Hutong Karma

By Peter Hessler

 

1 For the pastfive years, I’ve lived about a mile north of the Forbidden City in an apartmentbuilding off a tiny alleyway in downtown Beijing. My alley has no officialname, and it begins in the west, passes through three ninety-degree turns, andexits to the south. Locals call my alley Little Ju’er, because it connects withthe larger street known as Ju’er Hutong.

 

2 I live in amodern three-story building, but it’s surrounded by the single-story homes ofbrick, wood, and tile that are characteristic of hutong. These structures stand behind walls of gray brick, andoften a visitor to old Beijing is impressed by the sense of division: wallafter wall, gray brick upon gray brick. But actually a hutong neighborhood is most distinguished by connections andmovement. Dozens of households might share a single entrance, and although theold residences have running water, few people have private bathrooms, so publictoilets play a major role in local life. In a hutong, much is communal, including the alley itself. Even inwinter, residents bundle up and sit in the road, chatting with their neighbors.Street vendors pass through regularly, because the hutong are too small for supermarkets. 

 

3 Not long after Imoved into Little Jue’er, Beijing stepped up its campaign to host the 2008Games, and traces of Olympic glory began to touch the hutong. In order to boost the athleticism and health of averageBeijing residents, the government constructed hundreds of outdoor exercisestations. At the exercise stations, people can spin giant wheels with theirhands, push big levers that offer no resistance, and swing on pendulums likechildren at a park. In the greater Beijing region, the stations are everywhere,even in tiny farming villages by the Great Wall.

 

4 But nobodyappreciates the exercise stations more than hutongresidents. The machines are scattered throughout old parts of the city,tucked into narrow alleyways. At dawn and dusk, they are especially busy —older people meet in groups to chat and take a few rounds on the pendulum. Onwarm evenings, men sit idly on the machines and smoke cigarettes. The workoutstations are perfect for the ultimate hutongsport: hanging around in the street with the neighbors.

 

5 At the end of2000, as part of the citywide pre-Olympic campaign to improve sanitationfacilities, the government rebuilt the public toilet at the head of Ju’erHutong. The building had running water, infrared-automated flush toilets, andsigns in Chinese, English, and Braille. Users were entitled to free toiletpaper. Gray rooftop tiles recalled traditional hutong architecture. Indeed, the change was dramatic.

 

6 Meanwhile, Ju’erresidents took full advantage of the wellkept public space that fronted the newtoilet. Old Yang, the local bicycle repairman, stored his tools and extra bikesthere, and in the fall cabbage vendors slept on the strip of grass thatbordered the bathroom. Wang Zhaoxin, who ran the cigarette shop next door,arranged some ripped-up couches around the toilet entrance. Someone elsecontributed a chessboard. Folding chairs appeared, along with a wooden cabinetstocked with beer glasses.

 

7 After a while,there was so much furniture, and so many people there every night, that WangZhaoxin declared the formation of the “W.C. Julebu”: the W.C. Club. Membershipwas open to all, although there were disputes about who should be chairman. Asa foreigner, I joined in the fun. On weekend nights, the club hosted barbecuesin front of the toilet. Wang Zhaoxin supplied cigarettes, beer, and grainalcohol, and Mr. Cao, a driver for the Xinhua news service, discussed what washappening in the papers. The coal-fired grill was attended to by a handicappedman named Chu. Because of his disability, Chu was licensed to drive a smallmotorized cart, which made it easy for him to transport skewers of muttonthrough the hutong. In the summer of2002, when the Chinese men’s soccer team made history by playing in its firstWorld Cup, the W.C. Club acquired a television, plugged it into the bathroom,and mercilessly mocked the national team as it failed to score a single goalthroughout the tournament.

 

8 Wang Zhaoxinmodestly refused the title of Chairman although he was the obvious choice,because nobody else had seen so many changes in the neighborhood. Wang’sparents had moved to Ju’er Hutong in 1951. Back then, Beijing’s earlyfifteenth-century layout was still intact, and it was unique among major world capitals:an ancient city virtually untouched by modernity or war.

