Peking

Inside a Chinese restaurant on a narrow street, a grapevine grows. More than 50 years old, its thick, gnarled trunk sits in a courtyard beneath an open sky. At night, when strung with lights, the limbs make for a pretty canopy under which to dine. And dine they did at Mission 261. Foodies and restaurant critics and tourists once packed into the San Gabriel restaurant to feast on Peking duck and dim sum that came in fanciful shapes of birds and fish.

BEIJING - The Fox Tower in southeastern Beijing, a centuries-old fortress-like building with deep-set red windows and curving eaves, has stood through the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the reign of Mao Tse-tung and the crush of urban development. But for 45-year-old Sinologist Paul French, one historical event stands out above the rest: One morning in 1937, the mutilated corpse of a 19-year-old British woman was found at the base of the tower, her organs removed with surgical precision.

  Peking duck broth with nappa cabbage Total time: 1 1/2 hours Servings: 4 Note: Ending a meal with soup may seem unusual, but this vegetable laden-soup serves as a simple and cleansing bookend to the sumptuous Peking duck dinner. Doctoring up canned broth with the duck bones is a time saver that doesn't compromise flavor. Neck, wing joints and feet leftover from prepping duck for Peking duck recipe 4 cups chicken broth 3 cups water Chubby 11/2-inch section fresh ginger, peeled, halved lengthwise and smashed with the broad side of a knife 3 large green onions, cut into 3-inch lengths and lightly bruised with the broad side of a knife Carcass from roasted Peking duck 1 pound nappa cabbage, cut lengthwise into thick wedges, cored and cut crosswise into 3/4-inch-wide strips Salt Pounded Sichuan peppercorns or ground white pepper 3 to 4 cilantro sprigs, roughly chopped, for garnish 1. Use a cleaver or heavy knife to chop the neck, wing joints and feet at 1-inch intervals.

  Peking duck broth with nappa cabbage Total time: 1 1/2 hours Servings: 4 Note: Ending a meal with soup may seem unusual, but this vegetable laden-soup serves as a simple and cleansing bookend to the sumptuous Peking duck dinner. Doctoring up canned broth with the duck bones is a time saver that doesn't compromise flavor. Neck, wing joints and feet leftover from prepping duck for Peking duck recipe 4 cups chicken broth 3 cups water Chubby 11/2-inch section fresh ginger, peeled, halved lengthwise and smashed with the broad side of a knife 3 large green onions, cut into 3-inch lengths and lightly bruised with the broad side of a knife Carcass from roasted Peking duck 1 pound nappa cabbage, cut lengthwise into thick wedges, cored and cut crosswise into 3/4-inch-wide strips Salt Pounded Sichuan peppercorns or ground white pepper 3 to 4 cilantro sprigs, roughly chopped, for garnish 1. Use a cleaver or heavy knife to chop the neck, wing joints and feet at 1-inch intervals.

  Peking duck stir-fried with ginger and green onion Total time: 25 minutes Servings: 4 Note: This easy but elegant stir-fry is meant to save the cook time and let the duck shine. A 4-pound duck yields about 10 ounces of cooked flesh, so you'll have a little extra to tuck into your pancakes. Serve this stir-fry with rice or wrap in extra mandarin pancakes. Omit the plum sauce for a more savory finish. 1 1/2 cups (about 1/2 pound) roast Peking duck meat 2 tablespoons plum sauce 1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry 1 tablespoon light (regular)

China's first modern literature archive opened Tuesday in Peking. The archive contains 60,000 volumes, 200 letters, diaries, calligraphy and manuscripts, 1,700 portraits and photographs and films dating from 1919.

Singing children and stern police nurses turned out on Peking's streets Monday to shame citizens into spitting into spittoons rather than on the ground. Health workers and nursery schoolchildren set up stalls at street corners displaying slogans about health and courtesy. Offenders were reprimanded by toddlers who were instructed to say, "Uncle (or Auntie), please pay attention to your health and that of other people."

Erich Honecker, the first East German leader ever to visit China, received a red-carpet welcome Tuesday at the beginning of a six-day tour that formally thaws Communist Party ties frozen since the 1960s. Honecker, who flew to Peking after a visit to North Korea, was officially welcomed by President Li Xiannian in a ceremony in Tian An Men Square, which was festooned with Chinese and East German flags. Li and Honecker went into the adjacent Great Hall of the People for a short meeting.

