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CHINA IS SMILING AGAIN

The invitation was from the CITS, the China International Travel Service and Air China, the Chinese flag-carrier. "Come to China. This way you can see for yourselves that, after the SARS crisis, everything is calm again and life has returned to its normal rhythms, meiyou, as we say in Chinese which means "it’s gone, SARS is gone and people are no longer afraid in China."

And we accepted the invitation. And saw with our own eyes that what they had told us was true. Life had returned to normal, people were smiling again, there were no more masks and the traffic snarls in Beijing were like those is any great European capital. A city which ten years ago had no private cars and where everyone got around on bicycles but which now has over two million private motorcars.

Yet in spite of this return to normality we quickly noticed that something was different. There were no tourists, or more correctly, there were no western tourists. At the end of July in Beijing the streets and monuments were crowded but they were all Asian visitors. Because the tourists who flocked to the Forbidden City and the Great Wall were Japanese, Korean and Chinese up from the provinces to visit the capital. And there was no hiding their surprise at seeing our little group. As we strolled through the city and crossed Tien An Men Square they stopped at looked at us, pointing and laughing. "The Europeans are back!"

We had already noticed it on the Air China flight which operates four days a week from Malpensa and Rome to Beijing because, apart from our small group and a few Italian businessmen, the plane was full of Chinese. Chinese who work in Italy or in other Schengen countries and were on their way home for holidays.

And the next day, at the Xiu Shiu market, which is so popular with bargain-hunting tourists and which the Italians call the Silk Road, the impression of being "white crows" was even more marked. Our arrival surprised and galvanised the merchants who obviously saw us as harbingers of a new and happier season, and literally assaulted us, calculators working furiously and offering us fake designer items at discounts of anything up to 80%.

And the crowds on the Wangfujing, Beijing’s most prestigious shopping street with its array of shops and malls, just a stone’s throw from the Forbidden City and Tien An Men, were all Asian. Here, at night they set up street stalls selling meat and fish kebabs and fragrant plates of noodles and soups. There were long queues at the stalls selling the kebabs of squid and prawns, beef and pork and also at those using the bao (literally explosive frying) method with the food being cooked in huge cauldrons of boiling peanut oil. And even longer queues at the stalls selling the jiaozi, Beijing’s famous ravioli stuffed with meat, fish and vegetables and easy to spot for the stacks of little wicker baskets piled one on top of another in which the ravioli are kept before being boiled, steamed or fried.

And the crowd outside our hotel, the historic Beijing Hotel on the corner of the Wangfujing, was all Chinese. They were real Madrid fans, there to catch a glimpse of the team which was staying on the fourth floor. And the noise level rose each time a blonde head appeared at the hotel’s main door. Would it be the plaited head of Beckham? A myth in Chin too.. The placards said it all. "Beckham I love you".

We said the masks had disappeared but we did see a few on the Wangfujing. Those worn by the chefs on the stalls who also wore protective plastic gloves. An example of the great attention being given to hygiene in public places hotels, shops, department stores and malls where the floors are being constantly washed and which all have that unmistakable smell of disinfectant. This attention also applies to public transport. In fact the taxis and tourist coaches all have a docket attesting that they have been disinfected that day well in view on the windscreen.

The scars left by SARS on the country’s economy are deep ones. They say the GNP dropped 5% in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. Now the Chinese want to bring tourists back and are investing heavily in promotions, also with a view to the 2008 Olympics. Work is underway for the games in all the main cities. Beijing, for example will have 400 kilometres of underground by then against the 70 it has today. And in a few short weeks last spring the city got 19 new hospitals to treat eventual future SARS victims free of charge, at government expense. Because there is no national health service in China.

We saw all the monuments that can not be missed like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple with its 50-foot high statue of Buddha, and then discovered a fascinating and little known part of the city. The district of the hutong, close to the Forbidden City. A Dedaelus of alleyways and low houses which was once part of the Imperial City and which has miraculously managed to survive, a tiny oasis of tranquillity and antiquity in this metropolis where everything is big, soaring, and modern. Indeed ultra-modern.

We were taken around the hutong in the pedal rickshaws of the Beijing Hutong Tourist Agency, starting from Hishahai Lake and making our way up and down the alleyways where life is still lived at a leisurely pace. Court officials, rich merchants and officers of the imperial army lived in these old quadrangular houses during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. One storey houses in grey brick. Colour was a prerogative of the emperor. Today life in the hutong is not unlike that in any small provincial town and, if many of the houses have undergone renovation, they have not lost any of their old character.

We stopped in the heart of the hutong for lunch with Mrs Zhang. First we helped her mother to prepare the jiaozi, rolling out the paper thin discs of dough which we then filled with a mixture of pork and vegetables. Then into dining room (with a divan covered with a flowery cloth, an enormous fan on the wall, a vase of plastic flowers on the table and Disney stickers on the cupboard) where there were plates of salads and vegetables waiting for us and then, from the kitchen in quick succession came steaming plates of meat and fish, more vegetables and a fragrant mountain of jiaozi.

A meal worthy of any of Beijing’s best restaurants. And we tried many of them. But the meal which made the most lasting impression was the dinner in the Quanjude, founded in 1864, the Mecca of Peking duck. Known as The Old Duck it is an obligatory watering hole for foreign visitors and frequented by royalty, heads of state (from Castro to Andreotti and Kohl) and celebrities.

Preparing the duck is a lengthy and complicated process. The stomach is filled with water then sewn up and air is blown between the skin and the flesh so that the duck ends up looking like a rugby football. Then honey is spread over the skin and the duck is cooked on a spit over peach or apple wood until it is dark brown and the skin glistens. The chef then escorts it to the table and tradition has it that the duck be cut into 108 pieces (a lucky number) each slice consisting of a layer of crispy skin, one of succulent fat and one of tender meat. Each person selects a few pieces of duck which are laid on paper thin pancakes, together with sweet soy sauce and crispy spring onions, and then rolled up. An experience not to be missed and surely one of the most refined and flavoursome dishes in the entire repertory of China’s age-old culinary art.