Point, click, gone[含1P]

掌柜

Point, click, gone
Global Times | July 12, 2011 08:22
By Wang Shutong  

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Old Beijing may one day only be remembered in photographs. Photo: Courtesy of Luan Zhengxi

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Point, click, gone

When we are chewing our fingernails wondering how we can buy an apartment in this expensive city, other people are trying everything they can to preserve the ancient in this modern city.

Zhang Wei, 34-year-old, from Beijing, is one of them. As the founder of the oldbeijing.net, a website that brings together people that concert Beijing representative landscape such as hutong and courtyards, Zhang himself not only organizes people to do some public welfare projects but also shoots photos and videos to record the changes of Beijing. In 2004, Zhang initialed an event called "Old Beijing Shoot and Record Activity" and more than 10,000 people have participated in.

"I started this website 11 years ago," Zhang said, "we do this event once every two weeks in 2006. We had over 100 people to join this activity which made me look like a tour guide, it was a fun but also a tiring experience."

According to Zhang, the number of hutong reduces every year. In 1948, Beijing had 3,068 hutong. In 2000, there were just 1,200, five years later, it was 758 and now, it has shrank to no more than 500. "What we are doing now is shooting and recording the visage of the vanishing hutong in Beijing," Zhang went on, "if there is no hutong, then there is no Beijing, what we want to do is to arouse people's consciousness about protecting old Beijing."

Laotuoniao (Old Ostrich), a netpal who is a 60-year-old active user of the oldbeijing net has joined this event many times said that hutong have a distinguished order of life which is now impacted and subverted. "I've been to Yizi (chair) Hutong where I saw a good example of imitation courtyards without any culture erosion," he continued, "the looks of the front door of the courtyard should not face the street but should be put inside the courtyard, this example reflects a phenomenon that we confront a lot - rich but not noble. That's because they are poorly educated."

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According to Laotuoniao, his mother was among the first group of students who learnt in the department of architecture in Beijing and father was working in the Forbidden City. Influenced by his parents, he has taken an interest in old Beijing culture since he was a little boy. When shooting photos of hutong, he often gets followed and sometimes expelled by police, guards and others because they think he is there to cause trouble about the hutong demolition. One day he was confronted with police and was threatened with having his photos deleted. "I said to the police, are there any regulations that saying not to take photos on streets? Is my camera a bomb? Then I took a photo under his nose, dare you touch my camera! Then the police went away."

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Although the government is now allegedly paying attention to hutong protection, doing renewal and decoration work to cover the original appearance of the hutong is nothing but a waste of money in Zhang's eyes. "If you pay attention when passing hutong, you might see there are lots of houses newly built and painted, looking just like artworks," Zhang said, "people now turn cultural relics into artworks but artworks can never become cultural relics because they cannot stand that long before getting demolished or break down itself."

Xian Kai'an, a 64-year-old resident living in a courtyard in Wudaoying, said that he has been living in this 300 square meters large courtyard for 60 years. "The living condition is not so good, as you can see, since the house is very old, but we don't want to move," Xian went on, "doing some repair work is our choice." His wife, Zhou Xiuying agreed and said that if they move, they will surely move to a very far away place, "we are retired and have no money to buy such an expensive house."

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This kind of feelings lies within Luan Zhengxi's heart too. As a man born after the 1980s, Luan has been using his camera to record hutong in Beijing for nearly 10 years. "Hutong as a cultural relic is now being destroyed, I think record the sight of hutong is the right of every Beijinger," he said, "and if the next generation wants to see what Beijing used to be, they can learn through those photos."

Carrying his camera which using films, Luan's footprints cover nearly every hutong in Beijing. "When a hutong changes, I will shoot a photo." Majoring in photography, Luan bought his first camera which he is still using now to shoot hutong first in 2000. "Every time I take photos, I will think it would be the last time I can see the scene in front of my eyes." With nearly 10,000 films, Luan recorded countless precious views which have now disappeared. In one of his photos, a man squatted and fixing a aluminum basin's bottom, people who doing this kind of job can hardly be seen nowadays and the place he squatted, Mianhua Xiaertiao Hutong in Xuanwu district has now demolished to out of recognition.

So far, Luan has spent over 200,000 yuan ($31,000) on his hutong protection activity, "It really worth it," he said, "I have a Beijing map from 1954 and most of the hutong on it are gone. I want to leave some precious materials for the next generation and I will probably cooperate with some museums and provide my photos for free."

"The old generation don't want to leave hutong because they've been living there for a very long time," Luan continued, "but the young generation want to destroy them because they can get a large sum of money from the demolition which I've seen a lot."

For Zhang, what he harvests is not the memory of old Beijing, but the friendships of different people and also a life partner. "I met my wife in this Old Beijing Shoot and Record Activity and we've three couples in our team."

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Next time, when you see a large group of people holding cameras and taking photos in the hutong, don't just stand there gawping, simply pick up your own digital or analogue beauty and join them. It will surely be worth it.  Like Zhang, you may even discover the love of your life while learning about the treasures of our shared heritage of old Beijing culture, and thus begin your own Beijing story.

靳京

Everything is too late to be talked about by now. Let bygones be bygones.