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New hutong museum helps preserve Beijing history

2013-12-18 14:15 Shanghai Daily Web Editor: Si Huan
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If a city has its soul, it might be found in its architecture. And Beijing's soul exists in each hutong.

While the number of these traditional Chinese residential alleyways is decreasing as the wrecking ball swings, hutongs still stand downtown. Now the city's first public hutong museum has opened at Shijia Hutong, one of the most historic hutongs.

The museum will give visitors the lowdown on how hutongs and the traditional siheyuan courtyard homes that line them have changed.

Shijia Hutong Museum is dedicated to promoting Beijing hutong culture, enriching the intellectual life of local residents, and sustaining a site that evolves constantly with time and presents the living history of hutongs, according to Chen Dapeng, secretary of Chaoyangmen sub-district.

"The exhibition is a footnote to chapters of beauty and the essence of Shijia Hutong, and hutongs in general in Beijing, as well as the traditional Beijing hutong lifestyle," said Wang Lanshun, who came up with the idea for museum.

"The most precious thing is that the museum is embedded in a living hutong and quadrangle courtyards in downtown Beijing," Wang said. "So when visitors step out of the museum, they will feel they are in another museum."

Shijia Hutong Museum is in a renovated siheyuan that was the former home of celebrated Chinese writer Ling Shuhua. The reconstruction work applied old bricks and tiles, "all of them collected from hutongs around Beijing and the city's heritage sectors," Chen explained.

The origin of the name Shijia cannot be verified, but it is said that it was named for the prominent Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Shi family, while others claim that it is a reference to Ming Dynasty Chancellor Shi Kefa.

Fittingly for a site that imparts knowledge, the alley has a close tie to education.

In 1908, the US Congress passed an act allowing Chinese students to study in the United States via a scholarship program. Under an agreement between both sides, Tsinghua College was founded. Starting in 1909, China began sending 100 students to study in the United States each year.

The same year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) asked the emperor for permission to establish an administrative office to settle all affairs concerning overseas students in the United States. The office was located in Shijia Hutong.

In 1909, 1910 and 1911, three selection exams took place at the alleyway, on the spot where today's Shijia Hutong Elementary School is located.

Hu Shi, a noted Chinese academic, was among the second group of exchange students who won the right to study in America.

Shijia Hutong Museum also charts the turbulent history of the street on which it stands and Beijing's hutongs.

"Capital City Hutong Collection," by Zhang Jue of the Ming Dynasty, documented how there were over 900 hutongs in Beijing's inner city in the reign of Ming emperor Jia Jing (1507-1567).

However, along with the post-1949 modernization and population boom, many old bungalows were torn down and multi-story buildings constructed in their place.

Streets and hutongs were combined to form new communities. Shijia Hutong now holds 15 multistory buildings and 82 bungalows or courtyards.

The "Protection of Beijing Traditional Hutong-Siheyuan Architecture" concept was included in the "General Plan of Beijing City (2004-2020)." Protection of the original hutong layout and style was the key component.

Shu Yi, former curator of the National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and also the son of famous Chinese writer Lao She, urged that Beijing should always contain old architectural forms.

"If there were only modern buildings, the city would lose its charm and manner as an ancient capital," he said.

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