Houhai Lake
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.
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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: 
Guy killed me, Mal…
He killed me with a sword. How weird is that?
This is what happens in Chinese parks. There were like 20 old people — mostly women — swinging around swords for exercise. Please note her Playboy bunny pants.
The Great Wall Failed…
…because Mongolian rockers are invading Beijing! Just kidding. Well, sort of.
Last night a few other teachers and I went to see Hanggai in concert. Hanggai is a Mongolian a traditional folk rock punk band. Yup. It’s group of five or six guys that play electric guitar, horse-head fiddle, bass, drums, banjo, and lute. And they are all from Inner-Mongolia and they are awesome.
I want to try to describe their music but it’s really hard. There is definitely some rock or punk rock in there. There is also an Old West folksy feel. You can hear a lot of Asian melody with intense Mongolian throat singing. But there is also a weird American Indian vibe to their songs. I’ve never heard anything like it before.
Wikipedia says:
The members of Hanggai Band come from extremely diverse backgrounds with singer Ilchi having once been the front man of punk band T9.
These eclectic experiences have come together to give Hanggai Band a particularly unique sound blending Mongolian folk music with more popular forms such as punk.
In an interview with Spinner, Ilchi stated that amongst the group’s many influences, Western artists such as, “Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Secret Machines, Electralane and Neil Diamond…” have played a large role in shaping the band’s music.
I’ve included a couple videos that I uploaded to Facebook so you can get a feel for how they sound. These were parts of their less rock-sounding songs.
The First Sandstorm
If you checked the news yesterday, you might have noticed that Beijing was hit by a severe sandstorm that covered the whole city. From BBC:
Beijing has been shrouded in orange dust as a strong sandstorm blew hundreds of miles from drought-struck northern China to the nation’s capital.The authorities have issued a level-five pollution warning and urged people to stay indoors. In Tiananmen Square, clouds of dust obscured monuments and visitors wore masks to avoid the dust and soil.
The storm has already caused havoc in Xinjiang, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei regions and is heading to South Korea.
It would have been awesome to go out and take some photos and really experience the sandstorm first hand. I probably would’ve written a very descriptive (but hilarious) post about what it really feels like to be in the middle of a sandstorm. Unfortunately, I totally slept through it. But I’m pretty sure this video captures the total experience.
Chinese Night Life – St. Patrick’s Day
Ninety percent of the Chinese people we talked to didn’t know what St. Paddy’s Day was — granted we only talked to like five. So we didn’t really know what to do besides go to Paddy O’Sheas, “the most genuine Irish bar pub in Beijing.”
As soon as we got there it was obvious that no Chinese people knew what was up. The bar was packed with Westerners. It was seriously all white people. It totally killed the novelty of seeing another Westerner in Beijing. These people are everywhere now! I think it made me a tiny bit racist. [Reverse racist. Technically. Something I learned in college.]
Anyway, the white people weren’t the only problem. It was also the Jews. Kidding. Jeesh. The other problem was paying 55 kuai for a Guinness that tasted like shit. So we packed up and moved to a bar called Smugglers — which I love.
At Smuggler’s I got six Tsingtao’s for 60 kuai. I think we did what any real Irish person would’ve done. (Except a real Irish person would have bitched about having to drink this “cheap Chinamen piss water,” but done it anyway.)
[Pretty sure this post is the most racist thing I've ever written.]