 

9 During the 1990sand early 2000s, as the Wangs hawked cigarettes in Ju’er Hutong, developerssold most of old Beijing. Few sections of the city were protected. Whenever a hutong was doomed, its buildings weremarked with a huge painted character surrounded by a circle:

“pull down,dismantle.”

 

10 Like manyBeijing people I knew, Wang Zhaoxin was practical, good-humored, andunsentimental. His generosity was well known — locals had nicknamedhim Wang Laoshan, Good Old Wang. He always contributed more than his share to aW.C. Club barbecue, and he was always the last to leave. He used to say that itwas only a matter of time before more buildings in our neighborhood were pulleddown, but he never dwelled on the future.

 

11 For years, GoodOld Wang had predicted demolition, and in September of 2005, when his apartmentbuilding was finally torn down, he moved out without complaint. He had alreadysold the cigarette shop, because the margins had fallen too low. And now therewas no doubt who had been the true chairman, because the W.C. Club died as soonas he left the hutong.

 

12 The essence ofthe hutong had more to do with spiritthan structure: it wasn’t the brick and tiles and wood that mattered; it wasthe way that people interacted with their environment. And this environment hadalways been changing, which created residents like Good Old Wang, who waspragmatic, resourceful, and flexible. There was no reason for such people tofeel threatened by the initial incursions of modernity — if anything, suchelements tended to draw out the hutongspirit, because residents immediately found creative ways to incorporate aMcDonald’s or an Olympic toilet into their routines.

 

13 One recent weekend,Good Old Wang returned for a visit, and we walked through Ju’er. He showed methe place where he was born. “There’s where we lived,” he said, pointing at themodern compound of the Jin Ju Yuan Hotel. “That used to be the temple. When myparents moved in, there was still one lama left.”

 

14 We continuedeast, past an old red door that was suspended in the hutong’s wall, three feet above the street. “There used to be astaircase there,” he explained. “When I was a child, that was an embassy.”

 

15 In thenineteenth century the compound had belonged to a Manchu prince; in the 1940s,Chiang Kai-shek used it as his Beijing office. In the 1960s, it served as theYugoslavian embassy. Now that all of them were gone — Manchus, Nationalists,Yugoslavians — the compound was called, appropriately, the Friendship GuestHouse.

 

16 That was hutong karma — sites passed throughcountless incarnations, and always the mighty were laid low.

 

胡同因缘

彼得·海斯勒

 

1 过去五年间，我一直住在北京紫禁城北面大约一英里处一条小巷附近的公寓楼里。这条巷子没有正式名称，从西边开始，拐三个直角到南边就到头了。当地人管这条巷子叫小菊儿，因为它跟一条叫做菊儿胡同的大一点的巷子相通。

2 我住的是一栋现代化的三层楼房，但周围全都是典型的砖瓦木结构的胡同平房。这些房屋坐落在灰色砖墙之后，这种分隔之感往往令去北京老城区的访客印象深刻：清一色的灰砖，一道又一道的墙。其实邻居相互之间的联系和交往才是胡同邻里的特点。往往几十来户人家进出一个大门，老宅院虽有自来水，但很少有人家有独立的卫生间，于是对街坊而言，公共厕所就非常重要。胡同里啥都是公用的，包括巷子本身。即便在冬天，街坊居民都会裹得严严实实坐在路边和邻居聊天。小贩是常来常往，因为胡同太窄，没地儿开超市。

3 我搬来小菊儿没多久，北京就开始大力申办2008年奥运会，小菊儿胡同也就沾上了一点儿奥运的光辉。为了提高北京普通市民的体育精神，增强体质，政府兴建了好几百个户外健身站。在那里，人们可以用手旋转巨轮，推不带阻力的大杠杆，还可以像儿童在公园那样在一个摇摆器上荡来荡去。这样的户外健身站遍布大北京地区，连长城脚下的农家小村落里都能见到。

4 最欣赏健身站的要数胡同里的居民了。建在老城区狭窄小巷里的运动器材到处可见。清晨和黄昏是用得最多的时段——那些上了年纪的三五成群，侃几句，然后再在摇摆器上荡几下。晚上要是天暖和，那些爷们懒洋洋地坐在器材上抽烟。与街坊邻居聚在一块优哉游哉消磨时光是最受欢迎的胡同娱乐，健身站为此提供了最佳场所。

