Ghost Street's blood-red economy
by Ben Marcom

What is Beijing's most popular food? Not an easy question , because this is a city of many tastes. But this is a place of food fads, and there's a new one this summer. In this Ben Marcom Wednesday, I would like to take you on a tour of Gui Jie, which perhaps most famous food street in Beijing.

Gui Jie is sometimes translated as Ghost Street, but many of the restaurants lining this nighttime gourmet destination prefer to use the character '簋', also pronounced gui, which is a kind of traditional Chinese container for food.

In recent years, the most popular dish on Gui Jie has been peppery and spicy crayfish (mala xiaolongxia or maxiao) (pictured above). In the last three years, other food fads have been fragrant spicy crabs (xiangla xie and spicy fish in soup (shuizhu yu). All these dishes are blood red, which may have something to do with their appeal.

This summer, it's the turn of another red food, namely duck neck!

According to the Beijing News (June 8) the neck is supposed to be the most delicious part of a duck, because ducks move their necks a lot. Some people therefore call the neck 'living' meat. According to the report, the first speciality duck neck shops on Gui Jie appeared in 2002. During the past month, the number of duck neck shops has more than doubled along the main drag of Gui Jie which is less than 400 meters long. Among these shops, Lai Shuang Yang and Jiujiu Ya seem to be the most successful.

Lai Shuang Yang (pictured above) is operated by a company from Wuhan. The name is the name of a character from a novel called Life Show (shenghuo xiu) by well-known Chinese author Chi Li. The story is set in Wuhan. The name's connection to Chi Li's novel has helped the store to get media exposure, as well as customers, who find the name interesting. I walk past the store every night, and there are always long queues of people waiting to buy duck neck.

The characters used in the name Jiujiu Ya mean 'long-time long-time girl' but the word for girl is pronounced the same as 'duck'. The characters are simple and memorable.
Jiujiu Ya also has a funny slogan: "if you like it, just gnaw me! (xihuan jiu ken wo ba.