Size really matters when it comes to sights and sounds

My husband says he acted like a secret agent during a recent trip to buy wires for our home entertainment system. When he finally located the store on a busy street in Xisi, near the center of Beijing, heavy smoke was billowing out of the door.

Apparently, some careless technicians had ignited something while preparing the wires, amplifiers and synthesizers for their customers. But none of the shop owners panicked. Having traveled a long way, my husband was determined not to leave empty-handed.

He walked up the staircase onto the second floor, then through a labyrinth of shops before arriving at his destination.

"Is Xiao Pei here?" he asked. Without answering, a staff member disappeared behind a door and brought back a young man in his 20s.

"Have you got Cable cable?" My husband was asking for a brand name HDMI wire that reputedly can guarantee high-definition sound and video effects. Xiao Pei soon handed over a big, heavy roll of wire. "400 kuai, 10 m," he said. It was through a friend that my husband found this shop and the price had already been settled over the phone.

In recent years, more and more people have fallen in love with, or become victims of, astronomically priced home theater systems. Within this circle, the people call themselves fa shao you - feverish friends.

We never aspired to rub shoulders with "feverish friends". But our best friends are fanatics, and they can be very persuasive.

One of them has just bought a 4-m long screen for his new home, for more than 50,000 yuan ($6,700). It was impossible to carry it through the front door, so the workers had to lift it over the balcony. Luckily, his new home is on the first floor.

My friend considers it a worthy investment because the second-hand imported movie projector he got from Guangdong was double the price of the screen.

"You've got to enjoy the best music and films while your ears and eyes can still detect minute differences," says my friend.

At Xisi and the nearby Xinjiekou area - the Mecca for "feverish friends" in Beijing, you can bump into people of various ages and professions hunting for all kinds of music and equipment.

But to me, it is the strong contrast between modern and old in the neighborhood which is the most fascinating. Behind the shops are old siheyuan courtyards with newly painted gray walls. Quite a few houses were built in ancient temples or residents of historical celebrities. To a history lover like me, seeing the old cultural heritage centers bustling with life brings both sadness and joy.

In the narrow hutong alley there was still some spilled garbage, even near a small restaurant. It must be a particularly good eatery because people queued up to get the dishes sold at just 1 or 2 yuan. The "locals" greeted each other cordially, but in different dialects - they cannot be the real old Beijing residents, but lodgers from across the country seeking a better life.

"How wonderful it would be if we could live in the center of the city," I said, chewing delicious noodles. "But where would we put the home entertainment system?" my husband asked.

(China Daily 12/26/2007 page20)