Chinarchy

Houhai Lake

by Anderson | 04/19/10 | 1 comment

We recently visited Houhai Lake in northern central Beijing. It’s part of Shichahai, a historic area consisting of three different lakes northwest of the Forbidden City.

You can see it on the Google Map below.

View Larger Map

It’s a nice area and I took a few photos, so here they are:
This is the south side of the lake. There’s a lot of people just hanging out playing hacky sack and walking around. The lake is surrounded by restaurants and bars — most relatively new, from around 2003. If you look at the left side of the second photo, you can see a Starbucks.

Here is a close up: In the far right window (under the glare, sorry) you can see the standard logo. Starbucks is pretty much the same price in China, maybe a buck cheaper, which really sucks because I have a serious caffeine addiction and I pass one every day on my way to work. It’s so tempting, especially the green tea lattes which are amazing. They taste like the green tea ice cream you get at sushi places in America.

Here is a shot from the western side of the lake: It’s kind of pretty, but not the kind you think of when you imagine lakes. It’s not serene, at all. China doesn’t do serene.

For example, here is one of the alleyways leading away from the lake: Oh look, it’s a crowd of people.

Speaking of crowds, I saw a bunch of people gathering around a little bird so I went to check it out. He was the most amazing little guy ever. He would take money from people and drop it in a little birdie bank.

And while we’re on the subject of cute animals. Look at how fluffy and goddamn cute this Chow is: Hey guys, there’s a reason Chinese dogs are called chow. I’m kidding! Well, not really. But I’m pretty sure nobody ate this dog.

Let’s change the subject. I found a little shack along the lakeside selling propaganda posters. A lot of children were depicted in the posters, not really surprising.

I think this set was my favorite: I love the farmer holding the Little Red Book aloft, which is hilarious to me. Look how happy he is to be starving to death! Maybe he’s just happy he found his copy, otherwise Red Guards would be beating him. Next to that we have the red fist smashing some guys, I’m not sure who. If you can figure it out let me know, otherwise I’m just going to assume they are capitalist pigs or members of the liberal bourgeoisie. And finally, a smoking ad! Of course.

Alright, I’m going to wrap this post up on a good capitalist note: