8th-century Tang dynasty, Buddhist and Taoist temples were the precursors of modern-day restaurants because they served food along well-traveled roads. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), literature records that peddlers sold food, while murals show men eating in public and "elegant" surroundings.
In the 1790s during the Qianlong period, opium was also served with meals, a practice that spread to major restaurants in Beijing by the 19th century.
Although I am adventurous when it comes to food, I don’t thinks the opium-spiked meals of the Qianlong would have appealed to my taste. However, there was the quintessential Peking duck. A food site listed Da Dong Roast Duck as the best in Beijing. Fortunately, our interpreter Xie Xien took us to a couple of restaurants that were far from the usual tourist trail.
At the Yuin Nan Province restaurant, we tried what Xie called "wild flowers," a mixture of chopped-up vinegary vegetable with a generous sprinkling of pepper flakes. It is difficult to describe what you can’t recognize, but the flavor and color of the flowers was similar to that of "katuray" from our own Ilocandia. There was also sugared black rice cooked in pineapple served in a hollowed-out pineapple fruit, but the most memorable dish of that meal was "fried bee larvae" – newly hatched and wingless bees dipped in a thin batter and then fried. The bees that weren’t crispy were surprisingly palatable, and biting into a soft bee released a liquid with milky-creamy goodness. The fact that I truly enjoyed the bees strengthened my resolve to try even stranger food items.
Our visit to Beijing coincided with the start of peach season. At the Great Wall, vendors sold small, misshapen fruit that were surprisingly sweet. I didn’t take photos of the peaches (they were pale and non-photogenic), but we devoured all of them.
A second restaurant we visited was called the Homie Yummy. The restaurant appeared to be a favorite hangout of the locals and, past lunchtime when we decided to dine, the place was still packed. A harried waitress tucked us into a small table in the corner and we left Xie Xian to order for us. What reached the table was a hot-sour tomato soup with pork meatballs and large slices of bean curd, a spicy bamboo shoot salad, fat and tasty roast goose, pig’s trotters cooked in a manner similar to our pata tim, and some other extremely hot, highly spiced dishes. Mustard greens, simply blanched in boiling water, were also served. These were a highly effective means of putting out the fires that inflamed our taste buds.
The diners at the next table ordered a strange-looking dish, and I craned my neck to get a look. They were having duck heads, and were visibly enjoying each morsel while sucking out the bird’s brains. On our way out of the restaurant, what appeared at first glance to be tiny frogs turned out to be goose tongues – another specialty of the house. If the parts of an animal are supposed to increase particular abilities, will a dish of goose tongues enhance verbosity? Will a dish made from hog’s snouts transform you into a veritable bloodhound?
Finally, the entire Philippine delegation was hosted to a multi-course dinner at Xiheyaju Restaurant which, according to our guide, is situated on the estate of an ancient Chinese general.
The specialty of the house was called He He Roast Duck. In Chinese folklore "He He" means "accordance, unison in marriage and family," and other positive meanings. The roast duck was delicious, and whatever else "he-he" means, we were all satiated and smiling at the end of the meal.
Thus two hours after getting off the plane from Manila we were huffing and puffing our way across a portion of the Great Wall, the only man-made structure visible from outer space. The stone blocks were smooth and well worn in areas frequented by tourists, but I imagine the 6,000-kilometer-long trek becomes much rougher and steeper as one proceeds. The staggering number of tourists visiting the Great Wall is proof that China’s travel and tourism industry is currently one of the country’s main growth drivers.
We were in China to attend the Beijing International Tourism Expo (BITE) 2006, an international tourism and consumer fair with more than 200 exhibitors from over 60 countries. The Philippines Department of Tourism and several Filipino exhibitors including Philippine Airlines, Marco Polo Hotel (Davao), Dos Palmas Arreceffi, Patio Pacific, Tambuli Resorts, the City Government of Davao, and others are keen on capturing a portion of the outbound tourist market from Mainland China.
The statistics are impressive. Figures show that China’s economy has consistently grown by 10 percent each year and is currently the sixth largest in the world. An estimated US$1 billion per week represents the foreign investment infusion and average annual incomes have increased by 50 percent since 2000. With growing economic prosperity, outbound tourists from the Chinese mainland constitute a potential goldmine for the Philippine tourism industry.
However, with a few days before the BITE opening we had some time to discover the other lures of Beijing. Among these were Tiananmen ("The Gate of Heavenly Peace"), the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace with its imperial garden beside Kunming Lake. Visiting these places entailed a lot of walking, and made our sumptuous Chinese meals more guilt-free.
Apart from culture, shopping tops the agenda of many a Filipino. As members of the group clamored for a shopping expedition we embarked on a visit to Silk Alley which was touted to be "a paradise for silk items, clothing, jewelry, toys" and, of course, shoes. After all, out of 13 billion pairs of shoes manufactured worldwide, around 54 percent or an estimated 7 billion pairs are made in China.
