Beijing hutongs

Part of the rapidly disappearing Beijing are the old residential neighborhoods, or hutong. So a decade or so ago some were saved, almost accidentally, when entrepreneurial guides began giving tours of the old neighborhoods. Now a handful of hutongs have been saved from demolition for high rise condos, sanitized, and preserved. We took what has become the classic high-end tour: a convoy of 8 pedicabs through the narrow alleyways,



capped by a visit to a hutong resident who very proudly showed off her home, where her husband's family has lived for the past 150 years: two bedrooms, an office, a living room, kitchen with gas stove, microwave, refrigerator, washer. She's a retired factory worker; her husband is an artist who happily sold us four of his small rice paper paintings.