As a caffeine-addicted traveller, my methodology for touring foreign countries is to locate a suitably comfortable cafe, get to know the staff, then spend most of my sojourn there. Eating. Drinking. Watching. Waiting. You could call it an ambush mentality, but my travel philosophy is not without logic. Having made the effort to travel to a foreign country, I feel justified in expecting the denizens of that nation to meet me halfway.
The Forbidden City, for instance, provides guided audio tours. For a small price, you can rent Roger Moore's soothing voice to relate edifying facts and amusing anecdotes about the palace as you reconnoitre its nooks and crannies. My idea of fun is to rent the audio tour and retreat to the nearest cafe, a safe distance from the crowds, tourist-trappers and kitsch. Once ensconced in the aroma of my caffeine-vehicle of choice, I can absorb facts and anecdotes in peace, giving my full attention
to the former 007 while not being distracted by the Forbidden City itself.
As an old saying goes, 'The true purpose of travel is to embark on a journey of self-discovery.' I couldn't agree more. Which is why I remain as sedentary as possible during my travels, thus increasing the likelihood that others will discover me. And for the purpose of allowing oneself to be found in China - preferably by highly motivated, interesting, exotic natives - there are no better cafes than the unique establishments dotting Beijing's South Drum and Gong Alley.
Eight centuries old and 750 metres long, the alley dates back to the Yuan dynasty, when Kublai Khan - grandson of compulsive city-razer Genghis - decided to direct his family into a more legitimate business. He chose construction and called upon Han architect Liu Bingzhong to design his new capital city. The political, religious and cultural nexus of Kublai Khans' Dadu - as Beijing was then known - is what we now call South Drum and Gong.
Fortunately, when Liu crafted his functional maze of walls, gates, avenues, streets and lanes, he had only three animals in mind - horses, camels and humans. He failed to anticipate the four-wheeled animals that would later convert Beijing into a surreal car park. This oversight turned out to be a blessing for the city's future cafe culture. Although it would take a millennium to become apparent, Liu's future blindness resulted in South Drum and Gong remaining too narrow to accommodate two-way motorised traffic.
So while the rest of the city's 'cultural' districts became Petri dishes for virulent 'bar-ification', South Drum and Gong remained sleepy enough to accommodate an irreplaceable little stretch of cafe culture. If what you need is free wireless internet (Wi-fi), a caffeine fix, serendipitous conversation or a baker's dozen adorably eccentric cafe and restaurant proprietors, tell your taxi driver, 'Wo yao qu nan luogu xiang': the alley's name in Putonghua.