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping has not been seen in public for more than a month, and diplomats here have been told that he is ill. It is not known whether the reported illness is serious, but Chinese officials have privately told diplomats that Deng has some health problems and does not want to meet with foreign visitors for a couple of months. One source said Chinese officials have turned down diplomats' requests for a report from Chinese medical authorities.

Winston Lord, the new U.S. ambassador to China, arrived in Peking on Wednesday. Lord, 48, was met at the airport by Zhang Wenpu, head of the U.S. affairs section of China's Foreign Ministry, and by U.S. Embassy officials. Lord was accompanied by his wife, Betty Bao Lord, who left her native Shanghai for the United States in 1946 and has written a best-selling novel, "Spring Moon," the history of a Chinese family in the eastern city of Suzhou.

  Peking duck Total time: 1 hour, 40 minutes, plus 1 1/2 days chilling time Servings: 4 to 6 Note: This recipe requires the use of a small pump (such as a bicycle pump); the duck can be inflated by hand using a bamboo straw or turkey baster, though this requires a bit of effort. This recipe also requires the use of a vertical roaster. Look for ducks with their heads and feet attached at 99 Ranch markets and specialty shops such as Shang Lee Fresh Poultry (711 N. Spring St.)

  Peking duck stir-fried with ginger and green onion Total time: 25 minutes Servings: 4 Note: This easy but elegant stir-fry is meant to save the cook time and let the duck shine. A 4-pound duck yields about 10 ounces of cooked flesh, so you'll have a little extra to tuck into your pancakes. Serve this stir-fry with rice or wrap in extra mandarin pancakes. Omit the plum sauce for a more savory finish. 1 1/2 cups (about 1/2 pound) roast Peking duck meat 2 tablespoons plum sauce 1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry 1 tablespoon light (regular)

A Peking duck dinner is a feast built from a single ingredient. It starts with nibbling on a taco-like snack of the delicately crisp skin tucked inside thin mandarin pancakes with a lick of earthy bean sauce. That's followed by a simple stir-fry featuring the gamey meat with lots of fragrant ginger and scallion. Finally, a rich soup infused by the remaining bones and bits is offered to cleanse the palate. It's a production that until recently I didn't have the gumption to tackle.

Inside a Chinese restaurant on a narrow street, a grapevine grows. More than 50 years old, its thick, gnarled trunk sits in a courtyard beneath an open sky. At night, when strung with lights, the limbs make for a pretty canopy under which to dine. And dine they did at Mission 261. Foodies and restaurant critics and tourists once packed into the San Gabriel restaurant to feast on Peking duck and dim sum that came in fanciful shapes of birds and fish.

New dating techniques suggest that the remains of so-called Peking Man -- a batch of Homo erectus fossils found in the 1920s -- are 200,000 years older than previously calculated. That suggests he was probably the oldest cold-weather inhabitant in human ancestry, according to the research in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature. During a glacial period about 770,000 years ago, the average yearly temperature in northern China, where he was found, would have hovered around the freezing mark.

Qiu Jirong sits at a mirror in his dressing room, painstakingly applying his theater makeup. First the white, then firm strokes of gold, black and finally red -- the face paint that will transform him into a colorful fairy-tale character in China's iconic national art form: the Peking opera. For a few hours, he feels the power that only the stage can bring. His shrill arias rise to an impossibly high pitch as he gestures to the pounding clang of drums and cymbals.

The city government has begun restricting construction of high-rises and is insisting that new buildings be coordinated with surrounding architecture, the official Xinhua news agency said. The news agency said tall office and apartment buildings built throughout Peking in the past decade have encroached upon centuries-old homes, gardens and temples and destroyed much of the city's historic beauty. Traditional Chinese homes are generally only one or two stories high and built around a courtyard.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone arrived in Peking on Saturday on a two-day visit aimed at soothing Chinese resentment over a series of diplomatic gaffes by Tokyo. Nakasone, in Peking as a guest of Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, took part in a cornerstone-laying ceremony for an $85-million youth center built largely with Japanese funds.

Dragon Bone Hill, a site in the western hills outside Beijing, is so named because prehistoric fossils found there were thought to be the remains of dragons. Locals used to grind up the fossils and sell the powders for their imagined curative powers for everything from insomnia to impotence until the Chinese government banned the practice a few decades ago. The clash between science and superstition is one important theme of Amir D.

It's a mystery that has baffled the world for more than half a century. Whatever happened to the fossils of the prehistoric human ancestor known as Peking Man? Their discovery in the late 1920s and 1930s in limestone caves on the outskirts of Beijing, the Chinese capital then called Peking in the West, was one of the greatest paleontological finds of the 20th century.