Source: CCTV.com

03-14-2007 09:51

The Hutongs represent the heart and soul of Beijing. The narrow lanes lined with their traditional courtyard homes are steeped in generations of history and culture. And Beijing has just launched a campaign trying to establish an archive of Hutong life before their speedy disappearance makes it all too late.

Local residents from Beijing's Xijiaominxiang Hutong went to a recent exhibition and were excited to learn some of the biggest names in the country's history used to live just blocks away from them.

A local resident said, "Painter Chen Banding lived in the Xinlianzi Hutong, but the back door of his house was in our Hutong."

Almost everything of Chen Banding's old residence has changed after half a century, except the just legible characters "Chen's Home" on the door lintel.

It's typical of what's happened to thousands of Hutong homes all over Beijing.

Tan Liefei, director of Hutong Archive Committee, said, "Beijing once had over a thousand Hutongs. But only a hundred or so still remain today."

Li Jianping, secretary-general, Beijing History Research Academy, said, "The whole of Beijing was laid out in advance of its construction. It was originally set out in the Yuan Dynasty and this plan remains the core of the city today: a plan over eight hundred years old."

The city's framework, which resembles a "chessboard" divided by numerous Hutong, represents an ideological combination of China's traditional agricultural society and city planning.

Preserving valuable Hutongs is considered essential to maintaining atmosphere of the ancient capital. And the Hutong archive aims to key their spirit alive for the future generations.

 

Editor:Liu Fang