When we are chewing our fingernails wondering how we can buy an apartment in this expensive city, other people are trying everything they can to preserve the ancient in this modern city. 

Zhang Wei, 34-year-old, from Beijing, is one of them. As the founder of the oldbeijing.net, a website that brings together people that concert Beijing representative landscape such as hutong and courtyards, Zhang himself not only organizes people to do some public welfare projects but also shoots photos and videos to record the changes of Beijing. In 2004, Zhang initialed an event called “Old Beijing Shoot and Record Activity” and more than 10,000 people have participated in. 

“I started this website 11 years ago,” Zhang said, “we do this event once every two weeks in 2006. We had over 100 people to join this activity which made me look like a tour guide, it was a fun but also a tiring experience.” 

According to Zhang, the number of hutong reduces every year. In 1948, Beijing had 3,068 hutong. In 2000, there were just 1,200, five years later, it was 758 and now, it has shrank to no more than 500. “What we are doing now is shooting and recording the visage of the vanishing hutong in Beijing,” Zhang went on, “if there is no hutong, then there is no Beijing, what we want to do is to arouse people’s consciousness about protecting old Beijing.” 

Laotuoniao (Old Ostrich), a netpal who is a 60-year-old active user of the oldbeijing net has joined this event many times said that hutong have a distinguished order of life which is now impacted and subverted. “I’ve been to Yizi (chair) Hutong where I saw a good example of imitation courtyards without any culture erosion,” he continued, “the looks of the front door of the courtyard should not face the street but should be put inside the courtyard, this example reflects a phenomenon that we confront a lot – rich but not noble. That’s because they are poorly educated.”

According to Laotuoniao, his mother was among the first group of students who learnt in the department of architecture in Beijing and father was working in the Forbidden City. Influenced by his parents, he has taken an interest in old Beijing culture since he was a little boy. When shooting photos of hutong, he often gets followed and sometimes expelled by police, guards and others because they think he is there to cause trouble about the hutong demolition. One day he was confronted with police and was threatened with having his photos deleted. “I said to the police, are there any regulations that saying not to take photos on streets? Is my camera a bomb? Then I took a photo under his nose, dare you touch my camera! Then the police went away.” 

Although the government is now allegedly paying attention to hutong protection, doing renewal and decoration work to cover the original appearance of the hutong is nothing but a waste of money in Zhang’s eyes. “If you pay attention when passing hutong, you might see there are lots of houses newly built and painted, looking just like artworks,” Zhang said, “people now turn cultural relics into artworks but artworks can never become cultural relics because they cannot stand that long before getting demolished or break down itself.”

Xian Kai’an, a 64-year-old resident living in a courtyard in Wudaoying, said that he has been living in this 300 square meters large courtyard for 60 years. “The living condition is not so good, as you can see, since the house is very old, but we don’t want to move,” Xian went on, “doing some repair work is our choice.” His wife, Zhou Xiuying agreed and said that if they move, they will surely move to a very far away place, “we are retired and have no money to buy such an expensive house.”

This kind of feelings lies within Luan Zhengxi’s heart too. As a man born after the 1980s, Luan has been using his camera to record hutong in Beijing for nearly 10 years. “Hutong as a cultural relic is now being destroyed, I think record the sight of hutong is the right of every Beijinger,” he said, “and if the next generation wants to see what Beijing used to be, they can learn through those photos.” 

Carrying his camera which using films, Luan’s footprints cover nearly every hutong in Beijing. “When a hutong changes, I will shoot a photo.” Majoring in photography, Luan bought his first camera which he is still using now to shoot hutong first in 2000. “Every time I take photos, I will think it would be the last time I can see the scene in front of my eyes.” With nearly 10,000 films, Luan recorded countless precious views which have now disappeared. In one of his photos, a man squatted and fixing a aluminum basin’s bottom, people who doing this kind of job can hardly be seen nowadays and the place he squatted, Mianhua Xiaertiao Hutong in Xuanwu district has now demolished to out of recognition. 

So far, Luan has spent over 200,000 yuan ($31,000) on his hutong protection activity, “It really worth it,” he said, “I have a Beijing map from 1954 and most of the hutong on it are gone. I want to leave some precious materials for the next generation and I will probably cooperate with some museums and provide my photos for free.” 

“The old generation don’t want to leave hutong because they’ve been living there for a very long time,” Luan continued, “but the young generation want to destroy them because they can get a large sum of money from the demolition which I’ve seen a lot.” 

