We here at the Beijinger hate it when visitors from out of town arrive only to immediately demand a trip to Wangfujing to eat scorpions on sticks.
So, it is with great pleasure we report that Wangfujing's Donghuamen Night Market will be closing imminently, ridding the city (for now) of one of the biggest tourist ripoffs this side of the teahouse scam.
Scorpions on sticks are just not a thing for anyone here but tourists. In fact, after lots of research, and digging out some old posts from our forum, it seems like there aren't that many scorpions around Beijing anyway.
According to Qianlong, the market's lease ran out March 31, though it will remain in business until closing on June 25.
The excuse for the closure is that the market causes traffic congestion, pollution and noise. But we don't care about these things, really, we're just happy we don't have to see more pictures of tourist idiots consuming yet another scorpion stick as though they're some f***ing intrepid travel pioneer.
The market sports a number of unusual stalls featuring food items marketed as Chinese delicacies. In addition to scorpions, you'll regularly find sheep's testicles, offal soup, deep fried crickets, silkworm larvae, lizards on a stick, sea urchins and starfish – none of which (perhaps aside from the silkworms) are regular or even more than occasional Beijing fare, and most are served with the shittiest of quality and a service attitude that gives us flashbacks of the old Yashow market touts.
Even the more common food products such as noodles or dumpling soup at the market are poor representatives of their kind and a massive rip off to boot.
While the market is certainly still popular (amongst waidi package tour groups who have no choice and dickhead foreigners high on too many episodes of "World's Weirdest Foods"), it's really a bastion of oriental exoticism set up to fulfill Western fantasies or just a pit stop along the way for travelers to demonstrate false bravado to their drunken buddies. It's the Beijing culinary equivalent to making a trip to Bangkok to watch what some nightclub hostesses do with ping pong balls.
Perhaps the only bad thing about the market's closure is the likelihood that it'll be replaced by another set of pretentious foreign brands that will make this part of Wangfujing just as filled with noveau riche shops that clutter the rest of the neighborhood.
Instead of heading out to Donghuamen Night Market with your friends, if they really want stuff on sticks, why not go out for genuine chuanr somewhere else, or make some yourself. At least then you can be more certain of hygiene levels and meat authenticity.
Photo: Wikipedia, Virtually Nomadic