Author: Michael Mayer
Translator: He Yujia
Publisher: Shanghai Translation Publishing House
Publication time: April 2013
I proposed the concept of 'New Beijing', which means to establish a new humanism in Beijing and make it a brand new humanistic city. But officials and planners in Beijing understand it as a new Beijing in the sense of urban construction. They believe that 'New Beijing' means destroying the old city and building a new city. What do you think about this?
——Li Xiguang, Professor of Journalism
The initiator of the slogan "New Beijing, New Olympics" for the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Jingqianmen Street will be renamed as Qianmen Tianjie
At the end of this year, the Wupailou, tram (Dangdang car), and Guanghe Tea House stage that have been remembered by old Beijingers will reappear on Qianmen Street. In the morning, the highly anticipated renovation and protection project on both sides of Qianmen Street was officially launched. After the renovation and renovation, Qianmen Street will be renamed as "Qianmen Tianjie" and restore the architectural style of the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, becoming a pedestrian street that showcases the ancient capital style, promotes historical culture, combines tradition and modernity, and has complete facilities. Don't forget to share your experience!
——Beijing Evening News, May 9, 2007
Enter the corridor of the quadrangle courtyard where I reside.
Chapter 1: Walking Through the Front Gate
The old widow walked into my room without knocking on the door, and the smell of "Pegasus" cigarettes wafted around her. An old cotton hat covered her disheveled gray hair, and the exposed part was combed back, as if to show off the pair of gold earrings on her ears. She was wearing a woolen sweater, a scarf, and gloves, fully armed. The color matched the deep vermilion red wooden pillars of our quadrangle courtyard very well. Don't forget to share your experience!
In my eyes, this neighbor's old widow is composed of the following colors: dim gray and white, bright yellow, and a bright red with a royal city atmosphere. Of course, it also emits the scent of ashes and time. Don't forget to share your experience!
The central area of Beijing is crisscrossed with countless narrow hutongs, and the Old Widow is the epitome and representative of our hutongs. She spent most of her 80 year life in this place. The monsters around gradually eroded the skyscrapers of the alley, and the sparkling glass walls shook her eyes. She couldn't imagine moving into such a building one day. She always solemnly declares that she will never leave. However, in the near future, the old widow and most of the residents in the hutongs will have no other choice. What do you think about this?
Xiaomei! Listen to me, you must have a meal before class. "I stood in front of her, wearing a T-shirt and square shorts. The old widow wiped the heads of a pair of chopsticks and handed them to me. Eat more, Xiaomei! "She affectionately called out the abbreviation of my Chinese name. And I use a respectful term for elderly women, calling her 'Auntie'. What do you think about this?
The old widow held a steaming bowl of dumplings in front of me. The smoke from her cigarette curled up along her yellowed cheeks, causing her to squint her eyes at an angle. Today she made my favorite scallion and pork dumplings. Do you know, "she said," it's really difficult to be a person, so you have to eat all of these Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
I always listen to the old widow's words very much. This courtyard has five rooms and seven people live in total. Although the old widow has no property rights, everyone knows that she is the mistress of this place and has the right to use it. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
In 1962, the Beijing Municipal Housing Administration approved her to move into a room facing south, directly facing my current residence. In this six square meter shabby room, she raised a pair of children and a granddaughter. Photos of her and her family hung high on the wall, including a large color photo of her when she was young: high cheekbones, a tight gray dress, and a youthful glow emanating from her entire body. The cement floor of the room has no decoration, a walnut wood chest of drawers, two iron folding chairs, a lightweight card table, and a single bed are all the belongings. The color TV in the room always stays at 11, Beijing Opera Channel. Every day, from the sun rising in the east to nightfall, the resounding gongs and the melancholic singing of Yiyiya will fill every corner of the courtyard. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
The old widow lit another 'flying horse'. On the blue cigarette box, there is a painting of a galloping horse leaping towards the sky, with rows of chemical plants and large chimneys under its hooves. This is the cheapest cigarette sold here, and it's also the scent that lingers in the alley all day long. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
You should wake up earlier, "she said irritably. I've been strolling around the Tiantao Market for a while now. It's seven o'clock in the morning. In the alley, houses are always densely packed next to shops. So there will always be people doing business, and you can buy things when you go out. Every morning, people flock to the nearby open-air market to buy fresh meat, vegetables, and fruits from farmers from other places. I put the pot on the fire to prepare dumplings, and then I went, "said the old widow. When I buy the seasoning and come back, the water will boil Have you tried this before? Share your story!