For Zhang, what he harvests is not the memory of old Beijing, but the friendships of different people and also a life partner. “I met my wife in this Old Beijing Shoot and Record Activity and we’ve three couples in our team.” 

Next time, when you see a large group of people holding cameras and taking photos in the hutong, don’t just stand there gawping, simply pick up your own digital or analogue beauty and join them. It will surely be worth it.  Like Zhang, you may even discover the love of your life while learning about the treasures of our shared heritage of old Beijing culture, and thus begin your own Beijing story.

                This well-known folk tale indicates the importance of cricket fighting in Chinese culture. Old Beijingers have a nickname for crickets: ququ’er, and the keeping of crickets for fighting was an extremely popular pastime, not only for adults bur also for children. Almost every boy who lived in the hutongs had his own cricket. But first they had to catch them, and the best season for this was the end of summer or beginning of autumn. Groups of boys would head to the outskirts of the city with their cricket hunting gear and search in likely places such as under bricks or in cracks in the walls. Sometimes they might capture dozens, even more than a hundred, and this would be more than enough to see them through a whole cricket-fighting season. Because the bigger a cricket was, the more likely it was to win a fight, the larger crickets were particularly sought after.

                Cricket fights were run as follows: The owners of the crickets would meet in an agreed place carrying their champion crickets in jars. For fairness’ sake a neutral referee was usually put charge of proceedings. This referee put the two contenders in one jar and encouraged them to fight each other by poking them with a hair, usually a mouse whisker. Once the crickets’ antennae touched, the fight had officially begun. The two crickets would attack each other, kicking and biting. In the end the winner would announce his victory by chirping, while the loser would try to escape. The owners and spectators would crowd around cheering and shouting, adding to the atmosphere of the event. On these happy occasions people could forget their daily cares and worries and lose themselves completely in the excitement of the entertainment. The catching, keeping and fighting of crickets was one of the favorite pastimes of people in old Beijing, and is still a part of the indelible childhood memories of those who grew up in Beijing’s hutongs.

By Ma Chao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-05 09:18
From ChinaDaily: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/metro/2010-07/05/content_10057364.htm

“I do not worry about my post. I think it will not be cut”, said Li Yuhe (not his real name), an official with the people’s court of Chongwen district.

His court will merge with that of Dongcheng district amid the first consolidation of city districts since 1986.

Officials announced on Thursday that the State Council approved a plan to merge the four districts in the core area of Beijing – Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chongwen, and Xuanwu – into two larger ones.

Li is among the tens of thousands of civil servants working with the district-level authorities in the area, whose future has become uncertain due to the consolidation. The district-level people’s congresses, people’s political consultative conferences, committees of the CPC (Communist Party of China), governments, procuratorates and courts will all be restructured and consolidated.

Liu Qi, CPC Beijing committee secretary, said on Friday that only the district-level institutions will be merged, while the neighborhood-level authorities will stay as they are.

Li told METRO Liu promised that “the total number of civil servants will not be cut and the rank of every official will not change”.

So, although the courts in Chongwen and Dongcheng districts have not made a specific plan on how to combine and arrange their posts, Li said he is quite confident that he will not lose his job or be demoted.

Though the posts for many civil servants will not immediately disappear, the prospects of their posts are not necessarily guaranteed in the long run. The State Council demanded that, when merging the district authorities, the local authorities streamline governmental institutions, cut expenditures and improve administrative efficiency. The requirement raised doubts that many posts might be downsized during the consolidation.

Zhou Guodong (not his real name), an official with the organization department of the CPC Beijing committee, said authorities are bound to streamline some governmental institutions and cut posts eventually.

He told METRO, however, there would be “a digesting process” for the restructure of personnel. In the short run, the number of the posts will not be noticeably changed, but in the long term, some of them may disappear. Officials in those posts may retire or move to other posts.

The CPC Beijing committee announced on Friday the appointments of Party committee secretaries of the new Dongcheng and Xicheng districts. Yang Liumeng, 54, secretary of Dongcheng CPC committee, will remain in office. Wang Ning, 49, current CPC committee secretary of Xuanwu district, will assume the secretary’s office of the new Xicheng district.

The selection of district chiefs must go through a more complicated process, said Jiao Hongchang, a law professor with the China University of Political Science and Law. Because only the district-level people’s congresses, which hold plenary sessions once a year, have the authority to elect district chiefs, the standing committees of the people’s congresses may appoint acting chief to take charge of the district governments.

