Comment

Hutong demise is saddening

By Brendan Forde (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-10 10:52

To some who support their destruction, the hutong are nothing more than "slums", places where space is limited, privacy non-existent and modern amenities certainly lacking. To these individuals, the hutong are an eyesore not fit for the nation's capital, a blight needing to be removed.

But to call a hutong a slum is to speak out of ignorance. As one who has spent time in many poorer nations and regions, I have seen and experienced slums first hand. I have spent time in places in East Timor which are in fact slums and shanty towns.

I know people who live in a home made out of sheets of metal, and I'm sure they would willingly trade places with a hutong resident, as they would have access to, amongst other things, electricity. The hutong are not slums or shanty towns, and to describe them as such is insulting to those who have to live in such terrible places.

Yet, while the hutong are not slums, they do suffer from a certain ramshackle situation. I recently visited a courtyard in Badaowan hutong, which was a former residence of Lu Xun. What struck me the most was the juxtaposition of modern and old. New buildings have been added on the old homes, and the occupancy density was obviously rather high. These two issues are common in hutong around the city and are problems. But these two problems do not justify the outright destruction of the hutong.

Rather than destroying the hutong to make way for a new shopping mall, action should and must be taken to improve the older buildings to make them more livable.

The recently added structures should be removed, and the density problem must be addressed. Where you find, for example, three families in the one building, that number should be drawn down to at most two.

The families made to resettle would be generously compensated and provided with alternative, conveniently located housing of their choice.

Liang Sicheng, one of my personal heroes, understood the need to preserve historic structures while incorporating them into modern life. That is what must happen today with the hutong. Dilapidated structures can be repaired and made more inhabitable again.

This issue is not unique to Beijing; old buildings are demolished in every nation. So we must, as humanity as a whole, come to understand that the past can and must be preserved, even as we look to the future. We cannot, we must not, relegate history to a museum or a textbook. We must preserve the hutong for this reason and purpose.

This city has a golden opportunity to set a new tone, to create a new way of living with and preserving history.

Ultimately, however, this is a problem for the people of Beijing. I am not Chinese, and Beijing is not my hometown.

But I have come to love this place, and think of it as home. I truly feel that the hutong must be preserved for the future generations of the world. Yet, I know that, at the current rate, most of the hutong will be gone in the next few years.

I predict that in two decades, the only hutong left will be tourist sites like at Houhai, or residences for wealthy individuals. Beijing will become no different from Seattle or New York.

At this future point, when the hutong have been all but replaced by vast shopping malls and skyscrapers, I hope that those who today call for the destruction of the hutong will pause and reflect on the loss. I hope that they will find comfort in the profit made from the destruction of history.