Mílù Yuàn 麋鹿苑
五环路亦庄桥向南，沿路标指示方向前行即可
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond
Now more formally renamed the Nán Háizi Mílù Bówùguǎn.
About three miles to the south of the Capital the Imperial Hunting Ground, the Nan-’haï-tzu, 南海子, or Nan-yüan, commences a vast plain of about 50 miles in circumference, surrounded by a high wall. It is more than five times as large as the whole city of Peking. It hardly answers our ideas of a hunting ground, as it is merely a bare meadow, with a few trees, watered by two brooks. To the north an Imperial pavilion is erected, close to which some temples and extensive barracks are built. The whole of the other ground, with the exception of some farms, is abandoned to numerous herds of antelopes, deer and hares. Amongst the deer there is one species particularly remarkable, which is known nowhere in the world except in this park, and the existence of which in a wild state has not been discovered by any explorer. It is the famous Tail-deer, or Ssu-pu-hsianh, which was called after the discoverer, P. David, Cervus (Elaphurus) Davidianus. The principal peculiarities of the stag are his gigantic antlers, which rather resemble those of the rein-deer, and his tail which is more than a foot long.
Anonymous, Guide for Tourist to Peking and its Environs, Tiānjīn, 1897
Gilbert Collins, visiting in the 1920s, found a breach in the wall ‘you could ride two or three donkeys through abreast,’ and few deer remaining. The Mílù Ecological Research Centre, usually just known as the Mílù Deer Park, is located in the remaining tiny fragment of the Nán Hǎizi Imperial Hunting Park, where the Yuán, Míng, and Qīng emperors would all come to hunt. In modern times it has become the best place in Běijīng to see animals in captivity.
The park is a breeding ground for the Père David’s deer, or mílù, sometimes known to the Chinese as the sì bú xiàng (四不像) or ‘four dissimilarities’. The park itself has at least four dissimilarities to most other open-air animal sites in China — it doesn’t have shooting galleries or other irrelevant noisy entertainments, people are actively discouraged from poking the animals with sticks, there are no crowds, and no one shouts ‘lǎo wài’ (foreigner) at you.
From the ticket office swing to the left, and there’s a map in a grassy area with peacocks, and a few mottos on signs that we could all do with taking to heart, such as ‘Care for nature today and nature will care for you tomorrow.’
A few supposedly pettable deer wander around rather nervously, as if wary from previous encounters, but they can be encouraged with a little patience. Further up on the right an enclosed area contains tiny Sika deer, roe deer, and rare Przewalski’s horse looking plump, healthy, and far from endangered, as well as tame and curious to meet visitors. Bird recognition charts illustrate owls, crows, kingfishers, cuckoos, and more.
The main enclosure, dotted with lakes, is at the rear, and contains a few emus grazing beneath the willows as well as a large flock of strange and slightly ungainly mílù deer. The Chinese say it has ‘the horns of a deer but it’s not a deer; face of a horse but it’s not a horse; hooves of a cow but it’s not a cow; tail of a donkey but it’s not a donkey’. As the 1897 guide correctly states, it was identified by Père Armand David, a French Lazarist missionary, in 1865, and he sent some skins to France, but the deer was extinct in China by 1900, and only a few specimens survived in European zoos.
The Duke of Bedford collected 18 animals at his Woburn Abbey estate, and in 1985 a group descended from that herd was brought back from Britain, and has now grown to more than 800 head. The enclosure is large enough to allow the flock to wander off to quite a distance occasionally, but there are small grey brick viewing platforms to give you a good view and walkways to take you around the rear of the enclosure. But in case you feel inclined to step inside there’s a sign: ‘The mílù says, “Inside here is mine. Don’t come inside if you’re not a deer”.’
The site also features a stone with (inevitably) the Qiánlóng emperor’s calligraphy, a picnic area with proper tables and litter baskets, and signs with questions for schoolchildren to answer such as ‘Why do we protect birds?’ Those who’ve been in China for a while may begin to feel strangely disoriented, and it really comes as no surprise to find that the park’s director worked in Dublin and studied in Germany.
Other pleasures include a jokingly named Mílù Yuán (迷路园), the characters in this case not referring to the deer at all but meaning ‘lose one’s way garden’, and a startlingly effective installation designed to demonstrate the peril of endangered species, the World Extinct Wildlife Cemetery. Large crosses are erected to extinct animals, and murals behind have images of those now gone. Rows of toppling slabs lined up like dominoes mark the disappearance of individual species from 1500 onwards. On each is marked the name of the species, the date of its disappearance, and two stark Chinese characters 灭绝 (miè jué), meaning ‘extinct’. Those slabs nearer the vertical name endangered species, and those towards the end are still upright, but the disappearance of other species will eventually lead to the disappearance of humans, too, although they will be outlasted by rats, mice, and insects.
The park is a little scruffy and clearly in need of an increase in funding, but it’s quiet enough for you to enjoy the birdsong, disturbed only by planes from the vast Dàxīng International Airport. This place is striving in an imaginative way to raise ecological consciousness in China, and the staff deserve your support.
In 1777 there were at least four ‘travelling palaces’ (行宫, xínggōng) for the emperor’s use when he was hunting, but in later years the park was used more for troop exercises, and in the 19th century it fell into disrepair. There was much destruction by Russian soldiers following the 1900 relief of the Siege of the Legations, and a finely carved polychrome lacquer throne from one palace ended up in the hands of the Russian ambassador and was taken to England when he fled the 1917 revolution. It was purchased by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum where it remains on public display. Its accompanying screen, seen in the Austrian embassy in 1900, is now in Vienna’s Weltmuseum, www.weltmuseumwien.at, along with other material related to the Boxer Rebellion.
▶ In Dà Xīng County, just outside the SE Fifth Ring Road, t 6928 0675,
Nán Háizi Mílù Bówùguǎn, 9am–4pm, Tues–Sun, but open all public holidays. Free. m to Huǎng Cūn Railway Station (Line 4) then b 兴15 to
麋鹿苑路口, and walk 800m E up the turning, or b to 德茂庄, terminus of the fast 快速公交1 from Qián Mén, then taxi 3.2km along SE Fifth Ring Road, S at 赤庄桥 exit, and follow signs.
Next in Museums and Other Sights: Museum of Imperial Examination Tablets
Previously: China Aviation Museum