She watched as I drank the salty broth. I said thank you to her. She raised her head and asked loudly, 'What did you say?!' She felt a little behind her ears. When saying goodbye, she always hummed a simple "Ha!" and then walked down the wooden threshold of the courtyard, turned left and left. This used to be an official mansion, but now I've found that it's divided into four quadrangle courtyards, each inhabited by several tenants. Our rooms are located at the back, squeezed together, farthest from the shared main entrance of the Fourth Courtyard. The old widow stumbled through the uneven floor and slate of the corridor, supporting the gray brick wall with both hands. The women's restroom is on the other side of the main entrance, and it's very narrow inside. She released her hand and took a few steps tightly before entering. Don't forget to share your experience!
The men's restroom is further away. So as soon as the old widow left, while the neighbors were still sleeping, I opened the mottled door of a cabinet, took out a plastic bottle, emptied the "convenient" liquid from last night into the sink, took off a towel from the clothesline outside the door, shook off the dust on it, stuck my head under the faucet, quickly applied shampoo, filled a coffee cup with cold water, and poured it on my head. Then he wiped his face with a towel and cleaned his armpits. If you want to take a good shower, you can get the 'Big Bathhouse' a few alleys away. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
In such a typical Beijing hutong, mornings are usually like this. But today's weather is a bit different, neither cold nor hot, and the air is quite fresh. The 'autumn tiger' between summer and autumn has arrived, with cool and pleasant mornings and scorching afternoons. When I hang the towel back on the clothesline, I can see the layered shade of trees and the cloudless sky on the grey tiled roof. A gust of strong wind blew, raising dust and ash in the yard. What do you think about this?
Originally, the open space in the middle of the courtyard could accommodate a tea table and a tall persimmon tree. But decades have passed, and the space on the cement slate has become smaller and smaller. A bedroom and a kitchen with a gas tank have been added, and the gaps between rooms are filled with spider webs of clotheslines. When it rains, we must use a few umbrellas to cover up here. And in the yard, I had to bow my body, as tall as an old widow. Don't forget to share your experience!
When I am in my own room, I can straighten my back, which is like a 'giant' to her. There are several windows on the north wall of my house. The window sills are waist high, and the top of the window glass is level with the eaves, about 4.5 meters high. The latch is an old piece of wood that only works when I sleep. During the day, there are always people coming and going in my room. Although I rented two rooms, there was no personal privacy at all, and everything was clearly visible to everyone. The monthly rent is around 600 yuan, which is insignificant compared to the rent of an apartment with heating and complete pipes in Beijing. But the old widow still thinks I'm squandering and wasting money. After all, she only lived in one single room herself, and the couple in the adjacent room did as well. They come from Northeast China and want to find a job in the capital to establish themselves. We are only separated by a wall, and the landlord is also the same person. He divided the place into two spaces, one for himself and the other for rent. Like the old widow, his mother also obtained the right of residence in the government distribution. But younger landlords are different from old widows, they prefer to live in modern apartment buildings. After his mother passed away, he moved out and only retained the right to use this place. This right can be transferred and also allows him to sell or rent out the property. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
There is a bookshelf, a mini sofa, a chair, a coffee table, and a desk in my living room. The polished marble floor is always cold and slippery. The wall made of straw and soil was painted with a layer of white paint. In the morning, the sunshine shines in, and at night, the solitary light bulb hanging above emits light and heat, and the walls always have a faint luster. The other room was paved with deep red wooden floors, making a creaking sound when stepped on. There is a chest of drawers in the room, a large bunk bed that can accommodate four adults, and a mineral water heater. I scooped a spoonful of Nestle instant coffee into the cup, turned off the computer, and dared to start refilling it. I can't blow the fuse in the yard like I did one morning. Since then, my fridge has been out of stock and now I have my underwear inside. Don't forget to share your experience!
Because the so-called 'landlords' do not have ownership of the house, the old widow and others have been reluctant to take out some money from their meager income to maintain this yard. Since the 1950s, this task has fallen on the shoulders of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land Resources and Housing Management. Most of the ownership of old houses in Beijing is in the hands of this institution, including the rows of bungalows and courtyards in various alleys. What do you think about this?
