Park Life Posted by Transparent Language on Jun 24, 2008 in Culture
When spring rolls around in Beijing, it means more than just the appearance of green after months of grey and early darkness, more than singing birds and flowers and the occasional rain shower. To old school Beijinger’s, springtime means the beginning of park time, and Beijing’s many parks begin to show signs of life after barely stirring during the winter months.
There are a million reasons to go to Beijing’s parks for the average city resident, myself included. Chief among those reasons is the desire to see the color green and to escape the seemingly inescapable hum of the city, blaring of cars, and squash of teeming people so omnipresent throughout the city. Whether they are free or it’s necessary to pay a few jiao for a ticket, once inside a city park, the atmosphere outside just melts away. It’s no wonder that parks are such a popular place for the elderly, who seem to show up in them at the crack of dawn and don’t leave until past dark. On a day where it just makes sense to get out of the city – without actually getting out of the city – a retreat to Ritan, Beihai, or Xiangshan seems to make perfect sense. And seeing the types of activities that go on in the parks in the spring and summer months makes them all the more interesting to visit.
On a typical afternoon’s stroll through Ritan Park in Beijing’s Sanlitun Embassy district, for example, the shade of cypress trees lets sunlight filter through the leaves but seems to clean the air of the traffic and noise that somehow seems to permeate through everything else. Old men and women shuffle along with their hands behind their backs down the tree-lined pathways, and gardeners cut the grass with sickles on their hands and knees. People will be drinking tea from their thermoses while sitting in some of the many benches, and it’s actually possible to hear birds flitting about and singing. They aren’t the only ones, though, as high school and college students will walk along intently reading out-loud from English language readers, working on their spoken English skills. I’ve found myself on more than one occasion averting my eyes from eye-contact, old curmudgeon that I am, as an ambling foreigner becomes a fantastic opportunity for them to start up a conversation, inevitably in bad English. It is, however, the cost of entry and for the first timer in Beijing, can be fun way to meet interesting people.
Continuing the walk, you may come across people passing the time fishing for incredibly tiny fish out of one of the ponds. Almost all the parks in Beijing have lakes or ponds, and people pay by the hour to fish with long bamboo poles in hopes of making a catch (the fish are released, and are pretty much inedible). Old people will be practicing tai chi chuan in an open area, slow, deliberate movements which can’t help but add years to life. Tai chi, in China, seems to be the province of the elderly, with very few younger practitioners, although it is one of the most formidable of martial arts with thousands of years of history. Further along, an exercise yard in the Chinese style will have people working elliptical machines that operate only on hinges, wheels that serve no other purpose but to be turned, and see-saws made for adults, not children. I could think of no other reasons for these machines but to improve circulation.
In the end, a day in the park is best enjoyed with an ice cold green tea ice cream, or half hour in one of the tea gardens sipping one of the many varieties of tea available there. For the city dweller, the parks of Beijing are one of the best places of relaxation around.
Vocabulary
Park 公园 gōng yuán
Grass 草地 cǎo dì
Tree 树 shù
Taichi 太极拳 táijìquán
Flower 花 huā
Island 岛 dǎo
Lake 湖 hú
Hill 山 shān
Play area 游乐区 yóu lè qū
Beihai Park 北海公园 běi hǎi gōng yuán
Ritan Park 日坛公园 rì tán gōng yuán
Fragrant Hills Park 香山公园 xiāng shān gōng yuán
Temple of Heaven 天坛公园 tiān tán gōng yuán
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Comments:
Robert Taubman:
Having just recently visited Beijing, and having been fortunate enough to vist/stumble upon Ritan Park, I was delighted to read this blog. Thank you for your article and thank you for the included vocabulary.
Jill:
I have been to Beijing several times and my favorite adventure is to walk through Ritan or Bei hai Park and watch the amazing diversity of people and activities. It is truly a slice of Chinese life. Even my own development in Guangzhou has a park that has its own timeline and social structure. Different times of day bring out different users and they all have their own earmarked spots within the park.