Expats

Constant battle with wrecking ball

By Lara Farrar and Qin Zhongwei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-22 11:23

Zhang Jinqi lives in an old hutong neighborhood simply because he wants to. He says he has to take part in the vanishing traditional lifestyle and experience its rapidly fading heritage before its too late.

Zhang is devoted to saving the traditional homes and other cultural artifacts - a battle against demolition crews, developers and local authorities who make efforts to modernize the city.

"The protection of cultural relics is closely associated with the lives of average people," said Zhang. "It is also what China is proud of. Problems will arise if people don't pay respect to their traditions."

Last January, Zhang debuted his Memory of China photo project documenting cultural artifacts in Beijing and other cities around the country. He spent a year walking through Beijing with a group of volunteers taking pictures of buildings on the verge of extinction at the hands of zealous wrecking crews.

He notes that team was needed because images were "difficult to capture by myself because the changes were happening so fast".

The 50-year-old historian and curator is the author of The Carnal History of the Eight Big Hutong, a book chronicling old neighborhoods in the Qianmen area of western Beijing. He also maintains MemoryofChina.org, an online archive of historical material from Chinese cities.

While many historians and cultural heritage protection advocates are concerned with saving tangible buildings, Zhang says he worries about deeper implications of their destruction - the long-term impact their disappearance may have on present and future generations.

"People who lived in hutong used to be very close to each other," he said. "They housed the soul of the people, a kind of culture that requires harmony between people and the city."

More than 88 percent of Beijing's old residential quarters are gone, according to UNESCO. Only about 1,300 of the homes remain today. And whether those can be saved is uncertain.

Zhang knows the challenge to preserve such neighborhoods is daunting.

"I am sort of like a farmer, planting seeds in other people's fields, hoping they will grow."