It’s the kind of weather when you can’t decide if it’s cooler outdoors in the shade trying to find a bit of breeze or just staying in with the air-con for company. But many Beijingers live life in the park and evenings are even busier than in the day. This ‘park life’ is completely known in China.

Loads of dancing for astart, this goes on in the ordinary parks with the ordinary people, who need no encouragement from community dance practitioners to get up and dance in public. Morning and evening a strangely sedate and old fashioned version of ballroom dancing takes place in the open air, accompanied by crackly taped music from Chairman Mao’s era, whatever the temperature, only ‘rain stops play’.

In Temple of Heaven park, one of my favourites, there must be 10 alternative music and dance styles going on at the same time. The noise and the energy and the hubbub of activity is amazing in itself. You can take your pick from tai ji, ballroom, Taiwanese dance, soulful saxophone, community choir, karaoke, Peking opera, folk music, ribbon twirling, solo pop music, fan dancing, kung fu ……….. you name it. All these activities seem to be self generated and everyone else gathers around to watch. A product of surviving in this overcrowded city is that no one seems to be in the slightest bit self conscious about living their life on show.

And of course there are always the old guys playing cards and mahjong and drawing a crowd; there will be three times as many people watching and advising and discussing the game as there are people actually playing it. The older generations spend their whole day there sometimes minding the grandchildren or more likely just gossiping. Unfortunately in the heat it seems to be completely acceptable for men of any age to roll up their T shirt and bare their torso – not always a pretty sight, especially when accompanied by shorts, dark socks and ordinary leather shoes.

Sport is also very popular and you see people, even before they go to work in the mornings, playing badminton or table tennis or a local game which involves a large version of a feathered shuttlecock and a technique of kicking and flicking it with your heels to keep it off the ground. I took one on holiday to Greece but it didn’t catch on with our gang – too hot and too lazy! And the outdoor gym equipment actually gets used, just can’t see us Brits doing this somehow.

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