At night, downtown Beijing's Houhai district pulses with Chinese dance music, bar owners barking out drink specials and neon lights reflecting off the green-skinned water and ice of the manmade lake. Skinny girls in flashy knee-high boots and purple fur-fringed coats, escorted by guys wearing movie star sunglasses and zip-up coats, wander around, laughing and nibbling on fruit kebobs shiny with hardened corn syrup. This popular entertainment district hosts hundreds of bars and restaurants, many of which close down for the longer winter months, when their summertime patios, outfitted with red and purple couches and big fluffy pillows, are bare save for black chunks of ice.

Yet on winter weekend afternoons, the frozen surface of Houhai becomes the training ground for the next generation of Olympians, or at least for kids of all ages seeking the sunny thrill of sliding across the ice. Hundreds of three-person families, gaggles of children, pairs of too-cute couples, tag-teams of college kids--and the occasional all-too-serious old man donning Spandex pants and speed skates--slide, slip, skate and roll across the not-so-smooth ice.

And not just on skates. The classic white lace-ups account for only a small group of thrill seekers. Even more popular are the ice-chairs: a brilliant exercise in recycling. Picture your (or your 1980's student's) old elementary school desk chairs--the blond 'wood' chair with taupe metal legs. Now multiply the image of that chair by 300. Now place all 300 of those chairs (plastered with the usual school graffiti of pop-idol stickers, love proclamations and initials) on long metal blades and you've got a lake full of ice chairs.

Sit down, adjust your coat and scarf, and dig two sharp metal poles into the ice. Push and off you go. Brakes? Good luck with those poles.

The icebike is also popular--a bike frame denuded of its front wheel and replaced with blades. (Icecars are restricted to smaller areas...and they're not even bumper cars, so there's not much thrill in that.)

Vendors rent ice vehicles for an average of a 70 RMB deposit and a 30 RMB charge (unlimited time). One rental group's sign further broke down the charges into "Weekends, Holidays and Peacetimes."

I experienced Houhai On Ice for the first time last week with my friendly neighborhood clown Song Guang Bin. Our friend Jenny Lah had invited us out for an afternoon on the ice, and so we went, trailed by the two CCTV photographers who are obsessed with documenting Song Guang Bin's flower delivery business.

These two reporters have already run a story on Song Guang Bin, yet they repeatedly return to his flower shop on Sundays to film and shoot.

As a group, we walked from the flower shop to the lake. The head reporter ran ahead of us, squated, and aimed his massive 35mm at us. Meanwhile, his cronie, a distressed looking young man dressed in a brown furry bear coat, filmed from the side, stealing away every few steps to capture the reactions of passers-by. The head reporter called us back to take a posed shot in front of the famous Drum Tower, then yanked me away to shoot me pretending to admire a red lantern hanging from a storefront's colorful eaves.

On the ice, his photography became even more intense. In addition , Song Guang Bin's friend/employee was busy testing out his new digital camera.
Furthermore, when a clown's in the middle of a lake crowded with children, giggly college students, and old folks walking dogs cloaked in 'traditional' Chinese costumes, you're gonna get some attention. The entire two hours we slid around, children constantly cried "xiao chou! xiao chou!" (clown, clown), echoed by buzz and click of digital cameras. He posed several times with single 20-some girls with permed hair and stuffed-bear ear warmers, or a three-person ice chair stacked with eight or nine well-bundled children.

The attention was exhausting, and I wasn't even the one receiving it. I was as white and unnoticed as the ice.

A week later, the reporter presented Song Guang Bin with an 8 x 10 framed photo from that day. Out of the reels and reels of photos he shot, he printed a shot from the last ten minutes of our outing, when Song Guang Bin was mobbed by my group of foreign friends, who'd finally all reconvened for a final goodbye. Jenny Lah, with her beautiful features and sleek coat, is laughing, and Rachel W. is clearly acting humble about her Chinese, and the German guy in the PLA fur hat is looking doubtful yet amused. And if you look carefully, just off to the right, I blend in quite perfectly among the hundreds of Chinese girls with dark-haired ponytails and dark blue, fake fur-fringed down coats, yet my face is as white (and shiny) as the ice.