Jiao said the process of bureaucratic consolidation will take at least several months.

Beijing – Residents have been posting articles online to honor the memory of some of the capital’s districts after hearing of the city’s plan to merge Chongwen and Xuanwu districts with Dongcheng and Xicheng.

In an online poll launched by a student, 86 percent of the 220 people who expressed an opinion said they didn’t want the districts to be consolidated. Ten percent said they didn’t care about this issue.

Most of those who objected said the merger amounted to a demolition of the city’s traditional culture.

“The south of the core areas in Beijing, where Chongwen and Xuanwu districts are located, are the only example of the city’s cultural street life, which I think will be destroyed soon,” said Yang Nan, a man in his 20s who spent his childhood there.

He said he was afraid that, in a few years’ time, office buildings and fancy apartments will replace the traditional street life of Chongwen and Xuanwu.

Zhang Zichi, a resident of Dongcheng district, said Beijing has been sacrificing the city’s thousands of years of culture in its quest to be a “world city”.

“I have no objection to developing Beijing because it is the capital city; I just hope we won’t be left only with a ‘capital’ but no ‘real Beijing,” Zhang said in his online memorial.

Another online site was started on Thursday dedicated to memorializing Chongwen and Xuanwu. It will last for one month and attracted 500 people in its first 24 hours.

But not all were in opposition.

“The consolidation might not be a bad idea,” said a netizen nicknamed “washing”, who was born in Xuanwu and who now lives in Chongwen.

“This move could at least help cut administrative costs by trimming the number of government institutions,” he said, adding that it might also be good news for school-age children in Chongwen district, where education is relatively weak.

His thoughts received support from netizens who believe objections to the consolation came from people being naive, rather than from genuine dissatisfaction with the move.

In ancient times, Chongwen and Xuanwu were located outside the imperial inner city and were predominantly reserved for people from the lower classes, according to Wang Zuoji, a 71-year-old expert on the city’s culture and folk arts. The areas are now well known for being home to a large number of intangible cultural relics and reflect the historic flavor of Beijing folk life.

For those residents who were born, grew up and worked there, it is understandable that they may feel melancholic about the merger plan and the fact that the two districts may soon change, said Wang.

But he noted, that, while the names may be lost, the culture need not disappear and might be better protected with the efforts of one large district.

“All of these current four areas are small, compared with Beijing’s other 14 districts and suburban counties, and development among the four has been unbalanced,” he told China Daily.

“The merger will help these districts better allocate and share resources, both in cultural and economic terms,” he said.

“Besides, the city’s unique culture is known collectively. It should be preserved as a whole, rather than being protected separately.”

 Move aimed at balanced growth, better governance

BEIJING – The capital’s Chongwen and Xuanwu districts will soon become history as the State Council, the country’s Cabinet, has approved a plan to merge them with two other districts to improve the city’s development and governance. 

 Xuanwu will merge with Xicheng district and Chong-wen will join Dongcheng district, according to a plan by the Beijing municipal government. 

 The four districts form a core area of Beijing. They serve as its political, administrative, economic and financial centers, and boast numerous historical and tourist attractions. 

 The relatively limited geographical area of the districts has restrained their development, Xinhua News Agency reported. 

 Chongwen and Xuanwu have also been lagging behind the two other districts in economic strength and the municipal government hopes the consolidation will achieve balanced growth and improved governance. 

 The government also hopes the move will help cut administrative costs and improve efficiency by trimming the number of government institutions. 

 The announcement of the plan drew various responses from local residents. 

 Chongwen resident Wang Yuan, 28, said she does not care about the merge plan. 

 ”Many of Chongwen’s landmarks such as Beijing Amusement Park and Chongwen Market have all disappeared during the city’s development, taking away with them our fond memories,” she said. 

 ”For local residents, Chong-wen is already no longer the district we were familiar with.” 

 Beijing Amusement Park, which many residents associate with their childhood, was shut down last month because of poor management. 

 Some seniors said they will be sorry to see the two districts go. 

 Wang He, a 62-year-old Beijinger born and raised up in Chongwen, said that when he was young, the district was full of hutong lined with traditional courtyards (siheyuan) that reflected the best cultural aspects about living in Beijing. 

 But now the courtyards have been replaced with high concrete apartment blocks, he said. 

