Beijing's traditional New Year flavor fading in disappearing hutongs Balancing precariously on a wooden chair, 78-year-old
Liu Zhenru carefully wound a cluster of tomato-sized lanterns around the
branches of her jujube tree.
By the chair, a Pekinese and a Charlie hunt dog, with bells around their
necks, were nudging a pair of large red lanterns, which Liu's children were
about to hang over the gate on the eve of the Lunar New Year.
This is Liu's 49th Lunar New Year in her Siheyuan - a four-walled courtyard
home - but next year she could be looking out on the New Year from floor 18 of a
modern apartment building.
Liu is among the dwindling population in Beijing who still celebrate the
Chinese Spring Festival in traditional Siheyuans, as the gray brick houses with
tilted eaves and delicate stone carvings are crushed under bulldozers in the
capital's rush for modernization.
Only one third of Beijing's hutongs, alleyways lined with Siheyuan, have
escaped demolition or part-destruction, according to a survey by the Beijing
Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture.
A report by the China News Service in 2006 said that the number of remaining
hutongs only numbered around 400, compared to over 3,000 in the 1980s.
Luo Boyan, 80, had lived in a Siheyuan for 60 years before moving into his
new apartment. Now, Spring Festival is nothing more than a family gathering, he
says.
"Years ago, in our old residence, we could smell the New Year in the air," he
recalled, looking into the distance. "We steamed niangao, a special New Year
cake and the aroma would seep out through the windows and mingle with the smoke
of fireworks in the yard to form the smell of the festival."
"In the yards, children from different families played together. Their
laughter and the sound of fireworks made it difficult to hear the television,
even at maximum volume," he said.
"Living in a Siheyuan was like living in one big family," said 55-year-old
Wu, while juggling two walnuts outside the gate of his apartment complex. "We
didn't have to lock the door when going out. Sometimes we ran out of salt while
cooking dinners. One shout was all it took. Then a pack come flying through the
window."
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