Hutongs

I don't know how many of you are familiar with hutongs, but they are the old streets of Beijing that are very narrow and windy. Some hutongs are more popular with tourists and others aren't, but walking through the hutongs it is common to see little shops and homes packed into as little space as possible. Many of the old neighborhoods in Beijing are gone now because the city is flattening them to make room for new, modern buildings and store fronts. Visiting some of the less popular hutongs can give you an idea of what life used to be like in Beijing. Jayson and I saw many women and children sitting on their front steps chatting while the men squatted around tables playing cards. These areas seem to have more stray dogs and they can be a bit dirty, sometimes even feel claustrophobic, but it is really interesting to compare the lifestyle seen in these traditional neighborhoods with the lifestyle demonstrated by the shiny new apartments three blocks down the road. More and more hutongs disappear every year and families are displaced. Some people are in favor of modernization by clearing away the hutongs to make room for new construction, but other Chinese feel it is a destruction of tradition and heritage. There is an interesting debate surrounding the subject.