Old Beijingers pine for long-lost pigeons
- Source: Global Times
- [21:56 November 10 2009]
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Feathers fly at Modern Plaza in suburban Beijing on March 5, 2006. Photo: CFP
Some 60,000 pigeons disappeared from the Beijing skies in one fateful year. An amateur pigeon fancier surnamed Wang living in the Tianshuiyuan Community, Chaoyang District, quit the Beijing Carrier Pigeon Association in 2003, the same year as 1,000 of 23,000 members like Wang were forced to quit.
After losing his room to new regulations, Wang felt unable to continue his hobby and quit his membership, according to an article published in the China Sports Daily.
Beijing Environmental Sanitation Regulations on October 1, 2002 forbade raising pigeons on flat roofs, balconies or windows of downtown residential buildings: a 3,000-year old traditional Chinese practice.
Lin Hongming, secretary-general of Beijing Carrier Pigeon Association, said people used to raise pigeons but now in the new buildings they had stopped rearing them.
Some pigeon lovers instead prefer to rear their birds in rural areas around the city where there are more than 20 public cages. Most of the cages, however, are for athletic carrier pigeons. Few can afford private cages and rental rates are high.
For the regular amateur, the millennia-old practice of raising pigeons has been destroyed along with the relationship between bird and human that they value highly.
Retired pigeon expert Wang Shixiang said the cooing and fluttering of wings that once filled his courtyard was like music to his ears.
Wang misses a comfortable, peaceful and natural life, with harmony of plant, pigeons and himself. Without the happiness they once enjoyed living in the same place as they bred birds, naturally most chose to quit the hobby.
Playwright Yuan Fang said most people raised the feathered city birds for pure fun, inheriting old Beijing traditions. The important thing was deciding how to manage the birds rather than how to limit them.
