Hutongs - Bell and Drum Towers, Beijing

1 more image

“Old Beijing” is quickly disappearing and making way for a more modern “western” metropolis. This is sad as I fell that, apart from the faces in the crowd, you could simply be in any city of the world. The same shopping malls, fast food outlets, department stores and sterile shopping environment are now raising their heads in Beijing.
To escape the hustle and bustle of modern life I would suggest visiting a HUTONG.

In the Hutongs you will experience locals going about their daily lives, stall holders selling traditional products, shoe repairmen looking for their next client, inexpensive tea houses to relax in and traditional food at very low prices.

"Hutong" means a small street or a lane between two courtyards, but the word can also mean a local community within the city made of hutongs and residences. A hutong is a unique form of residential community that exists only in China. It was a model for living in last couple hundreds of years (for rich and the poor) and it is rapidly vanishing in last couple of decades. So if you want a taste of real China in Beijing – take a bike or a pedicab and head to the central part of Beijing. You have to do some of the exploring and you'll find them on your own (it's more fun and you're not time limited). The other way is to take an organised tour from one of the tourist agencies (some may arrange with local people to visit their courtyards and rooms and taste their food). In any case, it is a really nice experience – a touch of local Chinese tradition, culture and way of life which is rapidly disappearing because of the growth of new high residential buildings.

The Hutongs are a taste of old Beijing - residential alleyways of small compact houses that offer a step back in time to the Beijing of a hundred or more years ago. There are pockets of hutong all over the city but particularly ideal for wandering around are the areas near the Drum Tower and around Chaoyangmen district. They represent a communal world of neighbours and shared lives - women sat around chatting as old men play mahjong over a friendly drink. Their age means hutong houses are generally very basic, but most are well kept and some have been modernised with central heating and indoor bathrooms.

All hutongs run east-west - something to do with the feng shui of the houses. Most are narrow alleys but some are wide streets that run for several kilometres. One hutong near Qianmen is just 40cms wide at one point! Very cosy!

Recent decades have seen many hutong residents moving out to the drab concrete tower blocks of the suburbs. But many more wish to remain and the hutongs cross the city like a rabbit warren and remain an integral part of Beijing. But probably not for much longer. Endless 'modernisation' means many hutong districts are to be redesigned - particularly with the 2008 Olympics in mind - as roads are widened and housing is gentrified. It would be an absolute tragedy if these areas of such wonderful character and history are destroyed so I'm glad to have had the opportunity to see them while they're still standing.

3 more images

Situated north of the Forbidden City are two towers. The southernmost is the drum tower. The tower houses drums (duh) used in keeping time at night. Starting at 7 o'clock the drums would be beaten every two hours all through the night until 7 o'clock the next morning. During the day the bell tower had the same function. Time was kept using three trays with water using the same principal as an hourglass.

The drum tower was built in the early 1400s and is built in stone and wood. Originally the two towers were similar, but a fire destroyed the first bell tower in the 1700s. When entering you have to climb up a dark, straight, stone staircase. At the top there are several drums on display, including a drum destroyed by 8 European powers in 1900 (silencing the boxer rebellion)

Hutongs are the alleyways of Beijing along which people have live for centuries in one-floor apartments that open onto common courtyards with shared kitchens and bathrooms. In addition to residences, the hutongs are lined with small shops and businesses that cater to the locals. With all of the construction activity in recent years, Beijing's hutongs have been disappearing at a rapid clip, being replaced with multistory apartment and office buildings.

While you are in Beijing, take the time to stroll through some of the hutongs. It is a great way to get a feel for how the city's people live, and get a feel for the city's culture. We strolled through a bunch of them and felt very safe. It was a nice change of pace from the usual tourist sights.

I can not explain enough how much I enjoy walking the back streets and seeing the real city breathing. Particularly around the Watchtower and Beihai area, there are lots of rickshaws ushering people off on a blurred tour of the HuTongs (poor/slum neighborhoods).

If I were you I'd pass on this and do it instead on foot. You can take the time to pause, reflect, absorb and enjoy. On the back of a bike everything is blurred and you see what they want you to see.

But please do so with tact and respect. These are people's homes. See the bottom of my Beijing page for my feelings on this.

Hutongs are the old one-storey alleyways of Beijing. And although there has been attempts at standardisation they are a maze and sometime it's hard even to find an exit.

By 1950 there were around 6000 of there passageways in the city, but today it's about a third of that, and decreasing.
Especially since they got the olympics, hutongs are being demolished at an ever higher rate now.

Everywhere you go people will want to sell you Hutong tours, but I think it is more fun to simply wander into them yourself without guide or even much of a plan. So go on, get lost!

Hutongs are small neighbourhoods, composed of siheyuan (courtyards) and small streets. Usually, hutongs are under-equipped in hygiene facilities, there is no bath or toilets inside the houses.

Hutongs are an essential part in Beijing's life, they are a symbol of the old Beijing. Many hutongs are to be destroyed because of bad hygiene conditions.
If you see a big white sign marked on the wall, with the chinese character CHAI, it means that the hutong will be shortly destroyed. Please have a look at my travelogue for more photos.