Spring Festival at Nan Guan Park (南管公园):

Nan Guan Park is one of the many reasons why I really like living in Dongzhimen and continue to put up with the high cost of housing there. This small park is located just west of the Russian Embassy (俄罗斯大使馆) and is a five minute walk from my apartment community.

A good part of Nan Guan Park is taken up by a shallow pool located in the middle of the park. The pool's bottom is lined with concrete. As the above photo shows, this pool is drained during the winter. That's too bad, as the water would be frozen solid from December through February and would make for a nice outdoor ice rink. The area off to the side of tree on the left part of the photo has some grass, old trees, and walking paths. There's also a large plaza and play area.

The plaza area has two large open spaces where people do ballroom dancing and hold aerobics classes both during the day and evening when the weather is warmer. As the photos below indicate, this part of the park also has lots of small concrete tables flanked by concrete pillars. Vine-covered concrete rafters vines span these pillars.

From mid-Spring through early Fall this part of the park is a very lively (很热闹) place indeed. But even in the middle of winter, during the day at least, you'll still find people out and about and enjoying themselves in the park. Most of them are older men: lots of retired (退休) people live in this neighborhood. The two chaps in the photo below are doing what many elderly Chinese men do in their spare time, namely playing “Go”, or Chinese encirclement chess (围棋).

Of course you can always find at least one group of people playing mahjong (麻将). The photos above and below were shot on second day of this year's Spring Festival (the one at the top of the post was taken last year).

During my stroll about the park that day, I did notice a game of cards, probably poker (扑克), being played at one of the tables. However, the light color of the table's concrete surface and bright sunlight made it impossible to take good photos of the cards being laid out. But I did get some decent shots of the fellow below, who was playing with special kind of yoyo. This yoyo went back and forth on the string connecting the two handles in this fellow's hands.

There were a few couples with small children strolling about the park. I noticed the little girl in the photo below while walking over to the park. Like me, this child and her parents were on their way to Nan Guan's southwest entrance. She looked really cute all bundled up in her pink wool cap (帽子) and scarf (围巾). I couldn't resist taking a shot this child and her parents were more than happy to let me photograph her. This little child struck and good pose and certainly appears to be a natural when it comes hamming it up! 非常非常可爱!

In a little a more than a month from now, the spring blooms will be out in Nan Guan Park. And with the better weather, a lot more of the locals will be enjoying this pleasant patch of greenery in central Beijing. I'll certainly be out there with my camera to record more of it.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

南管公园 (nan2guan3gong1yuan2). The last two characters form the Mandarin word for “public park,” while the first is the word for “south.”
俄罗斯大使馆 (e2luo2si1da4shi4guan3). The first three characters for the Mandarin word for “Russia,” while the other three mean “embassy.”
很热闹 (hen3re4nao4).
退休 (tui4xiu1).
围棋 (wei2qi2).
麻将 (ma2jiang1).
扑克 (pu1ke4).
帽子 (mao4zi5).
围巾 (wei2jin1). This character pairing is yet another example of how Mandarin is a very logical language. By itself “围” means to surround/encircle, while “巾” means “cloth.”
非常非常可爱 (fei1chang2fei1chang2ke3ai4). Really, really adorable/cute/lovable.