 ”My family roots are in Chongwen,” said Wang, who now lives in suburban Fengtai. ”I’m really sad that Chong-wen’s name will be gone.” But other people are more supportive of the latest change. 

Song Yingchang, a professor of urban development and environment research at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the move will optimize social resources. ”Chongwen and Xuanwu are in the southern part of the city and have much historical heritage, but they are short of large and profitable tax-paying enterprises. They may get more financial support to protect their precious local culture after the consolidation.” Local educational resources may also face new arrangements, Song said. Current regulations require teenagers to be admitted by schools in the same district where their residency is registered. ”However, the consolidation may mean trouble for governmental officials as positions will be cut, ” he said. Song said some of the affected officials may have to serve in remote districts such as Daxing and Tongzhou.

                Rolling the hoop was one of the most popular games in old Beijing, especially amongst boys. Many children found this more interesting than spinning tops because both the speed and direction of the hoop could be controlled.

                The whole set consisted of two parts; the hoop, a ring usually made of metal, and stick with which it was pushed along. The hoop itself could be made fairly[KL1]  easily by bending a metal strip into a circle using a plier[KL2] . The size of the hoop should not be too big or too small – about the diameter[KL3]  of a domestic Chinese bucket[KL4]  (40 or 50 centimeters). As the hoop is designed to roll, of course the nearer it is to a perfect circle the better! The second element, the rod[KL5] , can be a made of wood or bamboo and should be about a meter long. At the end of the stick is a U-shaped metal hook to help control the hoop.

                The best locations for rolling the hoop were reasonably[KL6]  flat roads, hutongs, or empty squares. Some children would hold the stick in their hand and simply push the hoop as fast as possible while their friends ran along behind them trying to keep up. Others, however, concentrated less on raw[KL7]  speed and more on twisting and turning the hoop, and making it describe elaborate[KL8]  figures.

                In the past children would also organize competitions by choosing a distant finishing point and then rolling the hoop to see who managed to get there first. Once the starter of the race gave the signal the group of the race gave the signal the group of excited children would begin frantically running along with their hoops rolling in front of them. As the race went on the dust and excitement would rise as the hoops rolled ahead of the posse of wildly shouting children! Due to the crowding and confusion sometimes certain hoops would clash with each other and fall; if this happened those involved were disqualified from the race. Of course the first racer to reach the finishing post with his hoop was declared the proud winner and, for a short time at least, became the toast[KL9]  of his companions[KL10] !

                The trick of the game was to master the control of balance, if not the hoop was sure to fall sooner or later. The rod acted as a steering wheel, which controlled the direction of the hoop, while the speed was controlled using the strength of the hands. Playing this game also helped to strengthen arm and leg muscles, improve balance, and especially when the race was long – build up stamina[KL11] . All in all, rolling the hoop provided fun and healthy exercise and was not only popular, but possibly one of the most beneficial pastimes for growing children. However these days, at least in modern Beijing, it is almost impossible to see children playing with the rod and hoop and even in rural[KL12]  areas it has become a rare sight.

 [KL2]钳子(如老虎钳,手钳,扁嘴钳等),镊子

 [KL3]直径

 [KL4].

桶, 一桶的量, [桶状物]铲斗

 [KL5]杆, 棒

 [KL6]适度地, 相当地

 [KL7]未加工的, 生疏的, 处于自然状态的,

 [KL8]精心制作的, 详细阐述的, 精细

 [KL9]干杯：向一个人或物表示敬意或祝一个人健康而举杯饮酒的动作

 [KL10]交谊, 友谊

 [KL11]毅力, 持久力, 精力

 [KL12]乡下的, 田园的, 乡村风味的, 生活在农村的

                The history of the spinning top in China is long one, extending back as far as the Ming Dynasty. However they really took off in popularity amongst Beijing children during the Qing Dynasty. At that stage spinning tops were carved from wood into a cone[KL4]  shape, circular at the top and pointed at the bottom, something like the shape of a funnel[KL5] . They were generally about 5 centimeters in height and 4 centimeters across at their widest point; some of them had a metal cover at the spinning point to make them last longer. Some owners would paint colors and designs on the tops to make them look prettier as they span. The whip[KL6]  consisted of a wooden stick about sixty centimeters long with a length of string or a thin strip[KL7]  of cloth or leather tied to one end. With these two simple elements, top and whip, you were all set to go spinning!

