Hutong is translated literally into English as “alley”. But unlike the alleys in the U.S., hutongs are neighborhoods- networks of interconnecting streets too narrow to be called a street, but just wide enough to fit a single car or perhaps only a tuk-tuk. Hutongs are places of residence.
Origin story
We reside near the Wudaoying Hutong. Our friend and fellow Beijinger, Chase, described Wudaoying as the “South Congress of Beijing”, the Austin, Texas boulevard lined with cute shops and popular restaurants. This comparison was especially comforting for me since Chase and I had lived on South Congress for 3 years, so I agreed to rent an apartment in the hutongs before I even packed my bags for Beijing. A hundred days into my lease, I now can agree with Chase’s characterization, almost down to the pizza shops, vegetarian restaurants, and soul food. Chelsey and I like our neighborhood a lot.
Modern Hutong Karma
Though our apartment complex is fairly new, the neighborhood existed well before we got there. The nearby Confucius Temple was built in 1302. Almost 400 years later, the nearby Yonghegong Lama Temple started construction. But outside of these ancient sites, many of the hutong neighborhoods have been torn down. The former New Yorker China Correspondent Peter Hessler used to live in the adjacent Little Ju’er Hutong, and wrote a New Yorker piece centered around a public bathroom.
I suspect things have changed in the 10 years since Hessler wrote the article, but I won’t claim to have that insight. Hessler offered a premonition when describing the preservation plan for the layout of the Hutongs:
Within that layout, however, gentrification was inevitable—the hutong had become so rare that they now had cachet in the new economy. The change had already begun in my neighborhood. In 2004, bars, cafés, and boutiques started moving into a quiet street that intersects Ju’er, where locals were happy to give up their homes for good prices. The businesses maintained the traditional architectural style, but they introduced a new sophistication to the Old City. Nowadays, if I’m restricted to my neighborhood I have access to Wi-Fi, folk handicrafts, and every type of mixed drink imaginable.
From our perspective, life in the Hutong is pretty normal. We can get corn tortillas, craft beer, fine wine, artisanal cheese, locally roasted coffee, German milk, Australian milk, Chinese milk, and French milk. The corn tortillas turn out to be incredibly useful to satiate our craving for breakfast tacos, which are hard to find anywhere outside of Austin.
The Hutongs are dotted with some evidence of a present diverged from a recent past. One conspicuous example is the art installation exhibit sandwiched between the two small produce bodegas where Chelsey and I buy a few days worth of veggies for 20 RMB. In the art installation, three small TVs sit on the cement floor of a glassed-in 8’ x 8’ would be storefront. A museum style placard explains that the looping videos showcase the work of an artist from the south of China. The placard provides his/her vision. The TVs were recently replaced with a new exhibit- a backlit projection of a chandelier swinging like a pendulum, with synchronous audio played continuously night or day. In the last few days a new exhibit has opened in a former storefront a few paces down Jianchang Hutong. “Tone F at the end of the Universe” is a square-based pyramid with edges made of fluorescent lights, all suspended from the ceiling by a single thin tether. Greenery is wound around the center of the pyramid. I wonder what my sister, an artist in New York City, would think. She’s planning to visit in March.
What most characterizes our neighborhood living experience is the food. The local produce bodegas and the small French market located at the end of our block supply practically all of our grocery shopping needs. We like them so much that I suspect we’ll write another post about how the easy access to fresh ingredients has catalyzed our home cooking.