In the Depths of Many Flowers
On foot through traditional domesticity in the hútòng of west Běijīng
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of North, Around the Back Lakes
Not all hútòng houses are being flattened or replaced with kitsch almost-replicas (see Forward to the Past), at least for now. Some alleys are being given fresh layers of tarmac and their tumbledown buildings fresh coats of paint to produce a spurious sprightliness but one that at least leaves communities intact.
The names of Beijing’s hútòng are often the last remaining evidence for the existence of long-forgotten trades or long-vanished temples. Head south from exit C of m Jī Shuǐ Tán (Line 2) across the lights at m Xīn Jiē Kǒu (Line 4) into Xīn Jiē Kǒu Nán Dàjiē (新街口南大街) through lively shoe and musical instrument shopping, then take a left (east) turn after a violin shop and before no. 74 into the alley called Bǎi Huā Shēnchù (百花深处). Here you enter what were the grounds of the Hù Guó Sì (护国寺, ‘Protect the Nation’ Temple) which, despite the modern ring to its name, was founded in 1365, although a recently added plaque now says 1284. It was not given its current name until around 1622.
The temple was known for its fair, which took place three times a month and until 60 years ago was second only in importance to that at Lóng Fú Sì. which only survives in the name of a now-closed department store at the top of Wángfǔ Jǐng.
Some shops in the neighbouring hútòng could trace their origins to the Míng dynasty (1368–1644). These specialised in flowers, shrubs, and trees, kept in hothouses and forced to bloom at Chinese New Year by an ingenious system of flues and steam heating. Bǎi Huā Shēnchù might poetically be translated as ‘in the depths of many flowers’, which a display on the history of hútòng in the Guǎngfú Guān east of Hòu Hǎi regards as the most beautiful name of any alley. Making flowers to bloom to order apparently remains an obsession in modern times, as in 2007 the Chinese were cross-breeding chrysanthemums to create flowers that would be guaranteed to bloom in August during the Olympics the following year.
The alley wriggles past houses with hand-lettered signs, ‘Be cautious, safety first’. At the next junction with Hù Guó Sì Xī Xiàng (护国寺西巷), the steep green-tiled roof of one of the largest remaining halls of Hù Guó Sì could be seen until a rather too convenient fire destroyed it in 2004, leaving space for redevelopment (there’s a picture at www.panoramio.com/photo/1176862). Retired residents sunning themselves at this junction can still remember the days when the street was lined with flower stalls. Thirty years ago, while the temple’s twin pagodas had long disappeared, other parts still stood.
Turning right (south) down Hù Guó Sì Xī Xiàng once took you almost under the eaves of this now-vanished hall, which had been roughly shored up with new wood showing pale against a decaying roof with dark bracket sets, their large size and relative simplicity giving away the building’s antiquity. The temple as a whole was associated with a prince of the Mongol Yuán dynasty, who was suspected of treason and banished to Yúnnan Province in the far south in 1355, then poisoned. He was rehabilitated ten years later, and his residence was turned into a temple, maintained by wealthy eunuchs from the imperial court who lived there after retirement.
Further south, the first left turn and then left again takes you into a particularly quiet and narrow hútòng, past brick lean-tos leaning against more lean-tos, and caged windows studded with air-conditioning units. The various cries of passing street vendors (有旧鞋卖? Yǒu jiù xié mài? Any old shoes?) are the loudest sounds.
A short way up, households to right and left indulge in small pleasures of a scale with their limited living quarters, caring for white and fluffy Bōsī māo (波斯猫, Persian cats) with the differently coloured eyes so popular with Chinese — one yellow eye and one blue. Low roofs sport caged love birds, budgies, and finches, the extended conversations of the birds paralleling the chatter of people who have been neighbours for decades. In 2000 they didn’t think their area would be pulled down, and the resurfacing of the hútòng and uniform grey painting of the buildings in late 2007 seemed to suggest they might be safe for a while yet.
Further up, the entrance to the now burnt-down hall could once be found. It had become a garment factory, in which false ceilings hung low over the seamstresses much as they bent over their own work.
Turning right at the north end of the hútòng brings you to a ramshackle building topped with one of the city’s larger pigeon lofts, where the air is full of the throbbing and whirring of more than 200 birds. Here a Shanghainese gentleman raises them, letting them out for aerial circuits at 7am and around 4pm to 5pm every day. Those that don’t perform well in races are given to friends, or eaten.
The next turning right back to the south leads past various light industrial workshops to the last remaining hall of Hù Guó Sì, now squeezed between a hotel and a watch factory. This is surrounded by a wall with a padlocked gate, its roof looking as if replaced in the past 20 years, its beams still sporting some paint, and with a recently added lightning conductor. It is now offices.
The end of the alley gives on to the much larger Hù Guó Sì Jiē (护国寺街) until recently full of vendors selling fruit from the back of tricycles, but now further broadened and tidied up. To the right (west) was further evidence of previous business in the form of the Hù Guó Sì Huā Diàn, its yard full of all kinds of plant pots, and a rickety net-hung greenhouse with a largely glassless ceiling full of yuccas, aloes, and palms. Inside the main building, a properly refrigerated area contained cut flowers — perhaps the last remnant of the industry that once dominated the area. But it closed in 2005, although the sign remains on the upper portion of the building.
You may not be able to see much of the temple, and nothing of the temple fair, but among the re-imagined traditional houses with garages and plate-glass-fronted shops, there are still remnants of the businesses that once served the crowds visiting each. Back to the east, Hù Guó Sì Jiē is still lively and lined with meat and vegetable shops, stalls selling local snacks, and assorted cheap restaurants, including several specialising in traditional Běijīng-style snack dishes.