At night, downtown Beijing's Houhai district pulses with Chinese dance music, bar owners barking out drink specials and neon lights reflecting off the green-skinned water and ice of the manmade lake. Skinny girls in flashy knee-high boots and purple fur-fringed coats, escorted by guys wearing movie star sunglasses and zip-up coats, wander around, laughing and nibbling on fruit kebobs shiny with hardened corn syrup. This popular entertainment district hosts hundreds of bars and restaurants, many of which close down for the longer winter months, when their summertime patios, outfitted with red and purple couches and big fluffy pillows, are bare save for black chunks of ice.

Yet on winter weekend afternoons, the frozen surface of Houhai becomes the training ground for the next generation of Olympians, or at least for kids of all ages seeking the sunny thrill of sliding across the ice. Hundreds of three-person families, gaggles of children, pairs of too-cute couples, tag-teams of college kids--and the occasional all-too-serious old man donning Spandex pants and speed skates--slide, slip, skate and roll across the not-so-smooth ice.

And not just on skates. The classic white lace-ups account for only a small group of thrill seekers. Even more popular are the ice-chairs: a brilliant exercise in recycling. Picture your (or your 1980's student's) old elementary school desk chairs--the blond 'wood' chair with taupe metal legs. Now multiply the image of that chair by 300. Now place all 300 of those chairs (plastered with the usual school graffiti of pop-idol stickers, love proclamations and initials) on long metal blades and you've got a lake full of ice chairs.

Sit down, adjust your coat and scarf, and dig two sharp metal poles into the ice. Push and off you go. Brakes? Good luck with those poles.

The icebike is also popular--a bike frame denuded of its front wheel and replaced with blades. (Icecars are restricted to smaller areas...and they're not even bumper cars, so there's not much thrill in that.)

Vendors rent ice vehicles for an average of a 70 RMB deposit and a 30 RMB charge (unlimited time). One rental group's sign further broke down the charges into "Weekends, Holidays and Peacetimes."

I experienced Houhai On Ice for the first time last week with my friendly neighborhood clown Song Guang Bin. Our friend Jenny Lah had invited us out for an afternoon on the ice, and so we went, trailed by the two CCTV photographers who are obsessed with documenting Song Guang Bin's flower delivery business.

These two reporters have already run a story on Song Guang Bin, yet they repeatedly return to his flower shop on Sundays to film and shoot.

As a group, we walked from the flower shop to the lake. The head reporter ran ahead of us, squated, and aimed his massive 35mm at us. Meanwhile, his cronie, a distressed looking young man dressed in a brown furry bear coat, filmed from the side, stealing away every few steps to capture the reactions of passers-by. The head reporter called us back to take a posed shot in front of the famous Drum Tower, then yanked me away to shoot me pretending to admire a red lantern hanging from a storefront's colorful eaves.

On the ice, his photography became even more intense. In addition , Song Guang Bin's friend/employee was busy testing out his new digital camera.
Furthermore, when a clown's in the middle of a lake crowded with children, giggly college students, and old folks walking dogs cloaked in 'traditional' Chinese costumes, you're gonna get some attention. The entire two hours we slid around, children constantly cried "xiao chou! xiao chou!" (clown, clown), echoed by buzz and click of digital cameras. He posed several times with single 20-some girls with permed hair and stuffed-bear ear warmers, or a three-person ice chair stacked with eight or nine well-bundled children.

The attention was exhausting, and I wasn't even the one receiving it. I was as white and unnoticed as the ice.

A week later, the reporter presented Song Guang Bin with an 8 x 10 framed photo from that day. Out of the reels and reels of photos he shot, he printed a shot from the last ten minutes of our outing, when Song Guang Bin was mobbed by my group of foreign friends, who'd finally all reconvened for a final goodbye. Jenny Lah, with her beautiful features and sleek coat, is laughing, and Rachel W. is clearly acting humble about her Chinese, and the German guy in the PLA fur hat is looking doubtful yet amused. And if you look carefully, just off to the right, I blend in quite perfectly among the hundreds of Chinese girls with dark-haired ponytails and dark blue, fake fur-fringed down coats, yet my face is as white (and shiny) as the ice.