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Old neighborhoods in Beijing are known as hutong. They are multi-family, one storey homes (siheyuans) with several small rooms.  Each home is bounded by alleys barely wide enough to allow a cart to pass.  As families grew, one siheyuan was joined to another, such that entire blocks would consist of a single extended family. All of residential Beijing was built in this pattern—- during the banking climbout over the city, the combination of hutong and siheyuan appears as a vast sprawling chessboard of interlocking neighborhoods.

Hutong is almost gone in Beijing—destroyed like the rain forest.  The remainder of these ancient homes butt up against museums and the new sleek towers of glass, which house the hum of the dynamic, emerging modern Chinese economy.  Hutong are either funky and owned by stubborn familes who won’t move, or hip, cool spots filled with young tech and intelligensia.

My guide, Lily, loves the silk  shops and the local cheap eats here in  Hutong.  We eat crispy pig’s ears and rice in a relative’s kitchen.  I ask her if she lives in hutong.  Ever the modern college girl, she says simply, “No.  Would not be koveen-int (convenient).”