Focus

Blue-eyed Beijinger gets misty over hutong dust

By Qin Zhongwei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-26 07:55

Hua Xinming says hutong is her only comfortable place to live. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY

Hua Xinmin, a 56-year-old woman who is half French, sees Jinbaojie, a street to the north of Chang'an Avenue's Dongdan, a little differently to the way the hoards of white-collar workers and tourists who flock to it today see the trendy street.

The emerging chic and luxurious hub boasts a raft of "4S stores" selling the most expensive sport cars, high-end five-star hotels, and top shopping malls.

To Hua, the area was a beautiful, tranquil, Yuan Dynasty hutong where she was born and raised before it was bulldozed and transformed into what it is today.

At a time when Beijing is opening its arms to embrace the notion of being a "world city", Hua, who calls herself a "blue-eyed Beijinger," still misses Old Beijing, which she describes as a city "unique and more beautiful than any other in the world."

Today, she says, what is unique about the city is the fast pace of change as more and more of its historical neighborhoods - known for their hutongs and siheyuan - have been turned into rubble during city-wide demolition projects.

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At one time, there were more than 3,000 hutongs that together constituted the city's chessboard grid layout. And the hutong neighborhoods and the close-knit communal life could be dated to the 13th century when a Mongol emperor from the Yuan Dynasty ruled the city.

Today, there are only about 1,000 of the hutongs left, and many of those are in poor shape, said Hua.

Known as a courageous woman who once stood in front of bulldozers in an attempt to get them to stop the demolition of hutongs, Hua says her desire to protect the old city started with her childhood memories and her ties to her birthplace.

Hua was born into Hongxing hutong in Dongcheng district in 1954. Her grandfather, Hua Nangui, had been a famous architect and one of the first generation of Chinese students to study in France. He also designed and built a siheyuan there and it was the place where Hua Xinmin's father was born.

He later studied architecture in France and married a French woman. After returning from France, her father was involved in Beijing's urban planning after 1949 as a chief designer.

Hua grew up in hutongs before her family moved to France in the 1970s, but she says she always considered hutongs to be the only place she felt comfortable and places that were full of memories.

She remembers fondly children playing under the shades and neighbors chatting near the doors and old men playing card games outside, which is why she fights back at the thought of bulldozers threatening the hutongs that have again been her home since she moved back to Beijing in the 1990s.

After speaking up for other hutong residents for more than eight years, she felt the sting of losing her own hutong home in 2005 under the local government's new urban planning for what is today the Jinbaojie street area.

"At first, I thought they would not dare because my father dedicated so much to the city's urban planning and construction, but they demolished it anyway," she said.

Hong Kong Jockey Club's Beijing clubhouse now stands where her home once stood.

And she says such historical treasures are still disappearing at a pace that could make people go numb.

As one of only a few female preservationists who have not given up the fight, she says she feels lonely and laments that people today are embracing a new way of life and seem to no longer care about the destiny of old hutongs.

Some non-governmental organizations are promoting the significance of Old Beijing, but rather than participating in the seminars and gatherings of scholars, she prefers to contact ordinary people who live in hutongs and do some down-to-earth work, which is why she rides her bicycle and knocks on the doors of Beijingers to collect their stories and document a disappearing way of life.

She published a book last year, For My Irreplaceable Hometown, a collection of essays and letters calling for the protection of old houses, which focused on how to preserve or protect old hutongs and siheyuan through legal avenues.

In recent months, there have been some success stories. Some homes that had belonged to historical figures, such as the former home of architect Liang Sicheng and his wife Lin Huiyin, have been saved.

But Hua says the memory is incomplete if the hutongs nearby are demolished.

"Beijing is known as an ancient capital with rich history and culture for the city as a whole, not by a single former celebrity's residences or a section of hutongs," she said.

"No more hutongs should be demolished, not even one."