Chaoyang Park and Beach Volleyball

[artificial wetlands in Chaoyang park with the city looking on]

Chaoyang Park has been a safe haven for me, a natural playground, a little piece of countryside, and a savior from the grit, grime, and concrete of the rest of the city. It’s a massive chunk of land, nearly the size of Central Park. Fortunately, too, it’s across the street from my neighborhood. Its very planned landscape is quite varied. I ignore the poor man’s Disneyland section, and usually hang around the lakes on the west and north side.

Beijing, in fact, has an amazing collection of parks. With over 1000 years of history, these places have witnessed many a ritual sacrifice from the emperors, the meeting of Kublai Kahn and Marco Polo, and Emperor Chongzhen’s hanging that ended the Ming Dynasty. Today, they play host to fan dances, gongfu and taijichuan practitioners, the foxtrot and waltz, sidewalk calligraphy, checkers, card games, and belt-busting opera choruses. In short, they are places of magic.

[taijichuan in the afternoon sunlight]

The problem with most of these parks, however, is you can’t walk in the grass! Perhaps I have simple tastes, but when I go to a park, I want old-fashioned dirt underneath my feet, not more concrete. Whereas everyone – not just staff people but everyone - seems to enforce the no grass rule in other parks, Chaoyang Park is a blessed exception. So, it is here I go for running, picnicking, the occasional soccer game, watching the birds and hearing the crickets in the summer, and sleeping. Yes, sleeping - as someone who used to live in a tree house, I often get the itch to sleep outside, and I’ve found a convenient fence to jump over at night.

So, I was kind of surprised, and delighted, to find that the Olympics Beach Volleyball would be playing in the park. I was dismayed, though, when I heard from someone who watched the Olympics in the U.S. that NBC showed beach volleyball during prime time every day. Kind of a cheap ratings ploy, no? As if there were not other Olympic sports...

On a clear day, you can see the lay of the park and its new stadium.