The impossible dream of Beijing's new red chambers

A famous scene from Dream of the Red Chamber perfectly described China's rich-poor divide. Peasant Granny Liu is flabbergasted at the extravagance of her rich relatives' 80-crab lunch. "I could feed my family for a year with this one lunch," she exclaimed.

Dream is one of China's four classic novels because of its insightful social commentary on the haves and have-nots. Those who can afford to feast on crab banquets and those who could not.

China has been in the grip of crab season, and the little nippers are as expensive as ever.

My friend Zhu Li went online to buy a special variety and was quoted 160 yuan (about $21) for two, plus a delivery fee. It was out of her reach.

The magazine editorial assistant earns 2,800 yuan a month and after paying 1,200 yuan rent for her small room in a tiny Beijing apartment and forking out other living expenses, she is left with 300 yuan a week. Her crab meal would have blown half her weekly budget.

Last weekend, I met her at one of the capital's leafy parks, which was kind of like the peaceful gardens in Dream. She was with her boyfriend, who is nicknamed ET, because of his big head, according to Zhu's colleague Liu, who joined us. Sam, 25, an enthusiastic karaoke singer and wannabe pop star, also tagged along.

Like the characters in Dream, we spent the afternoon enjoying one another's company and the glorious autumn sunshine. We took photos of the yellow leaves against the deep blue sky, and when Sam posed for photos, he strutted a cover model pose. He took it very seriously, and we all laughed at him. We later drove dodgem cars and laughed more. We walked along a lake and hard sunlight cast a mirror of sparkling color across the water. A dozen shades of light green danced on the ripples to the sound of flutes played by a musical group who had gathered under trees. Old men wrote calligraphy with water brushes. Crowds gathered to watch them.

I looked up and noticed a red-colored block of luxury apartments looming over the park, and I queried the price. About 2 million yuan, was the consensus. "I reckon they're eating crabs tonight," we said.

Afterwards we visited Zhu's shoebox of an apartment and crowded into her bedroom, which became a mini-dining room. She cooked a marvelous meal of pork and potato, green vegetables, bread and a tasty soup. ET brought some special sauce from his home province of Shandong.

We bought the food from the markets and our little banquet for five cost about 20 yuan. Two crabs each would have cost 800 yuan.

On the way, we stopped by a real estate agent front window and I noticed a picture of the apartment building overlooking the park. I remembered its distinctive red color. "More than 3 million yuan," the agent said.

I watched Zhu, ET, Liu and Sam stare at the picture of a luxury apartment that these young twentysomethings Beijingers would probably never own.

As I watched my friends hold the 20-yuan bags of groceries and gaze into that real estate window, I could tell what was in their minds. They were dreaming of a red chamber.

(China Daily 11/08/2007 page20)