/Beijing Story/Interesting Beijing Place Names

Nai Zi Fang is in Chaoyang district, near Wangjing. Why is it called the Boobs Village? Well, there is a saying that it was the place during the Qing dynasty where they picked wet nurses from. Boobs in Chinese is Nai Zi, that’s why it is called Nai Zi Fang.

Another belief is that during Yuan dynasty it was a place where people raised horses, and the Mongolian people drank horse milk, that’s why it’s also called Ma (horse) Nai Zi Fang. 

It is near the old Summer Palace

It is said that there were barracks of Mongolian people during the Yuan dynasty, Han dynasty people called them Foul (Da Zi), Da Zi was an unfriendly nickname for northern minorities. Why were they called foul? Because during that time, the Mongolians main food sources were cows and horses as well as cows' milk, resulting in a rather pungent body odor, hence they were called foul.

This distasteful name-calling only happened in ancient times when people had rather narrow horizons and self-centered views. Rest assured that such nicknames have long disappeared, now only the place name still exists as a reminder of historic times.

Zhongguancun is in Haidian district (subway line 4), it is an area famous for technology and people call it “China Silicon Valley”, you are likely to have heard of this place. If you want to buy some electronic devices, I suggest this as the first place to go. Technology aside, do you know what else this place is famous for?

Zhongguancun (中关村)was previously called 中官（eunuch）村 during Ming and Qing dynasty,  it was a place where the old retired eunuchs lived and spent their remaining time, it was also called a tomb (中官坟 zhong1 guan1 fen2). However, after the liberation of China, the president of Peking University changed the name to Zhong Guan Cun (中关村 Zhong1 guan1 cun1) because the old name’s characters didn’t possess a good meaning.

Gong Zhu Fen is in Haidian district (subway line 10).  Just as the name suggests, there was indeed a princess buried there!

During the Qing dynasty, emperor Shenzhi’s mother adopted a daughter whose name was Kong si zhen, her father was the Han people’s general and died fighting in the Qing dynasty war, so the empress adopted her as a special thanks for the Han nationality general(Qing dynasty was Man nationality people, so there were not too many Han people to do that).  

Later when princess Kong Si zhen died, she was buried there, so that place has been called the princess tomb until now. Then you may ask, does the tomb still exist? Unfortunately, you will only find the remains as a result of graverobbing long ago. Nowadays so many people are living nearby her tomb, but nobody pays attention to this special princess anymore.

Do you live nearby any of these places? If you do, you're bound to find more cultural impressions there for sure! We will explore some more interesting places in the next article.