CITY OF CATS, PART THREE: Xiao Bao and the Treehouse//Study and interaction

Many of you will be disturbed and upset by the revelation that I willingly had my home internet service disconnected a few weeks back. It was the mornings that did it. It was just too easy to roll out of bed, make my tea, and plug in, emerging hours later still wearing my robe and having accomplished very little. When you make your own schedule I think you have to structure things wisely if you want to get anything done at all. Besides, I'm content to spend hours or days alone but that won't improve my 口语 (oral language), no matter how many Chinese newspapers I browse online. I had to force myself to get out and meet people, and even before the internet was disconnected I started trying out each and every one of the coffee shops near the picturesque Andingmen/Gulou area not far from my home. One day I wandered down this little hutong branching off the increasingly popular Nanluoguxiang, 小菊儿胡同 (little chrysanthemum alley).

I think I was first attracted by the squawking of this bird, who belongs to a nearby resident and often hangs outside in the daytime, nicely complementing the rock show posters usually plastered on the building.

Then I peeked in the window and saw this, a full grown tree growing up through the floorboards and out through the ceiling.

Here it emerges leafily from the rooftop (where you can sit on nice days after climbing a treacherous little ladder).

And it just got better. The music was lovely but something I'd never heard before, the menu had a long list of teas and a short list of seemingly house-devised cocktails, and there was a cat, 小宝 (Xiao Bao, or "Little Treasure"), and after I unpacked my work and settled on a sofa he jumped up to fall asleep beside me, later sidling into my lap.

Here he is in a grainier photo, hunting for food on my table (I've started bringing him wet cat food once or twice a week) but finding only beer.

The Treehouse has become a large part of why I've been so happy in Beijing this first month and a half. I don't have a regular research schedule by any means and spend most of my time reviewing my Chinese alone or with my tutor, going for long walks, and doing internet research or working on establishing contacts. Most of the latter now takes place at The Treehouse, where I go at least every other day to drink tea or help myself to bottles of Harbin beer from the fridge, sometimes staying late and ordering in dinner with the employees and other regulars. I've become friends with the Chinese owner, Sophie, and some of her "co-owners" (the business has been struggling and so she says she is "experimenting with communism" and inviting others to share in the profits and the risk). One of them, I've recently found it, is studying for a masters' degree in Anthropology at a university here, and we've been very happy to find each other and learn more about the different national traditions of our field.

There are a few other regulars as well, many of them schoolmates of the owner or bilingual expats. The place attracts interesting people, in part because of the pleasant atmosphere and in part because of Sophie, a principled, opinionated young lady who works a day job translating for a German journalist. It's a swell place -- I only wish I could import some of my domino-playing friends from across the Pacific to hang out there with me.

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Another favorite activity is hanging out with my former teachers from IUP. Almost once a week we get together to go out for dinner, visit markets, or go sightseeing. The pictures below are from a hike in the Fragrant Hills (香山) with my dear Zhao Jie (pictured below) and a handful of other teachers and students. The Fragrant Hills are the place to go in the fall when the leaves turn but we went a little to early to see much. The smog was about average and that impaired visibility considerably but it was still a very pleasant hike spent enjoying something that almost, kind of, approximated nature.

And thus concludes "City of Cats". Due to constraints on time and attention spans, I was unable to include all of the city's cats in this series. Honorable mentions go out to the calico kitten at my Pingyao hotel, the Stewart-like cat at the eyeglasses store on Andingmen Nei Dajie, and the bar "Hot Cat" (热猫), where I spent an amusing night last weekend drinking Black Label and playing Jenga with giggling, heavily-accessorized Chinese girls.

All is well here. I hope the same is true of you and yours, wherever you are in the world.