Scorpions with Hot Sauce

“All I’m saying is,” the Captain said while stuffing another fried egg loaded with rice into his greasy great face “When are we going to be back here again? This could be our last opportunity to enjoy this.” He was of course referring to the excellent aromatic duck to be found in the hutongs of Beijing. Our waiter stood mesmerized by the clacking of the captain’s four chopsticks. His ability to dual wield any eating implement was legendary and at this point in his life almost instinctive. “I agree with you in principle, Captain” I said “But it’s 5 in the morning and we’ve got a train to catch. A whole duck and two buckets of rice and egg seem a bit much. You don’t see the Major boozing it up this early, hmm?” I turned to our swarthy and famously alcoholic Scot. Embarrassment shot across his beetroot face as he realised he was suddenly the focus of the conversation. He shuffled the bottle of foul smelling liquor he’d been swigging from mere seconds before behind one of the discarded rice buckets. “Y’know what? Fine. I’ll meet you at the station.”

The Captain thinks he may have been too busy eating to take any pictures of our snacks

As I waited in the queuing area at the station I thought about the experiences we’d had in the great city. The weather on arrival had been a balmy -5°C compared to the -30°C we’d endured in Ulaanbaatar and -40°C in the Gobi desert itself. We’d had donkey stew with unlimited brown rice tea refills on the second day. The Captain had insisted we immediately follow it up with an investigation of ‘Snack Street’, the unofficial name for a group of shop fronts where we’d been told we could eat scorpions and a whole variety of odd creatures. We snacked on starfish (fishy), seahorses (possibly endangered), cockroaches (meaty) and silk-worm larvae (like wallpaper paste, the only properly unpleasant morsel). It was of course the scorpions we had mainly been interested in. We’d met a couple of chaps from the Americas who’d recommend them most vigorously. When the question of venom came up they confirmed that stingers were both attached and very much active. One of them had lost the feeling in his face for a day. A relief since he seemed too young to be sporting a stroke victim face.

Summer Palace in Winter

The Captain and I approached the arachnophobic’s least favourite food outlet and handed over our five kuai (The Major was indisposed with random stomach issues). We nodded when offered hot sauce and were presented with four lightly fried scorpions on a skewer. The two cooks there watched us blankly. I looked back at them as a certain familiar feeling crept over me. “No,” I said “This is a trick.” I twisted off the first stinger and threw it into a conveniently placed bucket in front of the stand. One cook glanced at the other who replied with a raised eyebrow. They exchanged a faint nod and I knew I’d passed the test.

We walked away from the snack street pulling segmented legs from between our teeth and considered our next move. “Where next?” I said “Pick up the bilious Major and go visit a local attraction? Forbidden City? Summer Palace? Tienanmen Square? We could go check out Mao?” We’d seen Lenin and were planning to check out all of the dead Axis of Evil guys. “Mweh,” said the Captain still chewing “We’ve been here two days now and we haven’t tried any of that duck this city is so famous for. All I’m saying is, it would be rude not to try some. I think I saw a little place back near the hostel…”