Day 1: Rolling through the hutong

Suzie's lesson: The word hutong comes from the Mongolians. They needed to camp at locations that had water wells...thus, hutong. The Chinese then built homes around water wells. These areas were later made up of neighborhoods of small homes that faced a courtyard. The series of homes with courtyards and alleyways earned the name "hutong." Most of them have been torn down in the name of progress. The government is now trying to maintain and rebuild about 20 of the neighborhoods. I took one picture of a renovation that was occurring across from the courtyard home we visited. The seniors come to visit because that is the way they were raised. The juniors come to visit because they only know high rise living. My guest house was in the Banqiao hutong, but the homes had actually had been torn down and rebuilt, although the name remains the same.

The gentleman you see in the pictures owns the house surrounding the courtyard with his 3 brothers and 2 sisters. He is the only one who still lives there. He has "renovated" 2 rooms and rents them out to visitors. One of his visitors was a French couple who came to watch their son compete in the Olympics. He could not remember the sport, but the son won a silver medal in the competition.

We then walked along a "lake" bank that was close to the hutong. It is a magnet for late night life in the area. Bars and bars and bars lined the streets with overstuffed furniture setting outside. The roofs also had comfortable seating areas. Across the street was not as attractive, as you can see. It was a "happenin'" area in the city.

The closer the hutong was to the Forbidden City, the more the homes belonged to upper class officials who were allowed to live there. As we left the hutong, Suzie gave me a lesson in doors. You will see the door frame with 4 beams showing above the door. The more beams that show, the wider and fancier the door is allowed to be, and the higher up the owner is in Chinese society. The decorations and carvings on the door also indicate the status and title of the owner. This door does not have carvings to indicate how high up the owner was in society, but the carved pieces out front indicate he was a highly regarded general. The carvings show a drum and drum stick. The drum stick is the symbol for the generals. They beat the drums to indicate the battle was on.

Thus ended my first day in Beijing...and what a day it was!

And this was my first rickshaw ride...ever!