Hutong Quest

Susannah: The city of Beijing was my first glimpse of Asia. It was 1996 and was I sixteen. I had no affection for the grim smoggy skies and treeless avenues lined with blocky cement buildings; what I loved was pointing my Flying Pigeon bicycle down the narrow, winding hutongs of the old part of town. Here, onion pancackes and fried dumplings sizzled on every corner, crowds gathered to watch mahjong games, and women called to each other in piercing tones asking about their husbands' hemorrhoids. There was always something to wonder at, so much so that I often narrowly avoided collisions with bicycle carts overloaded with cardboard, beer bottles or laundry.

Many of these hutongs are several hundred years old. Through the narrow entryways lined with rusty bikes lie the courtyards of ancient family complexes and vibrant hidden temples. When we arrived in the city with Mike's mom, we barely made it to Tiananmen Square before I dragged everyone off to see "the real Beijing" of the hutongs.

I couldn't remember where my old haunts had been, so I consulted the ever-present guide book and pointed us toward Qianmen, the old southern gate to the city. We were immediately confronted with what seemed like miles of corrugated metal barricade, forcing us through a narrow, dusty channel reverberating with the sounds of jackhammers and buzzsaws. Through a gap in a fence I saw a vast expanse of rubble punctuated by the vibrant color of recently constructed faux-imperial splendor: the Beijing the government was readying for the Olympics.



Сhargrined, we pushed through the dust to a narrow commercial street. Here, cheerful workmen were busy rebuilding storefronts full of souvenirs. Dismembered mannequins lay piled against a fence.



A little desperate now, I took us down a promisingly narrow alleyway that I hoped would yield some local color. There was hardly a sign of life, apart from some wet cement. The old walls had been painted a uniformly stark grey on grey.

A couple days later (at my suggestion) we rented bikes and tried a different part of town, behind the Forbidden City. Same story, except this time there were signs in English pointing the way to this or that "authentic hutong." Toward the end of the day we happened upon some hole-in-the-wall noodle joints and a makeshift bike repair stand, but most of the businesses were self consciously shabby-hip joints for foreigners, or sold relics of the old Beijing.



As the defacto China tour guide, I was a little embarassed to be dragging Mike's mom along on a wild goose chase for something that apparently no longer existed. Once we had left China's borders and the reach of the "Great Firewall of China," I did some internet research to see what had happened to the Beijing I remembered.

According to this insightful article in Open Democracy, (featuring some beautiful and sobering photos), a third of the central city's 62 square km has been destroyed in the last 3 years, displacing 580,000 residents, many of whom are homeless while awaiting resettlement in highrises. The hutongs not being torn down are getting the makeover we witnessed. One of the aspects of this makeover that pleases residents is the upgrading of their public toilets--though only those in tourist-frequented areas are getting the fancy kind with electronic flush mechanisms.

According to this (surprisingly hilarious) article in The Hindu,

"the city authorities have also instituted a "morality-evaluation index" that ranks neighbourhoods according to the level of refinement they have achieved. Sharing housework, speaking a foreign language, regular reading of newspapers, large book-collections and window-sills displaying potted plants boost the neighbourhood score on the civility index while spitting, alcohol abuse, and noisiness act as blackmarks."

This is all happening, of course, to mould the city into a Beijng the government thinks will impress its first-world Olympic visitors. This is a shame, because a sterilized, spoon-fed experience of China can be had much more easily at Epcot Center. But the real shame is that Beijing's residents are being forcibly encouraged to believe that their rich, lived-in history and deep community roots are worthless.