Hutong People in Beijing.
Sent by Ying Huang from Beijing, China.
Few cities can match Beijing for big-hitting historical sites. From the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace and the incomparable Great Wall, there’s a richness of culture to be found in China’s capital that’s hard to beat. But beyond the main attractions, it’s the Beijing hutong (胡同), the city’s ancient residential alleyways, that leave the deepest impression.
These grey-brick, tree-shaded small streets are where local life unfolds: a game of xiangqi (Chinese chess) drawing a crowd; songbirds in cages; fruit-sellers and scrap collectors; a cleaver-sharpener doing the rounds. These residential areas are where you’ll find an older generation living their lives in traditional dwellings, removed from the breakneck pace of change in the rest of the city.
More recently, multiple hutong have become homes to hip cafés, cocktail bars and boutique hotels, meaning there are even more alleyway gems for the curious traveller to discover (read more).
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