                The string or cloth is wrapped tightly around the body of the top, which is then placed point down on a flat even surface. With a sudden, rapid movement the whip is pulled away to leave the top spinning. To keep it spinning sufficiently [KL8] fast and to remain upright [KL9] the player whips the top again and again. Some skillful children could keep several tops spinning at once. Others would compete against each other to see whose top kept spinning the longest. Some tips for spinning are: choosing a suitably even surface to play on, keeping the whip parallel and close to the ground when launching the top, and using the very end of the whip to lash the middle of the top while avoiding hitting it to strongly.

                Even today, spinning tops are still one of the favorite games played by children in Beijing; on any weekend or holiday, happy children can be seen lashing [KL10] their tops in old hutongs or parks and squares.

 [KL2]吸引力，感染力：吸引或引起兴趣的力量

 [KL3]与众不同的, 有特色的

 [KL4]锥形物, 圆锥体

 [KL5]漏斗, 烟窗

 [KL6]鞭打, 抽打, 突然移动

 [KL7]条, 带

 [KL8]十分地, 充分地

 [KL9]垂直的, 竖式的, 正直的, 诚实的, 合乎正道的

 [KL10]鞭打, 痛斥, 大量, 许多

On any given day, 31-year-old Mr. Zhang can be found wandering through a Beijing hutong, one of those centuries-old narrow lanes that once filled the city center. Armed with a camera, the amateur photographer walks the lanes, snapping the clay-tiled roofs and the wooden doorways of the courtyard homes that line the alleyways. Sometimes, he finds only rubble where once families had a home. Other times, he catches the destruction on film as it happens.

He’s seen it before: His family’s courtyard home—where the Zhangs lived for 80 years—was razed by a bulldozer to make way for a five-story office building and road in June 2000. Since then, Mr. Zhang has devoted himself to preserving Beijing’s hutongs the best way he knows how, with a camera and his Chinese-language Web site, www.oldbeijing.org. He even quit his job at a public relations agency in late 2002 to focus fulltime on the Web site.

“I just wanted to use this Web page to mourn for my old home, where I left all my childhood memories of growing up,” says Mr. Zhang, who photographs Beijing hutongs by day and loads the images onto his Web site at night.

Not so long ago, hutongs were the main arteries of life in Beijing. They spread out from the city center—the Forbidden City—and served as community meeting places, markets, playgrounds and roads for all who lived there. This hutong way of life — which is present in other Chinese cities, including nearby Tianjin, but is unique to Beijing in its concentration — is quickly disappearing. Old courtyard homes, or siheyuan, and hutongs are being torn down to make way for shiny office towers, modern apartment blocks, shopping malls and new roads. According to a nonprofit hutong preservation group, the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, Beijing had more than 3,000 hutongs in the 1950s.The group estimates that only 1,000 remain.

“Some of the hutongs have gone forever,” says Mr. Zhang. “That’s why I want to record them in the pictures.”

 Little did he know that many others would be drawn to his cause. On weekends, 20 to 30 people—foreign and local, students and professionals—join Mr. Zhang in the hutongs, snapping photos from different angles. Taking pictures in groups “is a kind of protest,” says Mr. Zhang, whose Web page currently hosts more than 120,000 photos of about 700 hutongs in varying conditions—refurbished, crumbling and demolished. The site draws nearly 20,000 viewers a day, says Mr. Zhang, and has 16,000 registered members.

Chen Li, a 37-year-old manager at a local branch of international home products retailer Ikea, is a weekend regular. “In the oldbeijing.org, there are many kinds of people coming together with different purposes,” he says. “Some are more interested in architecture, some are lovers of Beijing culture, some are just fans of photography.”

Mr. Zhang’s Website hasn’t yet saved any hutongs from destruction, but the group has raised awareness. “What we are trying to do is to catch people’s hearts,” says Mr. Zhang. The effort has cost him. In the past five years, Mr. Zhang has run through 300,000 yuan (about $44,000) in savings. Nowadays, he has to ask his parents, both of whom are retired, for pocket money (about 25 yuan a day). “I am sure what I am doing now will be justified by history,” he says. “No matter if it’s hutongs, courtyard homes, or even the ancient walls…I just think we should get them protected for our children, and our children’s children.”

