TouchBeijing.com » hutong http://www.touchbeijing.com Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:38:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Feb. 12 of 2010 http://www.touchbeijing.com/jan-12-of-2010/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/jan-12-of-2010/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:53:17 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=2655 Two days before Chinese New Year.


Decoration on top a courtyard entrance.


Candy in the street.


Some hot and spicy food in a small alley.


One of the party members on top of roof.

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/jan-12-of-2010/feed/ 0 Jan. 30th of 2010, snapshot in the Hutongs http://www.touchbeijing.com/jan-30th-of-2010-snapshot-in-the-hutongs/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/jan-30th-of-2010-snapshot-in-the-hutongs/#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:01:27 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=2641 For the last few days, Beijing is very warm and sunny. Today I have an afternoon stroll through the alleys in the south of the historic area of Beijing. My itinerary goes as: Baoguosi Temple (a flea market), and Dashilan Area.

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/jan-30th-of-2010-snapshot-in-the-hutongs/feed/ 0 2nd snow of 2009 http://www.touchbeijing.com/2nd-snow-of-2009/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/2nd-snow-of-2009/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:50:09 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=2503 The 2nd snow arrived as expected on 10th of Nov, and it was another heavy one! I took some photos in the hutongs around Dongsi Area.

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/2nd-snow-of-2009/feed/ 0 Axis Tour of Beijing http://www.touchbeijing.com/axis-tour-of-beijing/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/axis-tour-of-beijing/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:20:59 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=2336 Dear Guest,

I’m happy to introduce our new personal tour “To Be a Beijinger for a Day”. This 1 day tour focuses on the axis of Beijing. The tour will guide you through the various periods of Beijing’s history, from the 1400’s to present day.

axisBanner01

The itinerary includes:

1. Temple of Heaven
2. Tian’anmen Square
3. Forbidden City
4. Olympic Park

Transportation: Taxi

Price: USD $60 per person, including transportation by taxi. I can pick you up from your hotel or meet at another rendezvous point. The price doesn’t include lunch and entrance fees to the attractions on the tour.

The price is on sale now, takes at 20% off, the promotion price is USD $48 per person, group price is also avaible, contact with me for further information.

Entrance Ticket :

Temple of Heaven: RMB 35 Yuan per Person;
Forbidden City: RMB 60 Yuan per Person.

Notes: There is about 3.3 miles of walking distance in the tour. You can have lunch around Di’anmen Street (Marked on the Map), as there are restaurants big or small, or if you like, KFC and McDonald’s are near by as well.

For more details of the tour, please check the Map and download the Brochure in PDF.

Preview of the PDF Brochure:

For booking please contact with me at: waddebye at gmail.com, or feedback me here:

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/axis-tour-of-beijing/feed/ 0 Beijing Courtyard house (B) http://www.touchbeijing.com/beijing-courtyard-house-b/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/beijing-courtyard-house-b/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:14:24 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=2023 From a satelliite view of Hutong, some of the courtyard houses can still be recognized and well preserved, many others are just invisible among the little extension buildings.

As I just mentioned, the courtyard with 3 layers was for rich family, while normal family will have smaller ones, here are some examples.

A two yard house

A courtyard house with front yard and middle yard is called a 2-layer-courtyard. It is smaller in size, most of the case, there is no corridor to connect the houses, and the second gate in the middle is simple, not very much decorated, this type of house is suit to a business man, without many servants. But in today’s standard, it is still much too big in size.

An one yard house

For most of the houses in the Hutong, for average family, a courtyard would be like this way, just a square shaped yard, everything concentrated into just one yard. That is 80% of the cases you will see, if you have a chance to visit a courtyard. Even a courtyard at this size has to house at least 4 families from 1900s, as the Beijing population boomed, today sometime the number of families is even more than this, every family will build an extension just outside their room.

There were a very detailed stipulation on the size, design and building materials of the courtyard house from the Ming Dyansty, for example, the color of courtyard house was to be painted into grey color, the use of expensive timber was forbidden.

Main Room

The level of a house could be classified not only on the location or size (best location in the east or west of the Fobidden City), but also from the design of the Main Room. The main room, normally is the best room in the whole complex, peole would like to build it 3 units in the middle (pillar to pillar) and 2 ear-rooms, and sometimes in case of space limitatiom, even they would skip the plan of the ear-rooms, but the total number of units should make into odd numbers. average family is 3 (shown in the model), very rich family upto 5, prince level the number could be 7, only the Emperor had the priviledge of 9, and in some extreme cases, like the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City and the LingEn Hall at the Changling Tombs, the number is 11.

Orientation of the Buildings

Most of the courtyard are in North and South orientated, preferentially facing to the south, as the house will get more sunshine, and better in the sense of FengShui, while facing to north, some adjustments has to be done to balance. Anyway in a city most of the buildings are in north and south layouted, the city is in grid structure, and a Hutong is to connect a cluster of the entrance of courtyard houses, and by this reason, the Hutongs mostly run from west to east, as you can see from the top satellite image.

