The Cricket Man (Beijing)

In Beijing, China, you can do a Hutong tour with a visit to The Cricket Man (with or without lunch).  To me, the cricket man was the only worthwhile part of the tour, so I’m so glad I didn’t do one of the many hutong tours that didn’t visit The Cricket Man

This is The Cricket Man.  He’s been written up in magazines and is as famous as a man who fights crickets can be.  Here he is with 2 of his crickets.  He shares how he trains them, the caskets he has for his best fighters, how he breeds them, etc.  He doesn’t speak English, but your tour guide is an interpreter and he is very animated and fun to see.

The other part of the tour is the hutong tour.   They’ll point out different doorways and symbols that meant people were related to the royal family and how.

Also, you can go to a tea tasting (they’ll often refer to it as a “tea ceremony” to make it sound more interesting) as part of the tour, but that is generally free and is sort of like the tours of Argan oil factories in Morocco or carpet-making tours in Turkey.  Generally, they are tourist traps.

The lunch I had was good, but mainly consisted of rice and celery, so I didn’t feel it was worth what I paid, as I could have gotten something I’d chosen with more variety for that amount of money elsewhere.

There is also an offer for a paid rickshaw ride (but there is no alternative if you don’t want to pay).  In my case, the rickshaw just drove around mainly the area we had already walked through and there was really nothing of interest to see (although the tour description said it would take to you to see specific things).