The Changing Houhai (Oct 16, 03)

During the SARS period, Beijing was very quiet, like all other affected cities, most of the public areas are closed, everyone in Beijing lock themselves up in their home and no one would walk around in the city. Houhai was my favorite place at that time for running. My friends and I would follow the lake shape to run for hours there. It was a good way to keep our immune system strong.

A few months after SARS, I visited Houhai again, the area is definitely more flourish than before. There is a new area developed, called “Lotus Lane”, I remember one of the hidden café here used to be my favorite reading place. I would bring along a book, order a cup of coffee and then sit here to read from the afternoon till sunset. Then watch the sunset from the window, till it finally disappeared behind the lake. Now that all these scenes are gone, instead, we have a lot of restaurants and bars along the Lotus Lane. Beer sign and Christmas lights are everywhere (even it’s not Christmas yet). I can tell Houhai is a good place for restaurant business with such scenic environment, but is it necessary to have so many? Maybe this is like what my friend said, “The characteristic of China business is that people will copy it to everywhere to the point that the business is no longer sustainable.” Maybe this is true, very true.