Download the PDF file of A Brief Introduction of Beijing Courtyard

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/beijing-courtyard-house-b/feed/ 0 A Beijing Courtyard House (A) http://www.touchbeijing.com/a-beijing-courtyard-house-a/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/a-beijing-courtyard-house-a/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:49:54 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=2004 A courtyard house often called as 四合院 (SiHeYuan) or quadrangle house, it is a typical traditional Chinese style of living, the size and the detail may vary in some ways accordings to the different province, for example in the south of Yangtze River, the courtyard may be small, but all most all of the rooms have a second floor, that is to keep off the heat from outside, while the couryard houses in Shanxi or Shaanxi have a bigger yard for collecting the sunshine in the cold winter.

As we say the Hutong area of Beijing, that is refer to this kind of building, like it or not, this courtyard style of living is dying out day to day from Beijing, as you can see, it takes a lots of space, and just in one floor, take this one for instance, the total space is 28 X 52 = 1456 square meters, but just good for one family, an 3-4 generation extended family, 30 persons roughly. From 1900s, as the Berijing population boomed, this type of courtyard house is beginning to be rushed into different families, 5-10 or even more is very common, people have to go out for toilet or shower. It is not a suprise that local some of the local habitants are not very happy about this, and the real estate developers are just very happy to knock it down and replace it with several floor buildings.

But as more and more people, organizaions aware the importance of keeping hutongs, there are more voices about this, somewhere of the city, goverment is providing more infras-structure, such as running water, heating, gas pipe lines, and a lot of works have to done to repopulate the habitants. Keep if not, it is a problem.

The picture I show you, was for a rich family for sure, and today it is very very hard to find such a big courtyard, and if it is occupied by just one family, that must be a very very rich family, so I put a garage in the model.

The life inside a courtyard is very natural and could be quiet romatic in some way, especially in the late spring and summer time, family members have lots of chance to be together, and lots of activities in the open space.

The front yard was for servants or younger generation due to its location near to the public.

The Middle yard definately for the most important figures in the family, note the main room is bigger compared with the west and east side room, that is the Hall of Supreme Harmony of the Forbidden City in the family. So you can figure out, this type of house is in the same idea with the Emperor’s Forbidden City, and it is the same idea based on Confucius thoughts.

The back yard was for girls and lady serverts, because it is the most private part of the house.

The way of expanding a Chinese courtyard house style from a simple one to a very complicated one in a same idea, that is along with the axe line, I will show you some other types of courtyard some other day.

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/a-beijing-courtyard-house-a/feed/ 0 Panaroma Pictures 03 http://www.touchbeijing.com/panaroma-pictures-03/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/panaroma-pictures-03/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:29:23 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=1763 Part 3 of the Panaroma Pictures that I took…


Shishahai Xihaiai Lake.


Shishahai Houhai Lake.


Shishahai Lake at sunset.


Hutong facing to the Zhongnaihai Central Government.

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/panaroma-pictures-03/feed/ 0 8th of April, 2009 http://www.touchbeijing.com/8th-of-april-2009/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/8th-of-april-2009/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:47:07 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=1610 Hutong in the night, near Dashilan Xuanwu District.

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/8th-of-april-2009/feed/ 0 Night photos around Shishahai Lake http://www.touchbeijing.com/night-photos-around-shishahai-lake/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/night-photos-around-shishahai-lake/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:43:00 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=1453 It was a cold night, temperature drops about 10 degrees as 3 days ago.

First some photos in the hutongs around Shishahai area.


A photo of the Lotus Market Bar Street.


The Corner Tower of the Forbidden City.


The moat of the Forbidden City


The Beihai Park in the night.

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]]> http://www.touchbeijing.com/night-photos-around-shishahai-lake/feed/ 0 West Chang’an Avenue Expansion http://www.touchbeijing.com/west-changan-avenue-expansion/ http://www.touchbeijing.com/west-changan-avenue-expansion/#comments Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:22:38 +0000 admin http://www.touchbeijing.com/?p=1445

With the upcoming of the 60th anniversery of the People’s Republic of China, there is an expansion project undergoing in the west part of Chang’an Avenue, the road will be 10-lanes wide after the project. The construction around Xinhuamen Area starts on 20th of March, and most of the work will be done in the night for not affecting day’s traffic, the project will be finished by August.

Compensation for relocation of the habitants is in progress, and where ever you go in this neighbourhood, you can hear someone talking about this, according to the estimation for the property in this area, the price goes about RMB25,095 Yuan/square meter, sounds no bad, but the local family average space seems to be not very big…


This is the announcement, and it indicates which house is going to be demolished.


At the entrance of an old courtyard, a pillar used this way to reinforce the structure.


Tiles of the roof, the pattern we know means longevity.


Inside one of the courtyard, we can tell the rooms are not very comfortable to live in.


Bird nest, kind of vrey popular local hobby.


The area is very close to the National Opera House.


Entrance into an old barracks of the Qing Dynasty.


A old entrance into a temple, the temple was built for a concubine of the Emperor Qianlong, the concubine said to be very favoured by Qianlong, and she was a muslin. I can just see part of the entrance, but cannot see any building behind it. This place is very easy to miss, a public toilet was built just in front.


View Larger Map

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