Hutong Karma(1)

By Peter Hessler

1 For the past five years, I’ve lived about a mile north of the Forbidden City in an apartment building off a tiny alleyway in downtown Beijing. My alley has no official name, and it begins in the west, passes through three ninety-degree turns, and exits to the south. Locals call my alley Little Ju’er, because it connects with the larger street known as Ju’er Hutong.

2 I live in a modern three-story building, but it’s surrounded by the single-story homes of brick, wood, and tile that are characteristic of hutong. These structures stand behind walls of gray brick, and often a visitor to old Beijing is impressed by the sense of division: wall after wall, gray brick upon gray brick. But actually a hutong neighborhood is most distinguished by connections and movement. Dozens of households might share a single entrance, and although the old residences have running water, few people have private bathrooms, so public toilets play a major role in local life. In a hutong, much is communal, including the alley itself. Even in winter, residents bundle up and sit in the road, chatting with their neighbors. Street vendors pass through regularly, because the hutong are too small for supermarkets.

3 Not long after I moved into Little Jue’er, Beijing stepped up its campaign to host the 2008 Games, and traces of Olympic glory began to touch the hutong. In order to boost the athleticism and health of average Beijing residents, the government constructed hundreds of outdoor exercise stations. At the exercise stations, people can spin giant wheels with their hands, push big levers that offer no resistance, and swing on pendulums like children at a park. In the greater Beijing region, the stations are everywhere, even in tiny farming villages by the Great Wall.

4 But nobody appreciates the exercise stations more than hutong residents. The machines are scattered throughout old parts of the city, tucked into narrow alleyways. At dawn and dusk, they are especially busy — older people meet in groups to chat and take a few rounds on the pendulum. On warm evenings, men sit idly on the machines and smoke cigarettes. The workout stations are perfect for the ultimate hutong sport: hanging around in the street with the neighbors.

5 At the end of 2000, as part of the citywide pre-Olympic campaign to improve sanitation facilities, the government rebuilt the public toilet at the head of Ju’er Hutong. The building had running water, infrared-automated flush toilets, and signs in Chinese, English, and Braille. Users were entitled to free toilet paper. Gray rooftop tiles recalled traditional hutong architecture. Indeed, the change was dramatic.

6 Meanwhile, Ju’er residents took full advantage of the wellkept public space that fronted the new toilet. Old Yang, the local bicycle repairman, stored his tools and extra bikes there, and in the fall cabbage vendors slept on the strip of grass that bordered the bathroom. Wang Zhaoxin, who ran the cigarette shop next door, arranged some ripped-up couches around the toilet entrance. Someone else contributed a chessboard. Folding chairs appeared, along with a wooden cabinet stocked with beer glasses.