Last, last, last days of old Peking

Society & Culture

Top society and culture news for April 20, 2017. Part of the daily The China Projectย news roundup "He fled from Bo Xilai; now he wants to make 300,000 electric cars in China."


The Los Angeles Timesย has published an articleย titled โ€œIf there’s debris and destruction, it must be springtime in Beijing,โ€ which says that โ€œthe government has embarked on a renovation project in Beijingโ€™s centuries-old courtyard alleyways known as hรบtรฒng ่ƒกๅŒโ€ฆ Officials want to create an โ€˜orderly, civilized and beautiful street environmentโ€™ in these remaining alleys by rooting out unlicensed buildings and reducing clutter.โ€ But many fear that the cleanup campaign will be done insensitively, and cause the capital to lose the slightly chaotic charm of its last remaining hutong.ย The article quotes Jeremiah Jenne, a historian and occasional blogger who leads walking toursย through hutongs in Beijing: โ€œThe government itself is wrestling with the question of what the hutongs mean in Beijingโ€ฆ Are they an eyesore or a tourist attraction?โ€

A Weibo postย (in Chinese) from the Beijing government explains the current plans for the area around Nanmencang Hutong ๅ—้—จไป“่ƒกๅŒ, which is mainly to destroy all structures built without a permit and widen the alleyways. Here is a Weibo postingย (in Chinese) from February with several photos showing cleanup work that was done on the Dongsi Shiyi Tiao Hutong ๅŒ—ไบฌไธœๅ››ๅไธ€ๆก. The Weibo account of the bookstore Zhengyang Shuju ๆญฃ้˜ณไนฆๅฑ€ has photos of bricksย from Beijingโ€™s old city walls turning up in the rubble after the destruction of illegally built structures: The city walls were mostly destroyed in 1955, and hutong residents made use of their rubble to build their own additions to their cramped hutong houses.

The Financial Timesย has published an articleย (paywall) on another big change in Beijingโ€™s urban environment: โ€œBeijing has announced plans to combat what it calls โ€˜urban diseasesโ€™ by capping its population and shrinking its footprint, wreaking havoc on the small businesses and migrants that throng its bustling streets.โ€

Beijing has, of course, been changing for decades. For more on previous cycles of destruction and no renovation, we can recommend these books: