Behind the Facades, the Spirit of Old Beijing has Disappeared
Having recently returned from Beijing, I am thinking about what has been going on in the heart of that city. No, not the Olympics, but another large undertaking also affecting the history of that city. It is a massive urban development project of the Qianmen area south of Tiananmen Square. Traditionally, Qianmen Dajie Street was the central axis of ancient Beijing leading to great gates in walls just south of the Palace and was famous as a bustling shopping street. To the east and west of this main thoroughfare were numerous crowded alleyways filled with one-story courtyard homes lived in by common residents of the city. Many families have stayed in the same house for five or six generations. This area is now undergoing a tremendous transformation. The main street itself has been turned into a pedestrian thoroughfare almost a kilometer long, with only an electric tram running for transportation reviving the look of the early twentieth century. Street lights have taken on traditional cultural shapes such as bird cages or candied haws on a stick. Famous shops have been rebuilt with grey brick traditional two or three story storefronts. There are even potted plants and benches. It all looks picture postcard perfect!
For me, though, it is the people that I have met over the years in this Qianmen area that symbolize the real atmosphere of this district. Wandering south from Tiananmen Square a number of years ago, I found one alley branching straight to the west named Yunju. It’s name comes from a 300-year-old temple, now only a shadow of it former self, located at #19 Yunju Hutong. On that day, the gate covered with thick vines. I wandered into the first courtyard where an old wide-spreading acacia tree gave protective shade. While admiring the dragon motifs on some of the remaining roof tiles, an elderly gentleman with a long white beard came out of his room.
I asked him about the temple and was told that he knew about the last sixty years here. “This really was a private temple for the Nii family”, he explained. “There was a priest who lived in the back, but he left a long time ago. And our temple fair was really crowded during those first weeks of the Lunar New Year.” When asked about the religious figures he gestured in resignation, “The Cultural Revolution. They were all taken away.”
Perhaps there the conversation would have ended, but I happened to mention a Japan connection. All of a sudden his eyes brightened up and he spoke Japanese. He introduced himself as Mr. Zong Jian Dong, 81 years old, a calligrapher. He then talked about his calligraphy and his friendship with many Japanese calligraphers. “Please come in and see my scrapbook. You see I had this exhibition at the Worker’s Cultural Palace in 1991.” He proudly opened it pointed out the People’s Daily article and pictures of Japanese artists with whom he had made friends. Brushes hung neatly on the wall, in order from small to large. Several kinds of calligraphy adorned the walls with the large character for Buddha standing out above the rest.
Mr. Zong’s son and his family live next door but during the day he seemed a bit lonely. On his table was his meager noon meal with a half a glass of beer. When I left he made a present of one of his works and declared that he was very happy today, to meet someone he could talk to. And I waved good-bye as he stood under the acacia branches that reached over the roof stroking his long beard.
#19 Yunju Hutong still stands today, but almost all the former residents have moved on, including the Zongs. Itinerant laborers are now living in closely crammed brick room additions in the former courtyards. The main hall of the old temple, luckily, continues to stand at the northern end of the compound. My worry, though, is that there is no one left to stand up for property rights. However, I was delighted that the old acacia keeps its dignity rising high above the chaos, reminding me of my encounter with calligrapher Zong.
Things are not the same on the eastern side of Qianmen Dajie. Whereas most of Beijing’s hutongs have traditionally run in east/west straight lines, the more than 400-year-old hutongs just east of Qianmen Dajie were wonderfully wavy or diagonal. Consulting maps of the Ming dynasty, I saw the reason. There was a long thin gully winding its way through this part of the city south from the ancient moat, so the hutongs curved along with it. There were interesting names such as Toufu xiang or Guozishi Hutong. In the last six months, however, this part of urban history has now vanished. What once was a enormous vibrant neighborhood of about 10,000 families, is now just a wide expanse of flat dirt, or empty homes, but most of all almost no people. A brand new north-south road, Qianmen Domngdajie, now cuts across the former maze of hutongs.
Seeing this situation made me recall an experience I had there several years ago while looking for history in the neighborhood of Guozishi Hutong. I wandered to the back of one of the overcrowded courtyard houses, where about six families shared a communal tap. There, an 81 year-old cobbler lived with his son and his family all in one room. Next door he had his home shoe factory where he carried on the traditional craft of fashioning cotton and leather shoes. Mr. Peng Jizeng proclaimed, “No one makes them like mine anymore, mine are all hand stitched”. He was surrounded by piles of paper designs, wooden molds, leather sheets ready to cut into shoe patterns, and stacks of boxes with completed shoes. Peng then took out his light hammer and began hitting small tacks on the leather sheet as he worked it around a wooden mold.
“I began this trade when I was 11”, he recalled. Peng then reached high up on a shelf and pulled down a pair of wooden shoe molds. “These were for Mao Zedong’s shoes,” he boasted. “He ordered just one pair of cotton shoes (buxie) a year.” Then he chuckled, “Well, I never met him though”. He went on to explain how one of the assistants came with the foot pattern and, “I just made the mold from the pattern!” After that he made a new pair of shoes for Chairman Mao each year.
On another table Peng was in the process of making another pair of shoes. But this was tiny, just 12 centimeters in length, and suitable for a small child. He pulled out the mold, “Oh this one’s for the ‘Golden Lily’, the bound feet of the old ladies.” Peng explained that a 91 year-old lady in the neighborhood still requires these small shoes. “My shoes help her walk,” said Peng proudly. He hammered the soft leather, tapped around the mold, and began shaping shoes just like he has since he was 11.
Last time I visited Mr. Peng I myself ordered both cloth and leather shoes. He even made a mold of my feet. This time, though, I tried his phone number but that number is no more in use. I can no longer find him because his home and all his neighbors are gone without a trace.
It is not just the physical space of the Qianmen area that has been forever altered；the long-term residents with their stories are a thing of the past. The spirit of this old neighborhood has disappeared.