The lady I visited today is around 50 years old. She lived in 前井胡同 in 什刹海。She is a really nice person. She worked for CNC as a marketing sales agent.

I used to live in a Hutong around 16 years ago, during my Childhood, like the stars in the sky, we own our happy time, innumerous, eating outside, playing games in Hutong, talking loudly with other Hutong residenters, but finally I move into the highrise, lifestyle changed suddenly. Somethings good and somethings bad. I get the changes I wanted and some I just accept, now I can shower at home, talking with friends through the internet, reading books with the air-condition open. But always, I feel there is something missing, something important are leaving from me unconsciously.Somehow, the highrise bring me the strongest feeling is people talking like strangers, our well-known face, loudly talking, laughing together, even enjoyable quarrel,this all become memorize left in my mind and always. And our games, I love play games in Hutong. I remember, once me and my friends play squirt gun in Hutong, they all get together and fight against me, made me totally wet, I feel like crying, like a man be defeated, back home with dragging head and tell my dad about this…

“dad, they all get together and fight against to me!” Without thinking, dad give me courage with a kind voice: “my son, here are 16 RMB, go out buy a powerful gun then fight with them again, and win! As what you thought, I brought the powerful squirt gun and stand in front of them,“Hey, I’m back!” I speak loudly, “Now, fight! I’ve got my weapon.” This time I made them all wet, totally, no one is luck, is time for you to back home, I think loudly!…they all run away, I’m the last man standing in Hutong, I’m walking around with this powerful gun, poor guys, go home and talk to your father!

这儿没修的时候,还是泥土路,风刮过,到处都是灰尘.但是,住楼房又有什么好呢?现在小巷子改成柏油路,也没灰尘,挺干净的.小巷子七拐八弯,曲曲折折,一出门就能望到邻里,打个招呼说个话方便.楼房哪能这样?
 
住这儿,大都是几十年的街坊了.哪家婚丧嫁娶,生老病痛,都知根知底清楚着呢.我们就不习惯没叨嗑,冷冷清清.
 

夏天屋热,黄昏时光,年长的老头老太或不上班的媳妇,一个人的就搬把小登,倚着自家墙根,啥都不想,就那么闲闲的坐着,几个人的,就搬着小登凑在一起聊天,东南西北爱聊啥就聊啥.有时兴致来了,支个桌子在门前,招呼齐四个人,就是一个打牌俱乐部,打到七八点,上班的也陆陆续续回来了,踩着自行车路过,停下观看会,或者回家吃完饭再过来,四个人打牌,总能有七八个围观.偶尔的士经过,鸣着喇叭不说话就不让过,谁叫这是我们住家的胡同呢.
  
日子就这样松松散散的过着,几十年了都不厌烦,我们家都四代同堂了,没有太大理想,就是这样穷开心.

Amy, Chinese name: Hu Cuijin

Her family lives with his husband and their son. There are several other families in the

yard. But the yard is not a SiHeYuan. It is located just beside Gu Lou. In front of her

house there is a square which is very large. You can see people do all kinds of activities

in this square frequently. You can also see many Tricycles beside the square and the owners

sit on the seat and wait for their customer to call their service.

Aunt Li and her husband has been living in Hutong for about 30 years. When being asked if

she would like to move to a highrise, her answer is positive. She said she prefered to live

in a modern building because that would be much more comfortable. But for the time being,

she does not have the financial ability to move to a modern building. Maybe in the near

future the government will have arrangement to let them move out of Hutong and transform the

 layout of this part. But they are not sure because they did not get the actual notice from

the govenment.

If they were asked to move, they will be glad, but they will miss the Hutong Life when they

spent with their neibours. They shared the happy time together in the past and now still

they are going on very well with each other. When asked if there had been unpleasant things

happened, she told me in the past they shared a public water meter. And they equally shared

the average fee. So it is unfair for some of them who used less. But now the problem solved

because they each have their own one now. The environment and the conditions of health have

improved a lot.

Living in Hutong, they can chat with neibours. But the street is noisy, so they get

disturbed from time to time.

She also told me, because there is a limit to the height of building in their living area,

so the property developers are reluctant to invest here because they can only build maybe 2

or 3 floors. They do not have a wide profit space. In addition, this place is called by her

words “Doubao”–bean bundle, because the place is small, but the population here is crowded.

If the investors invested here, it took a lot of money to compensate the large number of

population. Without the investors’s strength, it is also a big burden for the government. Of

course, that is what she told me and is not the govenment’s opinion or maybe biased in some

way.

Even one day they are asked to move, they don’t think they can be distributed with a large

apartment. Because the house they are living in now does not take a large area. So when they

moved, the government will distribute them apartment according what the area of their

present house takes. Or compensate certain amount of money to them.

1.

