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SCMP Reporter

Originally popular with tourists, the site in old Beijing is now a lively pub area

Two lakes in old Beijing have grown into the city's second biggest entertainment district over the past two years, rivalling the Sanlitun bar street.

But this popularity has led to problems that threaten the area's future.

Since mid-2000, a half-dozen bars and teahouses along Qianhai and Houhai, two connecting man-made lakes in central Beijing, have grown to 62 venues, including coffeehouses and theme restaurants.

Barkeepers, often artists or expatriates, play new-age music and offer lakeside seating. Proprietors on every street along the lakes are remodelling home interiors for the launch of more restaurants or bars.

Houhai's previous status as a tourist destination gave rise to the entertainment district. Often arriving by pedicab, rowboat or on foot because of a lack of through-streets, tourists came to wander the tree-lined lakeside promenades and visit original Qing Dynasty-style homes.

Before the bars and teahouses opened, tourists would drink bottled water and eat greasy street food. Merchants realised Houhai could do better.

'Our boss saw it coming,' says Huang Hao, manager of the Nuage Vietnamese restaurant, which opened a year ago and gets so packed on weekends that only people with reservations can eat. 'He saw the comfortable atmosphere and grasped people's psychology.'

Boats and pedicabs still take people to the lakes. Behind the bar strips, Beijing natives in their 60s and 70s go to markets and talk outside with neighbours.

Houhai's lakeside seating drew a crowd during the Sars period because people would only go out to ventilated areas.

'Houhai is a charming area in a central location,' says Steven Schwankert, an American who has lived in China for seven years and abandoned Sanlitun for Houhai.

'There are good local restaurants in the area, few touts or prostitutes and the bars there don't have a cookie-cutter feel just yet.'

Customers and merchants say the charm is already threatened. Traffic backs up because all Houhai-area streets are one-lane alleys, sometimes with no sidewalk.

Some merchants also lack permits, and foreigners - 40 per cent of the clients - have been known to fight with restaurant managers who stop service mid-meal because of a sudden police inspection, says Mr Gong, a bartender at the Bouddha  Cafe.

Although prostitutes and aggressive peddlers in Sanlitun upset foreign customers,  the district's 71 bars will remain popular, according to merchants and customers.

Sanlitun attracts drinkers from the embassy district and increasing numbers of younger Chinese people with disposable income.

Sanlitun bars are more varied than Houhai bars, offering big-screen TVs, sports themes, live music and Belgian beers.

Sanlitun barkeepers also have more experience than their Houhai counterparts.



Houhai emerges as new nightspot