In Search of the Ice Houses
A short walk through a former Imperial warehouse district, connecting the Forbidden City and the Back Lakes
Part of A Better Guide to Beijing’s coverage of the Imperial City
The ice-cutters are busy as well as the sleigh-men in winter. You may see them working at various points set aside for the industry, hewing out enormous slabs and carting away to bury in the ground. Next summer they will dig that ice up again and sell to thirsty souls. They may even try to sell it to thirsty Europeans, but on the whole we prefer to use freezing machines. We know too much of that canal’s past, really; we have seen the small Chinese bathers of midsummer giving it body and nutritive virtue; during the very dry seasons we have noticed the canal petering out in a trickle of green slime and discharging a smell that is pretty narcotic even for China. By the same token, when ordering iced drinks in Mess we take particular care to see that the ice is situated outside the glass, in case the house-boys should have been tempted, in the teeth of stern edicts, to use canal ice after all.
Gilbert Collins, Extreme Oriental Mixture, London 1925
Walk east from the main south gate of Běi Hǎi Park towards Jǐng Shān Park and turn north into winding Dà Shí Zuò Hútòng (大石作胡同, Big Stone Workshop Hútòng). Away from the yelling pedicab men at the entrance it offers an example of how peace and quiet can easily be found, even right in the city’s heart.
Follow the hútòng through low-rise buildings that have had the superficial facelift with grey paint and cement that usually suggests the area will survive at least for a few years longer (recently confirmed by the addition of ersatz The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe-style street lamps, the smartening up of tiny shops, and the repainting of various eaves). Some of the dwellings have been expensively renovated, while others have ancient overgrown roofs and trellised gourds. After various wriggles the hútòng eventually and unexpectedly brings you out through a modern arch to a small square with tour buses. Above to the right beyond a high wall you can see a round wooden tower with blue tiles and a golden knob.
This is part of the ancient Dà Gāo Xuán Diàn (大高玄殿) built by the Jiājìng emperor in 1547. Here palace eunuchs could participate in daoist rites, and it was possibly where the emperor himself took priest-mixed elixirs intended to prolong his life but which probably shortened it. It is now just one of many locations around the Tiān’ān Mén and Zhōng Nán Hǎi area occupied by the military, who have constructed extensive modern buildings in the grounds in complete breach of laws concerning heritage protection. You can see an example through the main south entrance on Jǐng Shān Jiē, where a two-storey pavilion has become a garage.
In 1996 the remaining buildings were listed by the State Council for the highest level of legal protection, but the military routinely ignores any inconvenient law, and Běijīng Administration of Cultural Heritage officials are not even allowed access for inspection. Nevertheless, in 2007, perhaps driven by a drip-drip-drip campaign of pressure by an NGO called the Běijīng Cultural Heritage Protection Centre (which must have St. Jude as its patron, see en.bjchp.org), they announced that they had requested that the military return the site to proper heritage management. It was so unlikely that anything would happen that even the fact that the request was made was regarded as major progress. However, in 2011 it was announced that the administration of the Forbidden City would take control of the buildings, and that they will open again after restoration following a century of complete neglect. Given the history of appalling mismanagement at the Forbidden City, and its complete indifference to good conservation practice, this news may be received with mixed delight.
Turn left from the arch, and left again out of the northwest corner of the square, following the tour groups towards Běi Hǎi Park’s east entrance. This is Zhì Shān Mén Jiē (陟山门街), with hat shops and shoe shops targeting Chinese tour groups, a tea shop, and a Muslim restaurant. There are traditional Běijīng snacks on sale, too.
Turn almost immediately to your right up the aptly-named Xuěchí Hútòng (雪池胡同, Snow Pool Hútòng). There are sometimes further snack carts parked here unattended, with sparrows showing an interest in their contents. Straight ahead is one of the old icehouses, recently refurbished, the hefty blocks of stone of which it is constructed in obvious contrast to the surrounding brickiness. This, and two more through a gate to the right as the alley turns left, are not officially open, but if you look politely curious and the gatekeeper happens to be around you may be allowed in.
There’s apparently no plan to do anything with these buildings, just conserve them. Characters carved in stone label them 雪池冰窖 (Xuě Chí Bīngjiào, Snow Pool Icehouses), and a tiny arch set low in the end wall is where the ice went in.