When : June 5th , at 14:00

Where : Foreign Affairs Department Street ,the neighborhood of Peking Union Medical School which was sponsored by the Rockefeller Fundation, and was constructed in the year of 1918.

Who :
An old lady of 60 years old ( She was interested in it but declined because she had to look after her grandchild)
A professor from Peking Union Medical School (He listened to my presentation, but he declined because he spent little time living there)
A young lady living in a house located very behind (She refused by the reason of indifference)
A middle-aged doctor from Peking Union Hospital(He listened to my description, but he also declined very politely. His problem is lack of time.)
A woman of 30 living in the basement of a very staring villar.(She refused for no reason)
The niece of a very famous Chinese nurse, Miss Lin (She warned me that if I stayed there she would call the guards)
A retired doctor of 50 years old, Mrs Yu, who is now in charge of the gate and living in the neighborhood (After I told her about our project , she finally agreed to help us)

How :
It started a little bit ridiculous. I was playing the flute in the garden trying to attract someone. Later on, I was told that was very annoying.
Then I just went up to the people walking outside, introduced myself first, showed them my ID card, describe our project and ask for their permission.

What :
Mrs Yu was reluctant to help at first. Because she thought it was not just her business. A lot of residents would be concerned and actually most of them were against such kind of activity for various of reasons. And I told her I totally understand. And such kind of thing conducted in China, would involve a lot of more complicated stuffs. If I had brought anything trouble to her, I would have felt guilty…(In a word, I just followed her wills and agree on everything she said. Meanwhile I told her how meaningful and educational our project is.) For a while , she was moved and willing to help us.
Then she read the compact very carefully and asked me to translate almost each English words.(But there are something ambiguous in our compact.) She refused to sign at that time. Plus she asked for one whole weekend to take more pictures, i.e. She would like to return the camera on June 13th. After I had got Carrie’s permission, I said yes. In the end，I taught her how to use the camera and took two pictures.

2.

When : From June 6th to June 8th.

Where : My place

Who : Myself

How :
I tried to call her and wondered the process, also I’d like to ask her for some questions such as the history, the incidents happened etc. But she didn’t answer.

What :
I don’t know why, but I had a slight bad presage that the place would not go well. So I went to find two backups in case that I am going to miss the one I’ve found.

3.

When : June 9th, 10:00

Where : the Neighborhood

Who :
Mrs Yu with her friends mainly“girls”, and I.

How :
Arguing and Complaining vs. Explain

What :
Here are the main extracts from their words.
“This kind of behavior is a great threat against our private peaceful life !”;
“Do you have a journalist ID card, and is your organization legal? “;
“Will you act in accordance with the center of communist party,?”
“Are we going to be concerned, if you are revealing something bad of communism? ”
“If you want the camera back, we won’t sign the pact and the films and pics which has taken must be returned!”
“You should go to our residential committee and police station to get the permission!”
I just told them the camera didn’t belong to me. None of us had legal right to keep it or to destroy it. And I told them I would go to somewhere else for the project. We wouldn’t use the pictures taken here, because we decided to give up this place and those pictures would be meaningless for the whole project.
Then I“got out of”their Delphi.

4.

When : June 9th, 10:30

Where : West Hall Hutong No.25

Who :
The Ma’s
Mr. Ma is 60 years old, he is the member of Beijng Photography lovers’Committee
Mrs. Ma is his wife
Miss Ma, their daughter, the one who signed the pact.
Mr. Wang, Ma’s cousin, he spent about 15 minutes talking with me
How :
I went to the people sitting outside, introduced myself first, showed them my ID card, describe our project and ask for their permission.

What :
Mr. Wang told me his dislikes for the contemporary HuTong phenomena, and his wonderful memory when he was young.
Wang thought there are mainly two points why he is for the reconstruction of Hutong. One is there are more and more people here, the density is too large. In the past , Hutong was a wonderful place to enjoy the cool in the hot weather, whilst now, it is too jam to stay. The second reason is that the people who moved into Beijing know nothing about authentic Beijing culture. “All those rubes ruin the original Beijing life”(quoted from him)
And he told me his beautiful memory of his childhood. He lived in the AnDing Men area when he was a kid. There were not so many people then. In the morning , he usually caught butterflies and dragonflies by using a fan. In the evening , he would make some paste and put it on the end of a bamboo rod , then go to stick cicalas.
Then Mr and Mrs Ma came. They are friendly and kind people. They told me that there was a similar photovoice activity they participated last year so they were very willing to help me and know how to use the camera.
I need more time to know them.

Welcome on the blog of Hutong to Highrise Project, applying the Photovoice Technique to the Beijing Hutongs.

Follow these links if you want to know more information about our Project, about the Photovoice Technique, about the history of Hutongs
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