I set my heart on buying one of those antique Little Red Books, which was mandatory reading during the reign of Chairman Mao. To my chagrin, the red books sold in Silk Alley were printed in English – certainly not the real McCoy. Definitely, I would have had better luck exploring the antique shops in Luilichang Culture Street. Less intrepid shoppers may also try their luck down Xidan Commercial Street where the bargaining is less manic.
Leafing through an English-language Beijing magazine I stumbled upon a survey revealing that the residents of Beijing "are the ones with the biggest smiles on their faces." A "City Happiness Index" survey conducted by Renmin University indicated that Beijing residents are happy with their jobs and, perhaps, the increasing prosperity of the city. In 2008, the city is set to host the Olympic Games. This preparation accounts for all the building activity during our visit, and could account for the thin-yet-palpable layer of dust that we washed off when showering at night – and not the sandstorms reportedly beleaguering Beijing in the recent past.
Before the Tourism Expo a Philippine Tourism Conference was held at the Marco Polo, Beijing. The event included an exhibition of traditional Filipino dances by members of the respected Ramon Obusan dance troupe and a well-applauded fashion show featuring creations by "fashion ambassador" Rene Salud.
Tourism Secretary Joseph "Ace" Durano remarked that although China was not among the top ten source markets for the Philippines before, it is now the fourth largest source of tourist arrivals following Korea, the US and Japan. Tourist arrivals from Mainland China increased by more than 400 percent since the start of 2005. "Because of the collaboration among the Chinese travel agencies, the Philippine tour operators and resorts, and the Department of Tourism, we are now sustaining monthly numbers that are about four to five times historical levels," Durano said.
To be able to take a bigger bite from the Chinese tourism pie, Davao City was highlighted in the conference as an alternative tourism and business destination in the Philippines. City Government of Davao representative Atty. Melchor Quitain and Davao Investment Promotion Center’s Roberto Teo introduced the city to Chinese media and travel operators as a culturally rich destination that teems with natural beauty and business opportunity.
It seems that in 8th-century Tang dynasty, Buddhist and Taoist temples were the precursors of modern-day restaurants because they served food along well-traveled roads. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), literature records that peddlers sold food, while murals show men eating in public and "elegant" surroundings.
In the 1790s during the Qianlong period, opium was also served with meals, a practice that spread to major restaurants in Beijing by the 19th century.
Although I am adventurous when it comes to food, I don’t thinks the opium-spiked meals of the Qianlong would have appealed to my taste. However, there was the quintessential Peking duck. A food site listed Da Dong Roast Duck as the best in Beijing. Fortunately, our interpreter Xie Xien took us to a couple of restaurants that were far from the usual tourist trail.
At the Yuin Nan Province restaurant, we tried what Xie called "wild flowers," a mixture of chopped-up vinegary vegetable with a generous sprinkling of pepper flakes. It is difficult to describe what you can’t recognize, but the flavor and color of the flowers was similar to that of "katuray" from our own Ilocandia. There was also sugared black rice cooked in pineapple served in a hollowed-out pineapple fruit, but the most memorable dish of that meal was "fried bee larvae" – newly hatched and wingless bees dipped in a thin batter and then fried. The bees that weren’t crispy were surprisingly palatable, and biting into a soft bee released a liquid with milky-creamy goodness. The fact that I truly enjoyed the bees strengthened my resolve to try even stranger food items.
Our visit to Beijing coincided with the start of peach season. At the Great Wall, vendors sold small, misshapen fruit that were surprisingly sweet. I didn’t take photos of the peaches (they were pale and non-photogenic), but we devoured all of them.
A second restaurant we visited was called the Homie Yummy. The restaurant appeared to be a favorite hangout of the locals and, past lunchtime when we decided to dine, the place was still packed. A harried waitress tucked us into a small table in the corner and we left Xie Xian to order for us. What reached the table was a hot-sour tomato soup with pork meatballs and large slices of bean curd, a spicy bamboo shoot salad, fat and tasty roast goose, pig’s trotters cooked in a manner similar to our pata tim, and some other extremely hot, highly spiced dishes. Mustard greens, simply blanched in boiling water, were also served. These were a highly effective means of putting out the fires that inflamed our taste buds.
The diners at the next table ordered a strange-looking dish, and I craned my neck to get a look. They were having duck heads, and were visibly enjoying each morsel while sucking out the bird’s brains. On our way out of the restaurant, what appeared at first glance to be tiny frogs turned out to be goose tongues – another specialty of the house. If the parts of an animal are supposed to increase particular abilities, will a dish of goose tongues enhance verbosity? Will a dish made from hog’s snouts transform you into a veritable bloodhound?
Finally, the entire Philippine delegation was hosted to a multi-course dinner at Xiheyaju Restaurant which, according to our guide, is situated on the estate of an ancient Chinese general.
The specialty of the house was called He He Roast Duck. In Chinese folklore "He He" means "accordance, unison in marriage and family," and other positive meanings. The roast duck was delicious, and whatever else "he-he" means, we were all satiated and smiling at the end of the meal.
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