Listings

Midnight in Peking

Date: April 23-May 1－11 am

Venue: Bespoke Beijing

Price: 288 yuan

Paul French's gripping 2011 whodunnit novel Midnight in Peking reinvestigates the previously unsolved murder of Pamela Werner, the British Consul to China's daughter, in 1937. Marking five years since the book's release Bespoke Beijing, Penguin and Beijing Postcards retrace French's footsteps through the former 'Badlands' in this walking tour that explores Beijing's dark past during 1930s, covering the key details from the book and delving even deeper into the case. The tour takes place in the Old City Wall area (where Pamela Werner lived with her father), the Legation Quarter, and Beijing's Dongbianmen Watchtower where her body was found. For more information and to buy tickets, visit Bespoke Beijing's website.

Contact: 010-6400-0133

The Beijing Ghost Tour

Date: April 16-Oct 22－6:30 pm

Venue: Newman Tours

Price: 160-390 yuan

While it's usually pretty good being shielded from the consumerist frenzy and sugar rush that surrounds Halloween in the West, there's no reason to miss out completely on your fiendish fix. Try Newman Tours' nighttime ghost walk near Houhai for your share of scares, especially on Saturday 31 itself. It's shocking how much you can learn while being scared. From the outset you're put on edge by the guide checking how you got to the meeting point and telling you a ghost story relevant to that means of transport. It really kicks in on your way back home, so take a (brave) friend.

Without giving too much away, we learn why zombies in China bounce and how this was used in the 1800s as a way to smuggle opium around the country (clue: it involves Daoist monks). There may have been some props, which may have made the tour a multi-sensory adventure, and they certainly help add context. The guide may even have deliberately tried to scare us at times. There are also plenty of fascinating historical tales along the way. For example, the one about Empress Dowager Cixi instructing her eunuch Li Lianying to drown the Guangxu Emperor's favorite mistress, the Pearl Concubine, in a well in the Forbidden City.