A ride through Beijing’s hutongs

It’s pronounced Hoo-tong,” says our driver, Mr Li, as our rickshaw clatters along a narrow, badly paved alley, making our teeth rattle like castanets. We are heading for Beijing’s imposing Bell Tower, where we will begin our tour of the city’s ancient alleys.

Clustered around the skirts of the Forbidden City, which was the imperial residence for many centuries and home to 24 emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the hutongs were preserved when the Beijing landmark was classed as a World Heritage Sites by Unesco in 1987, the same year that Bertolucci‘s award winning film The Last Emperor was released.

Dating back to the 13th century, the tower’s copper bell, which is one of the largest and heaviest in China, was used – along with the drum next door in the Drum Tower – for telling the time.

“Here in old Beijing for many thousands of years they would ring the bell at dawn and the drum at dusk, to tell us when to get up or to finish work,” Mr Li tells us.

We climb the steep flight of steps to see the huge drum, which was used right up until 1912, when the last Emperor, six-year-old Pu Yi, was forced to abdicate. From the top of the tower the panoramic views of Beijing’s modern skyline are absolutely stunning.

Given the beauty of the area, I’m not surprised to learn that famous Beijing residents, including Mei Lan Fang, the most revered Peking opera artist in modern history, had their houses here. Mei Lan Fang’s house is now a fascinating museum and we stroll around where the great man lived until his death in 1961, admiring the costumes and stage sets, and learning more about this dazzling art form, which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics.

Mr Li’s rickshaw is waiting outside to take us into the hutongs – apparently a Mongolian word for ‘water well’. Mr Li also explains that these narrow lanes surrounding the Forbidden City have been an important part of Beijing’s cultural heritage since the 13th century.

By the end of the Qing Dynasty in the early 1900s, Beijing had thousands of hutongs – and there were even more by the end of the Second World War. In the post-war years, however, when whole areas were knocked down to make way for new urban projects, many hutongs disappeared and today there are only some 1,000 hutongs left in Beijing.

Mr Li tells us that he lives in one of the hutongs, as four generations of his family have done before him. I ask if he wouldn’t prefer to live in one of Beijing’s modern apartment blocks. “Too noisy,” he says, “and too high.”

As we bowl along the narrow alleys he rattles off their names: “South Gong and Drum Lane; Fish Street; Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street… Each lane has a different story,” he tells us.

The further we ride along these narrow, tattered lanes, the further we leave the noise and smells of modern Beijing behind. “Everyone lives out in the street here,’ Mr Li says, pointing to the hanging laundry and outside latrines en route. The hutongs are a confusing network of lanes and courtyards, old buildings, stores, and ornate gardens where children play ball games, and old men sit in the sun playing traditional board games.

The street opens on to a small square, where a vendor, surrounded by a group of children, blows a delicate animal sculpture from melted sugar. “This is a very popular art in our city,” Mr Li says, slowing so that we can take photos.

We clatter over Yinding (Silver Ingot) bridge, which connects the Qianhai and Houhai areas and we explore the Dajinsi hutong. At Jia 33, we enter one of the area’s traditional courtyard houses, whose design is said to date back to the early Han dynasty from around 200 BC. From the street outside we can only see a small doorway, but once inside we are charmed by the spacious, shaded courtyard planted with flowers and surrounded by grey tiled buildings.

On the way back along Dajinisi hutong, Mr Li points out the No Name restaurant where, he tells us licking his lips, “they serve the best marinated beef seshao niurou in town.”

Following the lake lined with Taoist and Buddhist temples, we reach Prince Gong’s Mansion at 17 Qianhai West Street. It was built in 1777 for Heshen, a prominent court official. When he was executed for corruption a few years later, the Xianfeng Emperor gave the house, with its beautiful lake and gardens, to Prince Gong, who added dozens of facilities, including a magnificent Peking opera house that is now the only enclosed theatre left in China.

Back in our rickshaw we jog along to Qianshi, or ‘market of money’ hutong, near Qianmen Gate. Here Mr Li lets us out with a laugh. “I can’t drive down there,” he says. We soon find out why. As the area’s narrowest hutong, at one point Qianshi is only 40cm wide and when we meet someone coming in the opposite direction, we have to turn sideways in order for both of us to pass. “It’s a good way to get to know people,” Mr Li chuckles when we return.

By now we’re hungry so we stop for lunch in Li Jia Cai, a family-run restaurant in Yangfang hutong, where celebrities and politicians ranging from former British prime minister John Major to actor Jackie Chan have come to sample the set menu of imperial dishes that were standard fare at royal tables during the Qing Dynasty.

After a succession of tapas-style snacks, including a large plate of delicious Mandarin fried carp served with aubergines in a ginger sauce, we head back to South Gong and Drum Lane to walk off our lunch with a shopping spree. Stretching from the Drum tower, to Di’anmen avenue, this charming hutong, is one of Beijing’s oldest streets, and many great artists, including the celebrated watercolour painter Qi, once dwelt here. Nowadays, the centuries-old traditional houses are home to pottery stores, cosy cafés, tea rooms and shops selling calligraphy, and other elegant souvenirs.

After shopping we feel thirsty, so we make our way to The Hutong, a cultural centre in Jiu Dao Wan Zhong Xiang hutong, where we join one of the centre’s fascinating tea workshops and learn about the history of Chinese tea, before finding out how to select and brew various types of white, green and oolong brews for ourselves.

Filled with fragrant tea, we step back into Mr Li’s rickshaw, which whisks us away from the hutongs and back out into the streets of Beijing.

After the tranquil lanes and courtyards, China’s capital city seems big, brash and noisy. Mr Li laughs at our dazed expressions. “Now you see why I choose to live in the hutongs,” he says.