Hu Ton, Beijing

I didn’t plan on taking any more tours of Beijing, but this morning my friend Gordon convinced me otherwise. Gordon is at this meeting with his wife Barbara, and they have been doing tours on and off this week between sessions. At 11:30, after the morning flare sessions concluded, he said, “If you go on any more tours, go on the Hu Ton tour.” So I checked the meeting book, and there was a Hu Ton tour starting at 13:20 and ending at 16:30. There weren’t any more flare sessions until 17:00 and my talk was at 18:30, so I could go. “What’s the Hu Ton tour?”, I asked Gordon. “It’s a tour by pedicab of this old district by a lake in Beijing Center, and you get to go into a person’s house and see how regular Beijingers live.”

So at 13:35, the bus to Hu Ton was underway, and I was on it. Following my map of Beijing, I saw that we were on Chegongyuan Dijie, which goes through the exact center of town, between the Forbidden City and Lake Xanhai. We passed by the lake, and I said, “That’s beautiful! But I guess we aren’t going there.” Then we went to the next intersection, made a U turn, and next thing you know, we were parking by Lake Xanhai.

Our guide told us that for a decade or so, the Beijing government had been tearing down the old courtyard apartments in the Hu Ton district around L. Xanhai and building huge apt complexes, (They’re everywhere in town–these great forests of 25-30 story buildings with 20 or more apts on each floor.) But the protests got too great, (and maybe the population pressures reduced or at least stabilized) and/or someone realized the touristic opportunities of showing off these old (100 years or so) garden courtyard complexes. So they stopped ripping them out and left a good sample for us tourists to see.

As we departed from the bus, a flotilla of pedicabs surrounded us. We were supposed to pair up and hop into the pedicabs and they’d take us into the Hu Ton. The driver of our pedicab pushed us off, and soon we were zipping down alleyways only a few inches wider than the pedicabs. We stopped at an old worn out door in an old worn out wall, and our guide knocked. A man came to the door, and invited us in. We walked under a small grape arbor opposite a decrepit shelter full of decrepit, but functional, bikes. The man put out seats and invited the 24 of us to sit down anywhere and everywhere. Our guide translated our questions and his answers. He has his two sons and two daughters-in-law living with him (not there at the time). There are 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, one bathroom, and a small courtyard (with the fore-mentioned grapes and a pomegranate tree). The owner must be upper middle class, because he said that the average income is $500/month, and he pays $400/mo for electricity, gas, and water. At the question of one of our group, he agreed that the apt had tripled in value over the last few years.

As we talked in the living room, I noticed a huge Ming vase next to a very modern refrigerator in the corner. A coffee table by the bed had a built-in picture of St. Louis with the Great Stainless Steel Arch. There was also a nice photo of the owner’s daughter when she was young. An Australian asked the guide how she happened to speak such good English. She said that all students take English from 7 or 8 years on. The guide, who knew this family well, picked up a photo-audio picture from a shelf. It had the owner’s 10-year old niece in the frame. The guide pushed a button, and the niece spoke for a minute in perfect English. Proof enough.

Afterwards, we stood around in the courtyard, and I shot a photo of the front door and a set of blue and white porcelain table and stools. One of the women in the tour group sat on a stool. I gasped to myself, “I’d never do that. If it fell over and broke, was it replaceable?”
The table set seemed out of place with the rattletrap bikes on the other side of the courtyard, and with the 100-year old paint job peeling off the window trim, but not out of place with the grapes and the pomegranates. That’s China for you.

We hiked up to the old Bell Tower nearby and got a terrific view of Beijing. Then we went to a Chinese tea ceremony, and had 3 different teas. (I used their electricity to charge my worn out camera battery and bought some flowery tea to take home.) Our pedicab drivers showed up and we raced back to the bus. I managed by pure luck to catch some fleeting shots of the lake as we sped by.

Very educational tour, which I highly recommend if you happen to come here.

–rakkity