Hu Tong, let's~
First of all, I would like to start with the
term ‘Hutong’, H-U-T-O-N-G what does Hutong mean?
According to experts, the word Hutong originated from
Mongolian language meaning ‘Well’. In ancient times,
people tended to gather and live around wells. So the
original meaning of Hutong should be ‘a place where
people gather and live.’ Another explanation says that
during the Yuan Dynasty, about 13th century, residential
areas in the city were divided into many divisions.
Between the smaller divisions were passageways for
people to travel through. And those passageways also
functioned as isolation belts against fire risks. In
Mongolian language, passageways of this kind were
called Hutong. But no matter what Hutong exactly
means, one thing is for sure, that is, Hutong first
appeared in Beijing during the Yuan Dynasty.
In the early 13th century, a Mongolian tribe
from the north became very strong. Led by Genghis Khan,
the Mongolian occupied Beijing, the capital of the Jin
Dynasty. In the year 1271, Kubla Khan, the grandson of
Genghis Khan, ounded
Yuan Dynasty and set Beijing as the capital city
in the following year. Unfortunately, the old city was
completely destroyed during the war. So they had to
rebuild it. In old China, all the structures and roads
were required to be symmetrical. So the city was well
designed. First, they had to find a center, and then
built a regular square city. The layout of the city was
very much like a chessboard. About 50 residential areas
were constructed, with straight roads and Hutongs in
between. At the time, there was a clear
definition for avenue, street and Hutong. A
37-metre-wide road was called an avenue, an
18-metre-wide one was called a street, and a
9-metre-wide lane was called a Hutong.
Most of today’s Hutong were formed during
the Ming and Qing Dynasties that followed. Nobody
knows exactly how many
Hutongs there are in nowadays Beijing. But
one thing is for sure, if we connected all the
Hutongs together, their total length would even be
longer than the famous Great wall, which is about
4000 miles longer. Or to make it clear, it could
build a highway from Seattle to Boston, all across
America!
Today you can find various Hutongs with
different shapes, lengths or directions.The shortest one
is only 40 centimeters wide, which means a person like
me has to walk sideways to get through. And some Hutongs
have more than 20 turns.
With the growth of the population, many old
Hutongs have disappeared to make way for high-rise
apartments. Today I’m very happy to show you some
well-preserved Hutongs, and to let you experience the
typical Chinese life. Are you ready? Let’s go!
As we walk through the Hutongs, you may find
most of them look almost the same with gray-colored
walls and bricks. Actually inside those walls are the
courtyard houses, where people live. In Chinese we call
them ‘siheyuan’. ‘Si’
literally means four, ‘he’ means to surround,
and ‘yuan’ refers to the courtyard. So a rectangular
wall enclosing four houses, one built on each side
facing into the center, is called a Siheyuan. When they
were first built, usually one Siheyuan was owned by only
one family, but nowadays, with the growth of the
population, most Siheyuans are shared by 4 to 10
families.
The gate building of each Siheyuan is the
only thing that we can see along the Hutongs.
Chinese people used to try to
protect their privacy from being intruded
by strangers. So the gate building, in old times,
was a symbol to show the position of each house
owner. You don’t have to go inside the courtyard.
Just look at the gate building, you can already
tell whether it’s an influential family or not.
Look at this one, the gate building is big and
tall. The head and eave of the gate are well decorated
with brick carvings. See the design? Plum blossoms and
bamboos. It indicated that the original owner of this
courtyard must have been an official serving in the
emperor’s court. But look at that one nest door, it has
the lion design, because that owner used to be a
military officer. Interesting?
Now let’s see the doorway. Almost every doorway
has a threshold, that high step over there. Remember we
saw some yesterday in the Forbidden City and the Summer
Palace? For what reason they put a big step at the door?
You know Chinese people believe all the evil spirits are
short. They can not jump over high steps. So the
threshold is actually for warding off evil spirits.
These two pieces of stone by the threshold are
also decorations for the gate building. Like these two,
shaped like drums. They are called drum stones. On the
top are carved reclining lions, and on the front, right
and left sides are carved a bat holding an ancient coin
in its mouth. You know Chinese people like bats very
much, because bat in our language shares the same
pronunciation with ‘fortune’. So this pattern means good
fortune is right before you. Some gate pillows are
rectangular in shape, which means they are younger than
the drum stones. They were only built in the recent 100
years, mainly for small-and-medium-scale courtyards. And
their patterns are usually flowers and mascots.
In old times, transportation was not as
convenient as today, so street vendors played a
very important role in Hutong life. They wandered
from lane to lane selling various goods or
providing all kind of services. People could judge
the goods or services from their peddling or the
sounds of their special instruments. The food they
sold usually include baked pancakes, seasoned
millet mush, or Youzhaguo, a kind of deep-fried
twisted dough sticks, and all kinds of vegetables.
A barber never peddles. With his instrument
being a big pair of scissors and an ironing stick, he
couldn’t lose focus and make a wrong cut. But now, with
modern life all around, including of course Michael
Jackson’s songs, it’s hard for people to hear the
traditional melodious hawking.
Look at the crowd sitting over there! What do
you think they are doing? Talking about Vic Tanny?
Oprah’s? Or just gossiping? Any ideas? Let’s go and see!
Oh, they are building a new Great Wall. But their bricks
are Chinese Mahjong! A very popular pastime among the
Hutong people, especially among the senior citizens who
have retired.
You probably wonder why some senior citizens
over there are wearing red-colored armbands. They are
actually the voluntary neighborhood watch. And their
armbands say “On Duty”. If you think they are too old to
be a professional
security guard, you are wrong. Believe me, just
because of these lovely Grandmas, this area has been a
peaceful and safe place for many years. And if you don’t
believe it, you’d better not test them!
The main attraction of Hutong life is
friendly and interpersonal communication. Children
living in one courtyard play together and grow up
together like one big family. So now our
government is trying to preserve such Hutong area
in Beijing. Without permission, nobody is allowed
to tear down old houses to build high-rise
apartments. We want to save it as a treasure to
show our later generations what Beijing used to be
like.
OK. Time files. It’s almost the end of the tour.
Today, through our Hutong tour, you have learnt a lot
about our traditional Chinese houses and way of life.
I hope you are not only happy with what
you have seen but also get a better understanding
of the culture and people in the Hutong area. I do
hope, one day, you will come back again, I will
invite you to my home!
Thank you for your attention, and hope you enjoy
the rest of the tour in China!