Following the alley west along the south side of the first ice house and then right (north) around its west end, you’ll find a distinctly ancient curved brick wall on the left, which is the boundary wall of Běi Hǎi. The route now narrows, a big pigeon loft sits atop a house on the right, and there’s occasional trellising over the path. A bit further on the wall has been smartened up, giving you a comparison between authenticity and 仿古 (fǎnggǔ) copy-fake restoration — cement with a brick pattern scored on top.
The alley turns right again. Don’t take the next left but carry on as it wriggles right and left again, becoming Fángqián Kù Hútòng (房钱库胡同), bringing you out through a little arch to Jǐng Shān Xī Jiē, which runs up the west side of Jǐng Shān Park.
Turn left or north, and take the next left, Gāo Wò Hútòng (高卧胡同), which soon turns right, running between grey walls into Běi Hǎi Běi Jiā Dào (北海北夹到). The jiā means ‘squeezed’ or ‘hemmed in’, and it does indeed get narrow. There’s a right turn but carry straight on. It swings to the right, turns right and you end up at a more spacious junction with real hútòng shopping, people selling things from the back of tricycles, and another open coach parking space serving Jǐng Shān Park.
Either turn left (north) up Gōngjiǎn Hútòng (恭俭胡同), pass through some gates, swing to the right and round to the left again, and on the left there’s a school (there’ll be a knot of waiting parents mid-afternoon). Turn left just after that into Gōngjiǎn 5 Xiàng (恭俭五巷), and you’ll see a two-storey building that enshrouds the Gōngjiǎn Icehouse (共建冰窖). Behind a red door studded with nails is the Huáng Jiā Bīngjiào Xiǎoyuàn (皇家冰窖小院), a tea house and restaurant serving traditional Běijīng dishes.
Or turn sharper left and then right up Běi Hǎi Běi Jiā Dào (北海北夹到) again, which becomes a little canyon overhung by trees inside the park. After a house numbered 2 there’s a larger right turn immediately opposite a 北海北夹到 sign, which is Gōngjiǎn 5 Xiàng, which brings you to the icehouse.
It’s an unticketed ¥20 to go down to the icehouse, but they don’t always charge, and if they do you get a free, frequently-refilled good cup of tea. The icehouse is open from 9am for viewing and from 6pm for dinner. The building above ground is cluttered with restaurant tables, jars of fruit for sale, and chess tables. There are displays of Běijīng culture and traditional arts at 1pm every Saturday for two hours.
The east-facing late-Qīng icehouse itself is down steep stairs and consists of two subterranean spaces with high, arched roofs, which can be rented for private dinners or parties. This is the largest of the icehouses, floored with cypress, and built of brick on a solid granite base, with walls up to 1.4m thick, as can readily be seen in the passage between the two spaces. A small door high in the far wall is where the ice, cut from the Běi Hǎi in midwinter, was shovelled in for later use by the imperial family to chill drinks and keep food fresh. It may come as no surprise that the Chinese claim to have been the first to do this, 3000 years ago.
Return to Běi Hǎi Běi Jiā Dào and turn right (north) again. This hugs the park wall which is now leaning slightly, before turning right and left again. A little further on a cul-de-sac on the left is Gōngjiǎn 1 Xiàng, with completely refurbished and re-imagined residences of no little value, possibly indicating the future of the whole area if some developer gets his hands on it. Even here there’s CCTV everywhere.
There are other side turnings to explore as you proceed north, and on the left, just before you emerge at the rush and buzz of the Dì’ān Mén Xī Dàjiē section of Píng’ān Dàdào, there’s a little shop with calligraphy brushes, inkstones, and calligraphy for sale.
▶ Qián Hǎi, the southernmost of the Back Lakes, is across the street, with souvenir shops, restaurants, bars and assorted sights around its banks. See North, Around the Back Lakes.
See Hútòng Walking, and other Běijing walks: Forward to the Past, Out Clubbing, Legation Quarter, and In the Depths of Many Flowers.
Next in Imperial City: Peking University Red Building
Previous: Běi Hǎi Park
Main Index of A Better Guide to Beijing.
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