With bus horns and bicycle bells, the screeching of brakes and the cries of newspaper hawkers, the streets of Beijing are so crowded with noise that the song of a single bird might seem insignificant. But tucked into each green space in the city, in shining cages, songbirds band together to push back the city’s noise.

The singing birds are the pets of proud, retired old men carrying on a tradition that dates back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when the Manchu elite passed the time by raising birds of their own.

Nowadays, the men congregate wherever there are trees and benches (and no rules forbidding the birds). They play cards or Chinese chess, occasionally rising from their games to stroll onto the grass, cluck their tongues at a bird, or poke their fingers in the cage. And all the while, the birds keep singing, creating little oases of sound for passersby.

To raise birds, these men say, is to keep healthy in body and spirit.

“It’s just for health, to do some exercise,” said a beaming Liu Dianjia, 68, holding up a cage housing his titmouse, Winter Blossom, whom he raised from a chick.

“When he was a baby, I took care of him,” Liu said, as Winter Blossom flitted around Liu’s tough fingers. “Only this kind of bird you can feed as a baby. I am the bird’s master, and can also act as the parent.”

Winter Blossom, who recognizes Liu as his father, is fed corn and peanut powder from blue porcelain dishes. Liu takes him out every morning to sing in the shade of the pine trees along a Beijing street choked with traffic during weekday mornings.

“It’s just a kind of hobby,” he said. “I just love this.”

And, he said, he likes being part of an old tradition.

“Bird-keeping has a long history, from the Qing Dynasty,” he said proudly. That means some enthusiasts can spend a lot of money buying antique cages and feeding dishes.

“The water cup and the feeding cup are the oldest style of porcelain of the reign of the emperors of the Qing,” he said.

Some people who keep birds collect real antique cages, he said. But antique collection isn’t for him. Winter Blossom keeps him healthy.

“As an old Chinese saying goes,” he said, “100 steps after dinner is good for the health.”

(Actually, the old Chinese saying goes: 100 steps after dinner will lead to 99 years of life.)

Liu spoke on a chilly autumn morning, but the men who keep birds say only rain will keep them inside.

“This bird does not fear the cold!” boomed 81-year-old Li Yinghai, who has kept birds since his retirement 21 years ago. With four large thrushes strung on a line not far from Liu and Winter Blossom, Li said his birds have kept him going out every day.

“If you have a bird, you have exercise and go out,” Li said. “If without a bird, we get lazy and cannot go out…. As long as it’s not raining, I will go out every morning.”

The secret to good bird-keeping, Li said, is simple.

“Just feed it on time. Never forget to give it food and water,” he said.

“Every morning, just feed it once,” he said. “Just put food and water in the morning, and the rest of the day it’s OK.” And baths, too. Once a day in the summer, and once every three or four days in the winter.

The birds stay healthy; the men stay healthy.

“It’s just a personal choice,” Li said. “Some people like to dance, or practice tai chi. I just like bird-keeping.”

(By Brian Calvert China Pictorial  February 19, 2004)