Some visitors to Beijing's Taoranting Park wasn't sure what to believe Wednesday after they got conflicting advice about skating on the frozen lake.

While park officials used loudspeakers to warn visitors not to walk over the icy lake, and avoid accidents, those who run some of the ice rinks encouraged people to enjoy themselves by skating.

"I really made neither head nor tail of it seeing many young people queuing up at the box office for a ticket to enter the rinks," Xie, who was doing her daily exercise, told a reporter there.

The park has contracted out the ice rinks to individual operators, she said. While the park authority feared that ice on its lake was not strong enough for people to step over, the operators wanted to make some profit.

(China Daily January 14, 2009)