5 2000年底，作为全市迎奥运、改善卫生设施的一项举措，政府翻修了菊儿胡同口的公共厕所。公厕里有自来水、红外感应自动冲水马桶，还有中文、英文、盲文三种文字标识，还提供免费厕纸。屋顶的灰瓦使人想起传统的胡同建筑。那可真叫改天换地啊。

6 与此同时，菊儿胡同的街坊充分利用起公厕前维护良好的公共空间。当地修自行车的老杨（音）把工具和多余的车堆了过去，到了秋天，卖白菜的小贩就睡在厕所旁的草地上。隔壁烟杂店的王照欣（音）在厕所入口处摆了几个破沙发。有人拿来了棋盘，折叠椅跟着就出现了，还有个放着啤酒杯的木柜。

7 没多久，那里就有了好多家具，每天晚上又有好多人，于是王照欣宣布成立“厕所俱乐部”。人人都可加入，不过谁当主席引起了一番争执。身为老外，我也乐于参与其中。每到周末晚上，俱乐部欢迎大家到厕所前烧烤。王照欣提供香烟、啤酒和粮食酒，新华社开车的曹先生（音）和大家侃侃报上说的那些事儿。看管碳烧烤架的是个残疾人，姓储（音）。因为是残疾人，他有执照开一辆小型机动车，这使他搬运羊肉串穿过胡同比较方便。2002年夏天，中国男足破天荒踢进世界杯，厕所俱乐部弄了台电视机，把它插进厕所的电插座；国足在世界杯上一个球也没进，大伙儿毫不留情地一起开涮。

8 王照欣谦虚地谢绝主席这个头衔，虽然他明显是最合适的人选，因为对这个社区的种种变化，他见的比谁都多。1951年王照欣的父母搬进菊儿胡同。那时的北京城仍完好地保留着15世纪初的格局，在世界大都城中，这是独一无二的：一座几乎没有受到现代化或战争破坏的古城。

9 从20世纪90年代到21世纪初，也就是王家人在菊儿胡同兜售香烟那阵子，开发商把老北京差不多都卖了。几乎就没什么留下的。哪个胡同劫数到了，胡同的房屋上就会写上一个大字“拆”（拆就是拆除的意思），外面再划上一个圈。

10 像我所认识的不少北京人一样，王照欣讲究实际、脾气好、不感情用事。他的大方是出了名的——街坊邻里都叫他王老善——好心的老王。每次厕所俱乐部烧烤他出的份比别人多，而且总是最后一个走。他常说街坊里更多的房子早晚也得拆，不过他从来不多想未来的事。

11 王老善说拆说了好几年，到了2005年9月，终于拆到他的房子了，他二话没说就搬了。他早就卖了烟杂店，因为实在挣不到什么钱。到底谁是头这下可就一清二楚了，他一走，厕所俱乐部就散了。

12 胡同的本质在其精神而非建筑：重要的不是砖瓦木头，而是人们与其环境互动的方式。环境一直在变，于是塑就了王老善这样的人，讲究实际，足智多谋，随机应变。这些人没有理由害怕现代化的入侵，真要有什么的话，这些因素往往能激发胡同精神，因为街坊居民立马就能想出计策，把麦当劳或奥运厕所融入自己的日常活动之中。

13 最近一个周末，王老善回来看了一次，我俩一起在菊儿胡同走了一走。他指给我看他出生的地方。“我家以前就住那儿，”他指着金菊园宾馆时髦的院子说。“那儿从前是个庙。我爸妈搬来那会儿庙里还有个喇嘛呢。”

14 我们一路往东，走过一扇旧的朱漆门，它悬着嵌在胡同的墙上，离街面有三英尺高。“那儿过去有台阶，”他解释说。“在我小时候，那儿是个大使馆。”

15 在19世纪，那个院子是一个清代亲王府；20世纪40年代蒋介石用它做北平的公馆。60年代它做了南斯拉夫大使馆。如今俱往矣——满族人也好，国民党也好，南斯拉夫人也好。如今院子被命名友谊宾馆，也算是恰如其分。

16 这就是胡同因缘——这地方历经无数次轮回，而被推翻的总是位高权重者。