北京 日坛公园: The Economist

choi

The Chinese at play | Park Life; A day in the life of one of the capital’s few green spaces. Economist, Dec 19, 2015.
http://www.economist.com/news/ch ... en-spaces-park-life

Note:
(a) "FROM the top of a stone pagoda Li Zhaolin is shouting, almost yodelling * * * Beijing’s Ritan Park 日坛公园 * * * gates open at 5.30. * * * Five old men walk, chatting quietly, one turning wooden meditation balls 念珠 over and over in his hand. Aficionados know Ritan ('sun altar') Park as one of Beijing’s oldest. The altar was built in 1530 [明世宗嘉靖 (1522-1566) 九年] in the Ming dynasty for the emperor to make sacrifices to the sun. It was once part of Beijing’s formal layout, lying to the east of the imperial palace of the Forbidden City and balanced to the west by the moon altar (yuetan 月坛). Altars to the earth and heaven (ditan and tiantan) formed a north-south axis. These, too, are now parks.  When the sun altar was built, Beijing was probably the world’s most populous city, with around 700,000 people. Now it ranks eighth, with 21m, and skyscrapers loom from all sides over the small patch of green, less than half a kilometre square."

yodel (vi; from German)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yodel
(b) "For most of the 500 years since the altar at Ritan was built, it was closed to all except the emperor. Commoners lived in narrow hutongs, alleys with almost no open space. Inspired by the 19th-century park movement in Europe, China’s first public park opened in 1907 when a former imperial garden was turned into a zoo, the 'Park of Ten Thousand Animals' (wanshengyuan 万牲园 [not to be confused with 北京植物园 万生苑, a greenhouse]). Ritan became a public park only in 1956 [where the authorities demolished walls, removed the sacrificial area] * * * In the 1980s Ritan Park and others were reopened [following Cultural Revolution] * * * [at 日坛:] Only the recently rebuilt altar, now enclosed by red walls, remains off-limits, still closed to the masses after nearly half a millennium.

(c) "Most Beijingers live in tiny apartments without gardens, often three generations together. But the provision of green space has failed to keep pace with massive urban expansion—which is not yet over. * * * (life expectancy in Beijing is 82). Already one in six Chinese is over 60 * * * In China public displays of affection between adults are still rare: couples occasionally hold hands but never kiss in public. So, unlike park-life in other countries, there are no signs of secret sexual liaisons in Ritan, nor of drug-takers or drinkers.  But behaviour that many other societies consider private is public here: amateur singing, dancing, massage, even sleeping. * * * Towards the centre pod Ritan Park], members of a folk-dance troupe swirl broad red ribbons to 'The Good Children of China,' 中国好儿童 [词 冀中浪子; debuted on Sept 20, 2015] a schmaltzy song about nationalistic heroes, under fierce instruction from their permed, bespectacled leader. The plink-plonk nearly drowns out a nearby melody: two people learning the hulusi, a recorder-like instrument with a gourd at the top, originally from south-west China. Their instructor, a graceful man in a blue zip-up top, is teaching them 'Marriage Vows 婚誓,' a melody from 芦笙恋歌 [1957] a 1950s film score * * * Most dancers repeat a fixed set of moves without personal interpretation.”
(i) schmaltzy (adj)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schmaltzy
(ii) hulusi  葫芦丝
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulusi
(iii)
(A) recorder (musical instrument)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorder_(musical_instrument)
(was popular in medieval times; section 1 Name of the instrument: it originally meant to practice and learn, literally by heart from the Latin corda)
(B) Latin English dictionary:
* corda (n)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corda

choi

(d) "Min Baozhen, a man with boot-polish 鞋油-black hair * * * Twice a week a group of 25 men and women wheel a keyboard into a large pavilion to sing 'I Love You, China 我爱你, 中国' and other patriotic anthems. They erect a red banner, 'Sing for better health and happiness.' [唱响健康幸福?]  Li Shuling, who is 65, sings every day with a friend, mostly traditional Chinese songs (plus a version of 'Scarborough Fair,' an English ballad popularised in China by a Peking opera star)."

Scarborough Fair (ballad)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough_Fair_(ballad)

(e) "In the West, early-morning dog-walkers are succeeded by lonely buggy-pushing mothers * * * A Chinese park’s rhythms are different. Dogs are banned. * * * Every day Mu Xionglu, a former factory worker, comes to 'walk the birds and walk myself 溜鸟也溜自己,' meeting friends in a quiet corner, each with two thrushes shrouded by blue cloths. * * * Even after school finishes for the day, most children in the [Ritan] park are under three, the age at which they start kindergarten. * * * Chinese young people [burdened by homework etc] spend far less time outside than those in Europe and North America. * * * nearly 80% of 16- to 18-year-olds are short-sighted, a common consequence of getting too little daylight.  Childhood frolics are simply not a priority. Playgrounds are rare, and usually charge a fee. In Ritan, bumper cars, a mini-train and other rides are crammed into a small enclosure. Even the slides cost 10 yuan ($1.50) an hour. * * * Several men lift weights they made themselves from a wardrobe rail and two concrete blocks."
(i)
(A) buggy (n): "short for baby buggy"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/buggy
(B) baby buggy (b): "British trademark  a baby carriage [British English: pram]"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... _english/baby-buggy
(ii) thrush (bird)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrush_(bird)
(The songs of some species, including members of the genera Catharus, Myadestes, Sialia and Turdus, are considered to be among the most beautiful in the avian world)
(iii) Valerie Cumming, ‎CW Cunnington and ‎PE Cunnington, The Dictionary of Fashion History. Berg, 2010, at page 50
https://books.google.com/books?i ... tionary&f=false
("Coat-hanger (M[ale clothing]) Period: 19th century onwards.  The early name for the lop attached within the neck of a coat by which it [coat] could be hung up * * * Also a term for a wooden or metal structure, sometimes padded, which fits into a garment, with a curved top to hang on a wardrobe rail")

(f) "Beijing groovin’ [which is the section heading] * * * Three young women in thick jumpers groove to the ballroom tempo individually, as though at a school disco."

groove (vi):
"2 [NO OBJECT] informal  dance or listen to popular or jazz music, especially that with an insistent rhythm <they were grooving to Motown>
* * *
  2.2 Enjoy oneself <Harley relaxed and began to groove>"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.co ... ican_english/groove