无论什么时候，你都能在北京的胡同内发现张巍的身影。胡同是一种对狭窄街道的称呼，这种小巷子曾经遍布北京城，拥有长达数世纪的悠久历史。作为一名业余摄影师，张巍手持相机，行走在小巷之间，拍摄道路两旁四合院的灰瓦和木门。有时候，他只能找到断壁残垣，暗示这里曾经住过人家；另一些时候，他把胡同消失前的那一刻用相机记录下来。

在此之前他便见证过那一刻：2000年6月，张巍家住了80年的四合院被一台推土机夷为平地，目的是给一栋五层的办公楼让地。从那时起，张巍专心投入到保护北京胡同的事业之中，以他所知的最好方式：一部相机和一个中文网站www.oldbeijing.org。2002年末，他甚至辞去在一家公关公司的工作，全身心地投入网站建设。

“我只想通过这个网站，纪念自己曾经住过的四合院，因为那里留下了我童年时代成长的所有回忆。”张巍说道。他白天去胡同拍照，晚上则将照片上传到网站上去。

不久以前，胡同还是北京的生活大动脉。它们从位于市中心的故宫周围发散出去，作为当地社区的聚会场所、购物市场、玩耍地点，以及居民的出行道路。胡同在中国其它城市也有，包括邻近的天津；但北京的胡同高度集中，显得一枝独秀。然而，这种胡同文化正在迅速消亡。老旧的四合院和胡同都面临拆迁，让步于闪闪发光的写字楼、现代公寓楼、购物商场和新修道路。据非盈利性胡同保护组织“北京文化遗产保护中心”称，北京在20世纪50年代有3,000多条胡同，但估计现存的只有1,000条左右。

“一些胡同永远消失了。”张巍说，“所以我想把它们留在照片里。”

张巍不知道的是，很多人在他的感召下加入了这个行列。每个周末，都有二、三十人─有外国人，也有本地人；有学生，也有专业人士─和张巍一起来到胡同，从各个角度拍摄照片。集体拍照“彷佛是一种抗议方式”，张巍说道。他的网站目前有超过12万张照片，记录了约700条胡同的各种形态─重新装修、断壁残垣，以及彻底摧毁。该网站每天吸引近2万名访客，目前有1.6万名注册会员。

37岁的陈立(Chen Li，音译)是国际家居用品店宜家(Ikea)的餐饮部经理。他每个周末都会带上相机去拍胡同。“在oldbeijing.org网站，吸引了各种不同的人，抱着各种不同的目的。”他说，“有些对建筑学更感兴趣，有些喜欢北京的文化，有些则只是摄影爱好者。”

虽然张巍的网站也许还没能拯救任何一条胡同免于消失，但该组织起到了宣传胡同保护的作用。“我们想让人们的心有所触动”，张巍说道。

张巍的努力也让其付出了代价。过去五年来，他已经花光了30万元人民币（约合44,000美元）的存款。现在，他连零花钱都不得不向退休的父母开口要（大约25块钱一天）。

“我敢肯定，我所做的会被历史承认”，张巍说，“不管是胡同也好，四合院也好，甚至古城墙也好……我认为这些东西都应该保留下来，为了我们的孩子，还有孩子们的孩子。”

View Video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1435443541?bclid=1341026943&bctid=1632777748
View Chinese Version Link: http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20080630/fea150656.asp?source=insidetoday

The flat-screen plasma television was purchased two weeks ago for the long-awaited night of pride and pageantry. It sat on a low-slung cabinet that rested against a living-room wall in a small, cramped apartment, as a symbol of modernity fronting a diminished vestige of the past, a screen of high definition framed by what had been a window of elaborate carpentry detail.

“Beijing,” Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, would say on the television with his trademark solemnity as the long and lavish opening ceremony of the Beijing Games neared its conclusion, “you are hosts to the present, and gateway to the future.”

From his couch, Zhang Wei could also look back more than a century.

“That window is 120 years old,” he said, pointing to a complex weave of pinewood on the wall behind the big screen. It was all he could save from the house in the narrow Beijing alleyway known here as a hutong that Zhang’s family had inhabited for 80 years.

The building was razed in 2000 to make way for an office tower, and the demolition changed Zhang Wei’s life. He became an activist in the preservation of the hutong, if mostly through the lens of his camera.

“We try to find parts of our heritage and inform the government of things that can be done but we do not get feedback,” said Zhang, 31. “What is lost is so much more than we can protect.”

