Right Now, Bolormaa Gantulga Is Folding Dumplings for a Beijing Club With No Sign
At seven past midnight on an autumn Saturday, a window in a hutong goes white and the first plate lands. Nobody at the nine tables can say which came first.
The window goes white at 12:07. A plate lands on the table a second later, and you could not say which arrived first, the steam or the dumplings.
This is a hutong east of Dongsi. The door is grey and there is no sign, only a red bulb on a hook and a bicycle chained to a drainpipe. It is 6 degrees outside. Inside there are nine tables, a speaker on the floor and a low song you almost recognise.
Bolormaa Gantulga stands at the back with flour to the elbow. She folds a dumpling in about four seconds. Her thumb moves like a person turning the page of a book they have read many times.
There is no menu. There is lamb with caraway, pork with chive, and cabbage with egg for whoever came with a quiet stomach. A plate of twelve costs 38 yuan. You do not choose. She looks at you once and then she chooses.
They call it a club because it opens at midnight and closes when the last person leaves. Nobody dances. A taxi driver sits with his cap on the table. A woman in a sequined jacket has just finished a wedding in Chaoyang and is eating with her shoes off. Two bakers eat fast, because their own ovens are waiting.
Nobody talks loudly. The room works the way a radio works at this hour, one voice at a time, and only if it has something to say.
Bolormaa says the dumpling is the right food for after midnight. "Nobody is pretending at this hour," she says. "They are just hungry. It is easy to feed someone who is only hungry."
At 12:40 the glass has fogged so completely that the street has gone. Someone near the door lifts a finger and wipes a small circle to check that the world is still out there. It is. A bicycle goes by with its light on. The person looks for a moment, then picks up a dumpling, and the steam closes the circle behind them.