On the left at Hù Guó Sì Jiē 93 is the recently refurbished Hù Guó Sì Xiǎo Chī Diàn (护国寺小吃店), offering the steamed rice cakes known as àiwōwo (艾窝窝), the fermented bean curd drink dòu zhī (豆汁), pease pudding, sesame cake, fried dough twists with honey, and much more. Retired ladies line up at the counter for filling lunches that cost around ¥10.
At the junction with the first major turning to the right (south), there’s a take-away counter with deep-fried dough twists, various kinds of bean cake, soya milk drinks (Hù Guó Sì Jiē 48, open 8am–7pm). Opposite, a portion of Běijīng roast duck can cost as little as ¥13. The right turn here is Hù Cāng Hútòng (护仓胡同, whose name tells you it once held warehouses), and until recently the old-world Dalian Baked Wheaten Pie (褡裢火烧, Dālian Huǒshāo), named for its signature dish. As the different characters and tones should tell you, this has nothing to do with the Manchurian city: the dālian was a traditional long, slender purse worn slung from the shoulder or belt, which the shape of the pie, actually a giant guōtiēr or potsticker, resembles.
This was a closet-sized restaurant full of old Běijīng characters who were surprised to see a foreigner. There’s something brighter, cleaner, and more modern at the end of Hù Cāng Hútòng on the right — a branch of the Jīng Wèi Lóu (京味楼) chain with a traditional atmosphere and a convenient point-to-order picture menu serving Běijīng-style dishes and snacks from counters around a central seating space.
Returning to the junction and continuing east, you’ll see that the buildings to either side are partly rebuilt and partly ramshackle. The characters on a small butcher’s shop on the left tell you it specialises in donkey meat (驴肉馆, lǘròuguǎn): its prime customers may be the occupants of the nearby building in Islamic green, which is the Běijīng office of the far northwestern and, until modern times, 90% Muslim city of Ürümqi. They certainly won’t be eating pork.
Hù Guó Sì Jiē 11B (乙11) on the left, with lustily singing crickets in cages hanging around the door, was once the shop of calligrapher and artist Lán Pèi (兰佩), whose neighbours jokingly but proudly referred to him as ‘Great Master Lán’. It has now been replaced with a shop selling traditional crafts. Directly after that, a window staffed by cheerful Shāndōng natives sells that province’s style of steamed bread, or mántou, which is hot, cheap, and filling, and with a ‘long history’ according to the owner.
Just beyond is one of the protected buildings that keeps the street from being completely redeveloped, the Méi Lánfāng Memorial Hall.
Méi Lánfāng Memorial Hall 梅兰芳纪念馆
Méi Lánfāng Jìniànguǎn, Hùguó Sì Jiē 9, t 8322 3598, www.meilanfang.com.cn, 9am–4pm, Tues–Sun; closed around Spring Festival. ¥10. m Píng’ān Lǐ (Line 4) and walk north and east. b to 护国寺: 22, 88, 111电车, 409, 609. To 刘海胡同: 55.
We walked slowly, knowing we should be only a little over two hours late for the performance. To have arrived sooner would have been tedious, because great actors like Mei Lan-Fang seldom condescended to appear on the stage until two thirds of the way through the opera in which they were performing. Their understudies were good enough to satisfy those undiscriminating ticket-holders who, to get their money’s worth, sat through six acts from the beginning. Such people were usually countrymen or visitors from distant provinces.
John Blofeld, City of Lingering Splendour, 1961
Blofeld saw Méi Lánfāng (1894–1961) in the 1930s, when the actor was probably at the peak of his powers. Méi performed overseas many times in his career, meeting Berthold Brecht, among other Western theatrical luminaries. As is still the case with kabuki in Japan, there were no mixed troupes, and the most famous actors were those who could impersonate to perfection the idealized delicacy and grace of a young girl. Méi was the most famous of his time. In the opera performances of today you’ll see women play women’s roles, and the nearest living equivalent of Méi is probably kabuki’s onnagata Bandō Tamasaburō V.
Méi’s sìhéyuàn (courtyard house) is a little more luxurious than that of Lǎo Shě. The side rooms contain a small museum (photographs, theatre programmes, costumes, props, etc.), and the rear living room, study, and bedroom have been preserved as they were at the time of Méi’s death, with a mixture of Victorian and Qīng furniture, some inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
For information on Chinese opera performances, including those at a brand-new purpose-built opera theatre named for Méi, see Běijīng opera. Méi’s tomb can be found just west of the Běijīng Botanical Gardens.
Continuing east across the junction with Déshèng Mén Nèi Dàjiē (德胜门内大街) on the left (north side), you’ll find a military site occupying the grounds of a former princely mansion, that of Prince Qìng. The remaining buildings can be seeing by looking to the left inside the gate (see Princely Privileges). Beyond that, also on the left (north) side of the road, stand the handsome Republican-era buildings of the missionary-founded Fǔrén Dàxué (辅仁大学, Fǔrén University), designed by a Belgian architect in the fusion of Eastern and Western styles popular at the time, now under renovation and perhaps conversion to some other purpose. The mansion of Prince Tāo lies hidden behind, now functioning as №13 Middle School. The wall of Prince Gōng’s Mansion is straight ahead: follow the road round to the right and left around the wall to the main entrance. From here it’s possible to continue to sights around the Hòu Hǎi and the Drum and Bell Towers, or in a circle back to m Jī Shuǐ Tán (Line 2).
See Hútòng Walking
and other Běijing walks: In Search of the Ice Houses, Out Clubbing, Legation Quarter, and Forward to the Past.
Next: Introduction to North and East of the Imperial City
Previously: Xú Bēihóng Memorial Hall (closed)
Main Index of A Better Guide to Beijing.
For discussion of China travel, see The Oriental-List.