Decades of rental subsidy policies, funding shortages, overcrowding, and neglect of maintenance have led to the decline of these houses built with durable materials such as wood and adobe bricks. Therefore, the Beijing government has continuously issued demolition orders and auctioned off these lands to developers. Then, the old house disappeared and the alleyway disappeared, and a unique way of life quietly vanished. Don't forget to share your experience!
The term 'hutong' is said to originate from the Mongolian words for 'well' (pronounced as' hudongge 'in Mongolian) or' passage between tents'; One theory suggests that it originated from the Chinese word for "gangtong", which refers to the narrow fire-resistant passage in the Yuan Dynasty during the reign of Kublai Khan in the 13th century. Don't forget to share your experience!Marco Polo once sincerely praised, "The city's ground planning is like a chessboard, its beauty and goodness are beyond declaration
With the development of cities, the number of streets and alleys is gradually increasing. Due to the fact that two adjacent hutongs stretch for miles without any intersection, diagonal streets have been opened between the parallel hutongs to serve as a connection. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!A survey conducted in 1949 showed that there were over 7000 hutongs in the entire city of Beijing.Rows of crooked neck trees cast thick shade, most of which were too narrow to fit inside the car. The crisscrossing alleys connect the courtyard houses with low walls together, forming a narrow public market where street vendors and acrobats rub shoulders, worrying about their respective livelihoods. In the late 1990s, alleys disappeared at an average rate of 600 per year. Don't forget to share your experience!In 2005, Chinese official media reported that there were only about 1300 hutongs left in Beijing.
The urban planning history of Beijing is constantly changing, and there is no accurate statistics on the number of existing hutongs. Some statistics only include streets and alleys with the word "hutong" in their names, while others include all narrow streets and alleys, even those added after the expansion of the capital in 1949. However, there is no doubt that, Have you tried this before? Share your story!Starting from 1990, under the new urban development plan launched on a city wide scale, Beijing began systematically demolishing hutongs with quadrangle courtyards Have you tried this before? Share your story!According to official government data, over 500000 residents have been relocated from the city center since then until 2003. The only remaining traditional streets and alleys in old Beijing are constantly facing the threat of demolition. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
The Great Barrier, which existed eight centuries ago, is the most vulnerable old community in this city.Tracing back to the 15th century, the alleyways in this area had wicker gates woven at both ends, which were tightly closed at night to prevent thieves from entering the prosperous city center commercial district and robbing homes. The name 'Dashilan' comes from this. Don't forget to share your experience!In the 17th century, Chinese emperors issued a series of imperial edicts prohibiting the establishment of hotels, restaurants, tea houses, theaters, and other establishments within the inner city. In the end, all Han people were prohibited from entering the inner city. So the businessman walked through the front door and arrived on the other side of the imperial city, starting to set up camp here. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!Dashilan gathers the city's artisans, artisans, and antique dealers. Beijing's unique roast duck chefs, acrobats, and Peking Opera performers flock here. Some hutongs are filled with blacksmith shops, silk embroidery workshops, and calligraphy and painting shops; Others built stages, brothels, and opium shops. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Nowadays, these places are obviously much more dull and peaceful. However, local officials still see hutongs as a thorn in their side, believing that their decline and aging have affected the grand beautification project of the entire capital before the 2008 Olympics. After all, the bid slogan that won the hosting rights at that time promised the world "New Beijing, New Olympics". What do you think about this?As the city center of Beijing, Dashilan is a must pass for tourists and a feng shui treasure in the eyes of developers. To the north of the block is the Great Hall of the People and Tiananmen Square, while to the east is the lifeline of Beijing's central axis, connecting the front gate tower with the magnificent Temple of Heaven. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
The name Dashilan not only belongs to a bustling pedestrian street, but also to the entire surrounding neighborhood, and is also well-known abroad. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!There are 114 hutongs in the entire Dashilan area, operating nearly 1500 types of businesses, and seven temples carrying the wishes of more than 3000 households for a better life. Most quadrangle courtyards have low rise bungalows that quietly decay in the rapidly changing waves of the 20th century. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!It can be said that this is the most densely populated urban area in Beijing, and even the entire world in terms of population and housing. The area of the Dashilar region is similar to that of the Vatican City (with a total population of 557), and this small area of less than one square kilometer is home to about 57000 residents, including one "foreigner". Have you tried this before? Share your story!
