Backstreet Beijing

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I spent my last day in Beijing wandering around (and getting lost in) some of the hutong, alleyways that criss-cross the centre of town. They are enchanting Yuan dynasty passageways, offering a very real glimpse into traditional Beijing and the lives of people living in the city.

The hutong are really narrow streets and were built in the wake of Genghis Khan's army when the city was known as Zhongdu. At the time the city was reduced to rubble and was redesigned with hutong running east to west. In the 1950s there were apparently over 6000 hutong, but construction of office blocks, highrise housing apartments, shopping centres and 6 lane roads saw the majority demolished, and today just 2000 remain. The Chinese have a saying - "There are 360 hutong with names and as many nameless hutong as there are hairs on a cow."

Because the hutong often didn't have running water, plumbing, electricity or bathrooms (as you walk down the remaining hutong you pass a public bathroom on each) the government claim residents were happy for them to be flattened and to move into new blocks of flats. However, its clear to see that many people rely on their proximity to the centre and to the ground in the hutong, operating shops, bike repair services and other businesses from their front doors, and that if they were moved to highrise apartments (which again is debatable, its thought many people were left homeless on demolition of the hutong) they would no longer have a way to make an income.

Walking through the hutong was quite an experience, there was a real atmosphere, with kids playing, women cooking in their doorways, hens in cages on front steps and dogs, bikes and mototaxis dodging one another in the narrow alleyways. It was so different to the rest of Beijing, both the modern city and the old dynasty palaces.

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Photos

Beijing hutong
Crazy overhead cables

Beijing hutong
Hens on a doorstep

Beijing hutong
Locals in the street

Comments

[pavs pride]

Hey, nice blog. We are off to Hong Kong in a week before a month in SW China. Good to get a well written precis.