I have another post, based also on an observation by Liang Qichao, over at The Peking Duck which will likely generate a bit more commentary than this brief meditation on the joys of urban parks, but after a pleasant post-brunch stroll through Ritan Gongyuan, I thought parks to be worth a post of their own:
As with the passage at TPD, this was recorded by Liang during his 1903 trip to the United States:
“Everywhere in New York the eye confronts what look like pigeon coops, spiderwebs, and centipedes; in fact these are houses, electric wires, and trolley cars.
New York’s Central Park extends from 71st Street to 123rd Street [eds. note: in fact, 59th to 110th], with an area about equal to the International Settlement and French Concession in Shanghai. Especially on days of rest it is crowded with carriages and with people jostling together. The park is in the middle of the city; if it were changed into a commercial area, the land would sell for three or four times the annual revenue of the Chinese government. From the Chinese point of view this may be called throwing away money on useless land and regrettable. The total park area in New York is 7000 mu, the largest of any city in the world; London is second with 6,500 mu. Writers on city administration all agree that for a busy metropolis not to have appropriate parks is harmful to public health and morals.”*
I couldn’t agree more. Even our little neighborhood greenspace, the tiny Nanguan Park, is often enough to calm frazzled nerves jarred daily by the Beijing experience. I was raised in the exurbs of the Boston metropolitan area, and while I might not be a true country boy, I was surrounded by enough greenery growing up that the demands of living encased in concrete can soon weigh heavy on the heart. Beijing’s parks, with their own fair share of concrete and noise, are a little too artificial for my taste, but time spent in spaces like Ritan Park, Chaoyang Park, and stamp-sized Nanguan, can still help restore a smidgen of sanity to the urban sprawl that is Beijing, 2008. I hope the municipal government continues in its plans to increase the amount of greenspace throughout the city, and to keep reducing and eliminating entrance fees to existing parks.
As Liang Qichao concluded:
Now that I have come to New York, I am convinced. One day without going to the park leaves me muddled in mind and spirit.”
Amen, brother.
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*”Liang Qichao on his trip to America,” translated by R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee in Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, Patricia Ebrey, ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1993), pp. 335-336
Cracking couple of posts. I’ve not yet plucked up the courage to enter the fray over at tpd.
I live in Shenyang, right by the stunning Beiling Park, which contains the Zhaoling tomb, from the early Qing. I’m sure you know more about this than I do.
Though I’m only an occasional visitor to the park, it’s existence is pretty much essential to mine. I suspect it contributes significantly to the air quality and wildlife in the neighbourhood. It also draws an incredible number of morning exercisers, for all manner of activities. But for me, just the knowledge that I can go there and lose myself for a couple of hours is invaluable.
I’m soon to move to outskirts of the city, where new development is rapid and I see no sign that any pubic green space is being set aside. As I’m interfering do-gooder, whenever I meet someone who may somehow have a vague say in how the new area develops, I enquire whether there may be a plan to protect such an area, especially whilst land remains cheap. Needless to say, I’m met with looks of bafflement.
I’ve been meaning to write about Liang Sicheng for a while. He’s the architect who proposed an alternative plan to Beijing development than the one the Soviet “experts” did, with predictable results. It’s more than a little heartbreaking to think of what might have been: his plan called for decentralized urban development, with governmental offices and other major danweis placed outside the old city wall. The wall itself would have been preserved and converted into a public park, and his plan included sketches of how trees and benches could be laid out along the wall, and how families could stroll in the evenings.
Basically every complaint that people have about Beijing — the ugliness of the downtown, the traffic, the lack of greenery — would have been addressed by Liang’s plan.
Ritan is my personal favorite for BJ. A breath of (relatively) fresh air in the middle of the bustling CBD. I wonder if Brendan might recommend where we can find more info on Liang Sicheng’s plan?
Cheers~
Sima,
As much as I love our little Nanguan, your park sounds a lot cooler. I hope you’re able to find some needed greenspace after your move to the outskirts of town.
Thanks for stopping by.
Ps. As a historian, let me say that you couldn’t have picked a better Chinese surname.