But such talk on the night that was supposed to be about all China had gained? With the start of the ceremony minutes away Friday night, Zhang’s father had come in from the apartment across the hallway on the second floor of the austere building in the Shijingshan District on Beijing’s West Side.

“Don’t say that, don’t say that,” said Zhang Yuewen, 62, the product of another generation, a protective dad who worried what bounds his son was overstepping.

He became more relaxed, giddy even, when the subject changed to one that father, son and a healthy portion of China share a growing passion for.

“We love basketball,” Zhang Wei said. “My father and I will be watching all the games.”

“Kobe Bryant, the Lakers, I am a huge fan, I only wish Yao Ming could be with them so he could win the championship,” the elder Zhang said while his wife, Fan Guixin, and Zhang Wei’s girlfriend, Li Ying, settled in for the early fireworks display. Refreshments were served. An American journalist invited to watch the opening ceremony with a photographer and an interpreter were treated like part of the family.

By the time the big show began, all perceived societal flaws and bones of contention were on hold, would have to wait through a couple of more weeks and a trove of Chinese medals, although Zhang Yuewen guaranteed — “100 percent” — that the United States would win the men’s basketball gold, citing Bryant as the difference.

“I watch him all season and I see that he has matured, grown up,” he said. “For two years, all he wants is to shoot. This last year, he is passing to the others.”

Told that his assessment matched that of many experts in the United States, he shook my hand and asked if I could get him Bryant’s autograph. I promised to see what I could do and we both laughed. I’d made a friend.

The more I come to the Olympics, and this is my 10th, the more I agree with Rogge: the Games are too bloated — though not with sports, as he has maintained, but with self-aggrandizement, the belief in itself as a great global agent of peace.

The Olympics are more of a big, messy party that always has the potential to create as much acrimony as harmony. We should probably stop expecting too much and maybe, from that context, we can grudgingly come to grips with the unmet promises of the Chinese authorities and enjoy these Games, remember that they are also for ordinary folk like the Zhangs, and how excited and proud they are to have them.

Friday night, I asked Zhang Yuewen, a former steel factory worker, about China’s women’s volleyball victory in the 1981 World Cup that is considered the rebirth of Chinese sports after the Cultural Revolution. He nodded vigorously.

“Even now I can feel the excitement from the volleyball victory,” he said. “We celebrated because at that time many years ago we didn’t have much entertainment to watch.”

Now, along with the Lakers, he has the Olympics. He (and David Stern, no doubt) considers that progress.

When they played the Chinese national anthem Friday night, Zhang Yuewen swayed gently and mouthed the words. Bryant, his favorite Yank, would soon be coming at the back of the large American delegation as it marched into the architectural triumph they call the Bird’s Nest, followed later by Yao leading in the Chinese team.

It was easy to imagine families like the Zhangs in their modest homes all across China, on their couches, leaning forward, galvanized by the realization that it was time for the basketball games and the Beijing Games to begin.
 

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/sports/olympics/09araton.html?ref=sports

BEIJING, China (CNN) — As in Rome and Athens, ancient relics in Beijing stand in stark contrast to the highways, buildings and vehicles of the modern age. At Beijing’s Jianguomen, the fortification-like Ancient Observatory — dating from 1442 during the Ming Dynasty — dodges the overpasses of the Second Ring Road while standing within steps of a subway station.

To what extent Old Beijing — which can be defined as anytime from “ancient” to pre-1990s, depending on the context — can survive urban development post-Olympics is perhaps best answered by Beijing’s urban planners.

Among the endangered are the hutongs, or narrow alleys, and siheyuan, or courtyards, where city residents have long lived.

Zhang Wei started the Web site oldbeijing.org eight years ago to chart the decline in the number of Beijing’s hutongs and believes only 500 remain of the estimated 3,000 that existed six decades ago.

“This number is not including hutongs that are half destroyed,” he said.

An estimated 520,000 people moved to the Chinese capital last year alone, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. The consequence is that low-lying houses and hutongs face destruction to accommodate the high-rises needed to house so many people, Zhang said.

“It’s coming,” said Mike Meyer, a three-year resident of Dashilar, a maze of hutongs within a 10-minute walk south of the new egg-like National Grand Theatre near Tiananmen Square. “My landlord told me my lease ends in September, that maybe we should go month to month.”

Public notices by the Beijing Municipal Construction Committee are up around the neighborhood, listing which addresses face relocation. Those fated for the bulldozer would get the white character chai (meaning “tear down”) painted on its wall.

