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Show 'SUMMERTIME REVEALS MANY ! CUSTOMS AMONGCONDENSED POPULATION OF THE ORIENT By RANDALL GOULD (United Piths Htdff Correspondent) PKKiING, (UP) -, Summertime is playtime in Peking. Hot weather suits the Northern Chinese temperament temper-ament to the proverbiul T, and the hotter it becomes the more enthusiastically enthus-iastically do the Chinese father, mother and all the numerous offsprings off-springs fare forth in search of pleasure. plea-sure. It is, of course, the public parks which afford the most convenient gathering-place. Chinese are gregarious gre-garious folk, and the more people there are in a place, the greater the attraction for still more people. As a result, such popular resorts as Central Park formerly a portion of the Kmporer's Forbidden City, but now open to all by payment of about five cents U. S. currency are crammed to capacity on every sweltering afternoon, and enough tea is drunk there daily . to float a dreadnaught. The Central Park now has a rival in the form of the Pel Hai (North Lake) enclosure, a part of the former for-mer Winter Palace grounds. This is a genuinely attractive place where boating may be enjoyed. There are paths, artificial rock grottos, beautiful temple and other buibjfings. And, of course most important to the Chinese there are many tea houses and restaurants Foreigners as well as Chinese find the Pei Hal an excellent pleasure place. less entertainment to the Chinese multitude. Household utensils, gar incuts, ingenious cheap toys, tools, birds, crickets in cages, and miscellaneous miscel-laneous junk can be had here with the chance of an occasional curio bargain. Farther to the northward, but still in the South City, is the true Chinese amusement quarter, full of restaurants, theatres, resorts of sing-song girls and places where under shelter of night entertainment entertain-ment of rather more than questionable question-able nature may be bad for a price. Here politicians repair for gorgeous "spreads" of rare Chinese delicacies and for the plotting, in leisurely and secret Chinese fashion, fash-ion, of new means to obtain jobs and to "squeeze" more effectually. It is to the South City amusement quarter that masculine Young China goes if iwuinlne Young China is not represented, but when both sexes join in a party they suddenly adopt foreign ways and mount to the high cool roof garden of the Grand Hotel Ho-tel de Pekia to dance to jazz music. This is probably the outstanding foreign amusement of Peking in summer, though dinner and bridge parties at home are in favor. For men desiring a touch of wild life there is a choice variety of dance halls provided with Russian dancing partners. And the Russians dance with real skill. Foreigners and Chinese alike patronize pa-tronize the several motion picture houses liberally for China, like other parts of the Orient, has been thoroughly thor-oughly conquered by the "movie." A few China made pictures are shown, but the American film is supreme. In the South City there is the less accessible and more expensive Temple Tem-ple of Heaven enclosure, a huge park in itself and from the foreign standpoint the most popular place of all because Chinese crowds do not gather there and a picnic may be enjoyed without the customary and highly annoying throug of spectators. spec-tators. The Temple of Heaven is a poetic spot where mighty trees and other greenery 'abbflnd and where for a little space ODe can lose the every-day world. Riding in one's ricsha southward to the Temple of Heaven, the ear is suddenly assaulted by the stupendous stu-pendous din while the nose is outraged out-raged by varigated stenches. From huge shedlike structures on either side comes a medley of bangs and fiddles.. Here entertainment of sorts is dispensed at the lowest prices for the delectatioH of thousand of half-naked coolies, who mill about outside and squat by food and drink stands guarded agaiust the sun's assaults by sail-like canvas can-vas shelters mounted on poles. Here also are scores of outdoor portable shops which in themselves are a source of inexpensive or cost- |