Brendan,
I look forward to reading it. I was discussing urban space with a local historian a couple of weeks ago, and we both agreed that the decision to take down the walls was a catastrophic mistake. He argued that if the walls were still standing, Beijing would have to be at or near the top of any list of the great architectural/historic cities in the world.
Shu Jierui,
I second your nomination of Ritan, for many reasons, not the least of which is that the Stone Boat Cafe is one of my favorite study spots in the summer.
Shu Jierui,
I can’t speak for Brendan, but an American lawyer called Michael Aldrich who lives here wrote a study of the destruction of Old Beijing (and other things) called The Search for a Vanishing Beijing a couple of years back. Here’s a lecture he gave on it, which mentions Liang Sicheng, though not the full dramatic details of how his advice was rejected by Mao.
http://www.bjchp.org/english/oldbeijing/MAldrich.asp
Worth copying over one paragraph quoted by Aldrich in the lecture from a Danish writer, Karl Eskelund, in the 1940s:
I fell in love with the city from the first glimpse of the great Tartar wall. I still love Peking better than any other place in the world. Nowhere else has the romantic past blended so charmingly with the practical present. Peking has no tooting motor cars, no smoky factories, no ugly, modern concrete buildings. The temples and the mysterious Forbidden City, the cosy dwelling houses with their intricate courtyards and graceful slanting roofs, all stand today as they did when Peking was the capital of the middle Kingdom.
Times change.
Jeremiah – Nanguan used to be my park too. I loved it. Does that man still go and practice opera by going and standing three feet away from that odd concrete wall and singing at it at top volume?
Jeremiah, I must be in one of the greyer parts of the world, a little public green space makes a big difference. New developments and university campuses seem to include trees and lawns but, somehow, it’s just not quite the same.
As for the name, I think we can be fairly sure I’m not descended from the great man. Can I take it that you wouldn’t be willing to suffer for your art in quite the way he did?
i love that whole passage by liang on america. reminds me a little of the writings of the iwakura mission in the 1870s, when the choshu/satsuma samurai took a world tour after the meiji restoration.
the sun yat-sen memorial was that place for me in taipei, with the lotus pond amidst concrete. it’s amazing what that little moment of greenery will do for the soul.
While I admire Qian, I don’t share his, shall we say, level of commitment.
Makes a great story for class, though.
Richard,
Plus competing choirs, accordion bands, and few different dance troupes…it’s a regular vaudeville revue starting every night around 8.
Thanks for stopping by.
Wu Ming,
Isn’t it a great document? It’s perfect for class because there is just so much juice for discussion in it.
“From the Chinese point of view this may be called throwing away money on useless land and regrettable.”
I’ve been told that during the Maoist era the planner for Zhaojiabang Road in Shanghai was severely criticised for wasting space on the width of the road as well as the luxuriant (well, by urban Chinese standards) meridian separating the lanes. But, Liang Qichao’s comment seems to apply universally to Chinese, no matter those who insist on building an adjacent rental unit to the house under the euphemism “housing for the mother in-law” despite residential restrictions, or subdividing apartment space, or erecting commercial outlets in the front yard and rental units in the back, or in general tirelessly pursuing wealth through the tradition of property investment (densities and real estate values often more than 30% greater than the surrounding areas in foreign countries) and blithely exercising the Chinese horror vacui; no matter mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Australia or North America this seems to hold true.
Interesting to read the both the original post as well as the comments. I couldn’t agree more that a little bit of greenery and nature is vital for psychological well-being.
I believe it was Shu Jierui who asked where one can find Liang Sicheng’s original master plan for Beijing. It was not included in his so-called complete works Liang Sicheng quanji, but Wang Jun has it in his Cheng Ji.
If you check session 13 of my course site at http://gatheringmountains.net/courses/CRP679.html it is included in that session’s PDF file.
Beijing, btw, is increasing it’s park (or should I say: green) space from 25% to a bit over 30% in the next 18 months. It’s a rather contested development, as for example a green space such as the new Tianyuan Park will require extravagant amounts of water, a rare (and still underpriced) commodity in Beijing these days.
On the other hand, traveling to Henan and other places these days, one can observe laobaixing in the afternoon emerging from their houses washing their clothes in the water which the water brigade had just discharged to water green spaces along roads. TH