Tender is the night

The buffet coupon at the Westin brings me to financial street, a place I rarely set foot on. The tranquility of this area is a far cry from the hustle of the CBD. Maybe it’s secluded because of the supremacy of the central bank, or the luxury of Lane Crawford.

The lights are faint inside the hotel; music is floating in the air. The only visible figures are the bar singers in red, red as the little girl’s coat in Schindler’s list. The staff are over courteous, if not snobbish.

People show their true colors in front of the buffet table. We tend to commit two of the seven deadly sins: gluttony and greed. He who can resist the great variety of foods must be a saint. Forget about manners, and to hell with dieting! We don’t eat at five star hotels every day.

It’s already late when we leave. The two girls are still crooning in the bar. Walking down to Changanjie, the whirr of cars wakes me up. The night feels like a dream in a city within Beijing.