“No one’s ever seen the character painted,” said Meyer, who’s chronicled the lives of his neighbors in a new book, “The Last Days of Old Beijing.” Referring to the invisible “Hand,” Meyer said that once the character is painted on a building, “you’re a goner.”

The destruction of neighborhoods was what prompted Sze Tsung Leong to photograph Beijing and other Chinese cities — including Nanjing, Pingyao, and Xiamen — between 2002 and 2005. The New York-based artist visited China for the first time in 1994 and again in 2001.

“It was like visiting two different eras, as so much of the city that I first saw in 1994 had been destroyed and replaced with new construction,” he wrote in an e-mail to CNN.

In an essay for his resulting book “History Images,” Leong referred to the “erasure of history.” As he put it, each shift in history — “from dynasty to dynasty, from imperial rule to communism, from communism to the market economy” — seeks to define itself with the erasure of the past. The pattern and scale of destruction were similar in all China‘s major cities, Leong found.

A drive along Beijing’s Second Ring Road can give a sense of the scale of what has been lost of Beijing’s imperial city, the walls of which once protected “one of the largest, most unique, and most intact Imperial Cities in the world,” he added in the e-mail.

The Qianmen area, particularly southeast of the Qianmen gate — home to Dashilar and Meyer’s house — and south of the Beijing Railway Station, was where one can best see the juxtaposition of demolished neighborhoods amid the new buildings that would replace them, Leong noted.

Within a few minutes’ walk of Meyer’s home is Liulichang, Beijing’s 750-meter (half-mile) antiques street which has flourished since the Yuan dynasty 800 years ago.

During the past eight years, the government put in $146.2 million into the renovation of hutongs and siheyuan around there, said Kong Fanzhi, director of Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage at a news conference in July.

“Wal-Mart is down the street,” Meyer said, pointing. Anchoring it is the Sogo Department Store and hotels.

Tenants on Beijing’s new shopping streets won’t be the post office, Meyer said, “but Apple, Prada and Starbucks.” The investment is going toward the “renewal” or makeover of buildings and streets, like Liulichang itself, Meyer added.

Nonetheless, such new establishments are popular among local residents, sometimes not even for the products sold, Meyer said. “It’s air-conditioned,” Meyer said of Wal-Mart, while Starbucks offered anonymity and “alone time” from Dashilar’s high density, he added.

Zhang is among those who lost their homes within the Qianmen area. He started oldbeijing.org to remember his house and hutong, Dongbanbijie, which were demolished to accommodate a widened street. As time went on, the collection of similar stories grew. Aside from the 16,400 registered users on his Web site, 1,000 people have contributed pictures over the years, Zhang said.

“The history of development is the history of demolition,” said Zhang. “In recent years, development gets faster, and we see hutongs disappearing faster.”

Life in the hutongs has its pluses and drawbacks.

Many buildings, constructed hundreds of years ago, are beyond repair, with walls unable to bear pipes or with rudimentary electricity wiring. Meyer’s courtyard has no backdoor, presenting a fire hazard, and the public bathroom is a five-minute walk away.

Nonetheless, his home is comfortable and seals out water and Beijing’s famous dust storms, Meyer said. “I haven’t had anything stolen,” he added. “Never seen a cockroach or a rat.” He pays 800 RMB ($116) rent per month for his two-room, 200-square meter apartment, double the size of his neighbors’ homes in the siheyuan.

Meyer estimates negotiations would start at $1,000 per square meter despite what he considers a worth of $8,000 per square meter (55,000 RMB), given the location.

Meyer says he can “completely stand” in the shoes of government officials who’d view such neighborhoods as “slums” in the city center, so close to the Great Hall of the People and Tiananmen Square. Beijing was merely following the path of other world cities, such as London, Paris and New York, he said.

Reputations and promotions of city officials aren’t built on what is protected but on what is built, Meyer said.

There are residents, particularly young people living with grandparents and wanting more space, who welcome the writing of the “Hand” as a way to get into high-rises and start anew, Meyer said. In a role reversal, grandparents may find themselves moving with their grandchildren out of the city center into the suburbs.

As for Meyer, a resident of Beijing since 1997, he says he’ll leave it when he gets his notice. Cities rejuvenate while people get old and sentimental, he said. Nonetheless, “I miss Beijing every day,” he added.

From: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/25/beijing.hutongs/index.html