Hutong

I keep forgetting to share these photos, although (or perhaps because) they are one of my favourite sets that I took whilst I was in China. Behind the hostel where I was saying was a hutong – the warren of traditional Chinese one storey houses that have been replaced by new high rise apartments. Apparently there are all sorts of ‘special’ hutongs worthy of sight, and around the Forbidden City rickshaw drivers compete to see who can get tourists to pay the most for a journey. But I wanted to quietly savour my last weekend in Beijing, so I picked a residential street and decided to see where it would take me.

Just a few minutes walk away from the frenzy of Western labels that is Wanfujing, I returned to the China where the presence of a foreigner was met with curiosity and puzzlement. As I photographed such boring everyday items as a bicycle-with-trailer filled with baozi steamers, I could feel benign ‘crazy laowai’ thoughts brewing about me.

I was surprised by how quiet the streets were, used as I was to navigating Shijazhuang’s happy chaos of children playing, adults gossiping or gaming, dogs going about their canine world and impromptu businesses. I guess that people were sheltering indoors or in courtyard gardens, but the impression that remains in my mind is of almost eery shaded quietness, relieved occasionally by a decorously subdued motorbikes seeking shortcuts from the congested main roads.

On a more prosaic level, I was delighted to find that every street had free, immaculately clean toilet and shower facilities, although I imagine that the residents must find venturing forth in the bitterness of winter somewhat less delightful. I also imagine that that is why, despite the destruction of the hutongs being loudly decried in Western media, so few Western residents actually live in them.

Join me in a trip around the globe.