The Stone Boat

Stone Boats are quite a fashion in China - little pavilions at the edge of lakes, fashioned to look like Imperial barges or whatnot, but actually solid structures rising from the lake floor. The most famous one is on Kunming Lake in Beijing's Summer Palace, a folly built by the infamous Dowager Empress Cixi (there's an oft-repeated story that she chose the boat design to justify reallocating funds from the naval budget to pay for it, but that sounds like a myth to me). I've no idea if that started the craze (somehow I rather doubt it), but you find quite a few of them around now.

My favourite one is on the tiny fishing lake in the south-west corner of Ritan ('Sun Temple') Park. Beijing is generously provided with parks, most of which are free or negligibly expensive (admission to Ritan used to cost 1 kuai [about 6.5p, or 13 cents], but in recent months they seem to have given up the attempt to collect it); all of them provide welcome havens of calm amid the city's bustle. Ritan is one of the largest and most diverse, and has a very central location - on the east side of the city, slap-bang in the middle of the embassy district. Since my first arrival here, it has been a regular haunt for meditative afternoon strolls. In fact, it is home to my favourite 'melancholy place' - The Dead Kite Tree (The 'altar of the Sun' is a 5ft-high brick platform in the middle of a large circular walled enclosure in the middle of the park. This is a popular spot for kite-flying, and other recreations. Alas, the circular wall is hemmed around with trees, which are quite a hazard for the kite-flyers. One tree in particular - because of the direction of the prevailing wind, I suppose, rather than because it is notably taller or spikier than the others - seems to act as a malign magnet for kites: there are rarely less than 4 or 5 forlorn kite-carcasses skewered on its branches..... prompting reflections on fragility and mortality, when I'm in a certain kind of brooding mood.).

At some point in my second year, I think, the Stone Boat in Ritan Park - which had originally been just a kind of groundkeeper's office, I think (well, on second thoughts, it might have been some kind of cock-eyed 'commercial' operation; I now recall they would hire out fishing rods and attempt to enforce a payment of fees for any fish caught) - opened up as a bar/coffee shop. It must have lost money hand-over-fist at first. Passing trade in the afternoon was thin. Nobody could get to it at night, since the park was closed (in fact there was access, after a fashion: either by brazenly walking through the premises of one of the bars or restaurants on the south side of the park which had doors opening both on to the park and on to the main road outside; or by persuading the gatekeeper that you wanted to go the bar, rather than indulge in any more nefarious and individualistic after-dark activity in the park). The service was wildly haphazard; the prices weren't that keen; they didn't do anything to promote themselves. Hardly anybody knew the place was there. And those that did - like me - enjoyed it as a solitary afternoon chill-out spot rather than as a place you'd want to bring your friends of an evening.

Did I say the service was haphazard? Oh, huge understatement. In their second year they added milkshakes to their menu. These were quite a hit with my then girlfriend, eccentric American academic, The Buddhist. They were a fascinating time-and-motion study for me. I really couldn't believe how long it took them to make one. Something like 10 minutes on average!! And they only had one small blender, so could only make one at a time. If we both ordered one, and ordered different flavours (so that they had to rinse the blender out), one of us would have nearly finished before the other's drink had come. The Buddhist used to like the pina colada one - although I think she was more entranced by the tropical fantasy of rum-and-coconuttiness rather than the drab reality of the Stone Boat's rendition. I exposed the fact that there was little or no alcohol going into their 'cocktail' shakes. Even more alarming were the occasionally bizarre substitutions they would inflict on us. One day, when they ran out of vanilla ice cream for the 'pina colada' or whatever it was, they decided that mint was an appropriate alternative and knocked up a drink with that instead, without saying a word to us. A pina colada really shouldn't be GREEN - that's not nice.

Ah, but then, a couple of years or so ago, there was a change of management (I suspect the place 'belongs' to the park, and has only been leased to the various entrepreneurs who've tried to make some money out of it): a rather sassy young Chinese woman called Amy took it over; she'd had some experience in the F&B industry (working for a while at a well-known foreigner restaurant here, during a spell when it was being managed by an American friend of mine); and she was brimming with ideas to make the place viable. Obvious, simple things that 95% of bars here seem to ignore: lowering the drinks prices a bit, adding a decent snack menu, finding some English-speaking staff, spending a little money on advertising, touting for party business. And persuading the park authorities to leave the gates (and the nearby public toilet) open late.

Last year showed promise, but rather fitfully. This year, the place is one of the roaring successes of the summer (keeping it 'alive' in winter remains something of a challenge!). Damn it, it's almost too popular now. I used to like it in the good old days (however crappy the drinks and the service might have been), when you could have the place to yourself most of the time. Nowadays, on weekday evenings after work, there's often quite a crowd (not enough to deter me, though; in fact, my new job is only a 25-minute walk away, so I am likely to become more of a 'regular' than ever from now on). And every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday through the summer, there's a live music event on.

Last night, the Stone Boat Bar hosted the launch of the first CD from Panjir - guitar-based modern jazz, with Central Asian folk influences. The group's leader, Brit David Mitchell, is another of my guitar buddies, and I've seen them play many times over the past year-and-a-bit. Now that they've finally got a good demo cut, they are hopeful of getting some major distribution. It's a multinational outfit, with a tabla maestro from Mexico, and a pair of 'Western Chinese' (Xinjiang isn't really China...) completing the line-up. I think Akbar Abliz, the second guitarist, may in fact be an even better player than David - and that's saying something. His command of the instrument is awesome, effortless.

There was fine support from the Mongolian folk band Hanggai (I happened to catch a couple of the band playing as a duo at Jianghu a few weeks back - that was a great show). They also have a CD out now - but they all left early, before I had the chance to buy one. Next time, next time....

A big thank you to Ed of Red T Music for setting up the concert (I'm not sure how he's ever going to make any money as a 'music promoter' in Beijing; but I'm grateful for his efforts, and wish him well). And big congratulations to Amy and her staff for making the Stone Boat one of the coolest places to hang out in Beijing this summer.

(And I'm so glad hardly anyone reads this blog as yet - otherwise the Stone Boat would now be overrun with 'tourists'!!)