Curse of the Golden Flower

Beijing

A metropolis in northern China, is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It was formerly known in English as Peking. Beijing is also one of the four municipalities of the PRC, which are equivalent to provinces in China's administrative structure. Beijing Municipality borders Hebei Province to the north, west, south, and for a small section in the east, and Tianjin Municipality to the southeast.

Beijing is China's second largest city in terms of population, after Shanghai. It is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways passing through the city. It is also the focal point of many international flights to China. Beijing is recognized as the political, educational, and cultural center of the People's Republic of China, while Shanghai and Hong Kong predominate in economic fields.

Beijing is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. It will host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The city of forbidden pleasures
Richard Spencer meets Gong Li

It's hard to define exactly what it is about Gong Li that makes her so attractive. Here in Beijing there must be thousands of girls with her dark sultry looks, yet somehow she has a unique combination of grit and sparkle. I have come here especially to meet her and to discover her city - which itself has a fair degree of grit and sparkle.


The timing is fortunate. On Friday her latest film, Curse of the Golden Flower, opened at cinemas throughout Britain. Directed by Zhang Yimou of House of Flying Daggers and Hero fame, Curse of the Golden Flower shows Gong at her most alluring - and it does much the same for Beijing's Forbidden City, the opulent setting for much of the action.

Gong embodies the glitzy side of this rapidly developing and in many ways harsh metropolis and when I mention to locals that I am to meet her their eyes light up. But what does she like best about being here? Where does she like to eat, drink and shop? I want her to tell me what gives Beijing its buzz. And then I want to experience it for myself.

We sit on a sofa in a dark corner of the Hilton Beijing, listening to the slightly surreal sound of a pen of hundreds of live chicks and baby rabbits cheeping in chorus to a live string quartet (well, it is just before Easter). Gong is wearing black with a white silk scarf. Curled on the sofa, she reminds me of a snow leopard.
She has no "minders" with her. "I've been coming here for 10 years," she tells me. "In Beijing we don't have paparazzi to make such a fuss of us as in England." She's very keen for me to believe that she leads a normal life. Given a day off, Gong will stay at home with her Labrador and watch DVDs in bed.

"Really, I don't get out that much," she insists. "I love to play pool." That's a bit hard to believe. The interview took three weeks to confirm and was changed a further three times. When I press further she reveals that she does like going out with friends to restaurants, most recently visiting one called Yin Quan.
Finding it later is an adventure. The concierge writes down the address in Chinese, which I hand to the taxi driver. After a false start, in which we end up in what feels like a wasteland, we find Yin Quan and discover it is a chic Californian/Japanese sushi restaurant with slick glass walls and shiny wooden floors.

There are walls of cascading water and stepping stones over raked white sand leading to the lavatories. The food is delicious: sculptural little blocks called spring blossom rolls with asparagus, spinach with cod, avocado, shrimp wrapped in taro leaves and in soybean skin accompanied by jasmine tea. The bill comes to 205 yuan - about £13.50. It is both glamorous and down to earth.

Another hot tip is the Courtyard Restaurant, which is housed in an historic courtyard house. Such houses have largely been destroyed in the building surge ahead of next year's Olympic Games. This one, though, is beautifully preserved. At its centre is a pool of calm water. Masses of staff are on hand to attend to your every need. I had a delicious skirt steak followed by a perfect crème brûlée.
But where to eat the city's signature Peking duck? Gong says Quanjude is the place to have it - so I do. The dish is light and fragrant, with as many pancakes and as much bean sauce as I can eat. At the Lao She tea house I have an equally delicious version with mottled purple sticks of lotus root. The tea is jasmine and as the boiling water is poured on the flower it unfurls slowly until ready to drink. Like all the best things in China, it is so subtle that, if you are not paying attention, you miss it.

Black and white silk, yin and yang, contrast. What Gong really likes about Beijing, she explains, is ''the contrast between old and new". While she is slightly contemptuous about the new skyscrapers ("nothing special"), she loves the hutongs - the old lanes and alleys - a few of which have survived the bulldozers.
Tucked away behind the main boulevards, the hutongs are much closer to the West's idea of China. Rickshaw passengers catch glimpses into courtyard houses and the shacks and rough-and-ready shops that line the narrow passageways as they screech past.

Some hutongs are quiet, others are modern and plastered with neon signs. The nicest I found was at Qianhai Xiyan Road in the Tianhefang Xicheng district: a restored hutong area around the Houhai lake, flanked by bars. My guide, Cherry, and I took a break in a white-leather and purple-chandelier decorated bar watching the yellow rickshaws and lovers strolling by the lapping lake.

Another is Dashilar. This hutong is more commercialised, with loudspeakers, neon signs and shops crammed with plastic, silk, shoes and tea. The farther east you walk, the rougher it gets.

Gong says she doesn't do spas or beauty treatments, so how, in a city notorious for its pollution, does she look so glowing at 40? She lately had her hair cut at a "very good, ordinary" hairdresser called Cai Xiu, she reveals. I am dubious.
Li does admit to buying Yves Saint Laurent shoes, "when I have to attend premières... they are very pretty and comfortable". The rest of the time she proudly wears scruffy white Adidas walking boots.

Are there any places in Beijing that have a romantic attachment for her?
She stretches cat-like. "Well... I forget these moments sooo quickly." Pressed, she tells me that she has fond memories of visiting Tiananmen Square with her father when she was 18, for her Academy of Drama exam. Not romantic, but sentimental.
"All these places - Summer Palace, Fragrant Hill, Forbidden Palace - are good enough, but what makes them more special is who you are with when you visit them," she says tantalisingly.

In the absence of a romantic companion I'm with Adam, the guide from Audley Travel, who replaces Cherry on my second day. At Gong's suggestion we go to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China and are propelled to the top by a cable car. The wall darts across the mountains like a silvery dragon. The cherry blossom is unfurling and there's a blue sky.

Adam and I continue on to the Summer Palace - the Versailles of the east where the sinister-looking Empress Cixi (there are photographs of her on display inside) effectively presided over the end of imperial rule in China. We scale the Temple of Good Health and from the top of its brilliant painted structure feel we could almost waft away into heaven.

Beyond Beijing, Gong, who comes from Shangyong, speaks warmly of the thermal spring at Manpo and the Ten Thousand Buddha Mountain near Guanmin. "It used to be nice, although with the pollution these days, who knows," she says.

Farther afield she loves Miami and Cuba (for the friendly, natural dancing in the streets) and, for weekend getaways, Tokyo.

I am staying at the Peninsula Beijing hotel. It has eastern finesse underpinned by hi-tech and gourmet luxury. For the second half of my visit I stay at the Grand Beijing, a wonderful old-style, five-star hotel with acres of marble, Ming vases and a yellow-silk four-poster bed. From the window I catch a glimpse of the Forbidden City.

Ah yes, the Forbidden City; Gong Li's Forbidden City. On my final day I head there alone, walking through the ornamental garden that divides it from my hotel. I am glad to have seen Curse of the Golden Flower in advance because it brings to life what the emperor's palace must have been like during the Qing dynasty.
I pass through courtyard after courtyard with painted temple or ornamental garden soft with spring blossom. With the velvety tones of the audio guide it is almost an otherworldly experience, though I am quickly brought back to earth by the hordes of tourists.

For Gong Li the best parts of this extraordinary complex are the unrestored areas. They evoke Beijing's finest side: vivid, understated and genuine. I'm seeing the city through her eyes - and already I like it more.