Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West (P.S.)

by Peter Hessler

  Wang Zhaoxin modestly refused the title of chairman, although he was the obvious choice, because nobody else had seen so many changes in the neighborhood. Wang’s parents had moved to Ju’er Hutong in 1951, two years after the Communist Revolution. Back then, Beijing’s early-fifteenth-century layout was still intact, and it was unique among major world capitals: an ancient city virtually untouched by modernity or war.

  Beijing had once been home to more than a thousand temples and monasteries, but nearly all of them were disbanded and converted to other uses by the Communists. In Ju’er, the monks were kicked out of a lamasery called Yuan Tong Temple, and dozens of families moved in, including Wang Zhaoxin’s parents. Meanwhile, other members of the proletariat were encouraged to occupy the homes of the wealthy. Previously, such private hutong residences had been arranged around spacious open-air courtyards, but during the 1950s and 1960s most of these became crowded with shanties and makeshift structures. The former compound of a single clan might become home to two dozen families, and the city’s population swelled with new arrivals. Over the next twenty years, the Communists tore down most of Beijing’s monumental gates, as well as its impressive city wall, which in some places was forty feet high. In 1966, when Wang Zhaoxin was a six-year-old elementary-school student, he participated in a volunteer children’s work brigade that helped demolish a section of the Ming dynasty city wall not far from Ju’er. In 1969, during the Cultural Revolution, the nearby Anding Gate was torn down to make room for a subway station. By the time Mao died, in 1976, roughly a fifth of old Beijing had been destroyed.

  In 1987, Wang Zhaoxin’s younger brother accepted his first job, at a Beijing noodle factory. Within months of starting work, the eighteen-year-old lost his right arm in a flour-mixing machine. Not long before that, Wang Zhaoxin had decided to go into retail, hoping to succeed in the new market economy, and now he chose a product line in deference to his brother’s disability. Fruit and vegetables are too heavy, he reasoned, and a clothes merchant needs two arms to measure and fold goods. Cigarettes are light, so that’s what the Wang brothers sold.

  During the 1990s and early 2000s, as the Wangs hawked cigarettes in Ju’er Hutong, developers sold most of old Beijing. Few sections of the city were protected, in part because local government bureaus profited from development. Whenever a hutong was doomed, its buildings were marked with a huge painted character surrounded by a circle, like the “A” of the anarchist’s graffiti:

  Chai: “Pull down, dismantle.” As developers ran rampant over the city, that character became a talisman—Beijing artists riffed on the shape, and residents cracked chai jokes. At the W. C. Club, Wang Zhaoxin used to say, “We live in Chai nar.” It sounded like the English word “China,” but it meant “Demolish where?”

  Like many Beijing people I knew, Wang Zhaoxin was practical, good-humored, and unsentimental. His generosity was well known—locals had nicknamed him Wang Laoshan, Good Old Wang. He always contributed more than his share to a W. C. Club barbecue, and he was always the last to leave. He used to say that it was only a matter of time before the government chai’d more buildings in our neighborhood, but he never dwelled on the future. More than four decades in Chai nar had taught him that nothing lasts forever.

  The W. C. Club was near the head of the hutong, which ends at Jiaodaokou South Street. That boulevard is busy with streetcars and buses; the nearest intersection is home to a massive new apartment complex, two supermarkets, and a McDonald’s. Jiaodaokou represents a border: by stepping onto the street, you enter the modern city.

  Every day, most working residents of the hutong cross that divide. They pass the bicycle-repair stand of Old Yang, who keeps his pumps and toolbox next to the Olympic toilet. In a hutong, there’s no better network than one that combines bikes and bathrooms, and Old Yang knows everybody. Occasionally he gives me messages from other people in the neighborhood; once he passed along the business card of a foreigner who had been trying to track me down. Another time he told me that the local matchmaker had somebody in mind for me.

  “College-educated, 1.63 meters tall,” he said curtly. Those were the only specs he knew. For Chinese women, 1.6 is a magic number—you often see that figure in job listings and dating ads. It’s about five feet three. I told Old Yang that I appreciated the tip but that I didn’t want to meet anybody right now.

  “Why not? You’re not married.”

  “Well, I’m not in a rush. In my country people get married later.”

  When I started to walk off, he told me that he’d already given my phone number to the matchmaker.

  “Why did you do that?” I said. “You have to tell her that I’m not interested.”

  Old Yang is in his sixties, a tall, stern-faced man with a shaved head. When I tried to decline the invitation, his expression became even more serious than usual. He told me it was too late: everything had already been arranged, and he told me he’d look bad if I didn’t go. That week, the matchmaker called me four times. She introduced herself as Peng Laoshi—Teacher Peng—and she had scheduled the date for Saturday afternoon. We met beyond the hutong’s boundary, at the entrance to the Jiaodaokou McDonald’s. My date was supposed to arrive in a few minutes, but there was something that Teacher Peng wanted to clarify first.

  “This is an underground meeting,” she said, after we had found seats in the upstairs section of the restaurant.

  “Why?”

  “It’s not official. We’re not allowed to work with foreigners.”

  “Why not?”

  “The government doesn’t want us to,” she said. “They’re afraid the foreigners will trick Chinese women.”

  There was a pause, from which point the conversation could have proceeded in any number of interesting directions. But Teacher Peng seemed accustomed to filling awkward silences. “Of course, I’m not worried about you,” she said, beaming and speaking fast. “Old Yang says you’re a good person.”

  Teacher Peng was in her midforties, and the skin around her eyes was crinkled from smiling so much—a rare characteristic in China. She wasn’t an actual teacher; that’s simply the title people use for matchmakers. In China, professional matchmakers still play a role in rural areas and small cities, but they’ve become less important in places like Beijing. Nevertheless, I occasionally see a sign advertising their services, especially in old neighborhoods. Teacher Peng kept a government-registered office in Ju’er.

  At McDonald’s, I asked Teacher Peng how much she charged, and she said the fee for meeting someone was usually two hundred yuan.

  “But it’s more to meet a foreigner,” she said. “Five hundred, one thousand, even two thousand.”

  I asked, as delicately as possible, how much today’s client would have to pay for me if things worked out.

  “One thousand.” It was a little more than $120. Even if other foreigners were worth twice as much, there was some consolation in being double the minimum.

  “Does she have to pay anything just for meeting today?” I asked.

  “No. It’s only if you stay together.”

  “For marriage?”

  “No. For more dates.”

  “How many?”

  “That depends.”

  She wouldn’t give me a number, and I kept asking questions, trying to figure out how the system worked. At last she leaned forward and said: “Do you hope to get married quickly, or do you just want to spend time with a woman?”

  It was a hell of a first-date question for a single male in his early thirties. What could I say? I didn’t want the bike repairman to lose face. “I really don’t know,” I stammered. “But I want to make sure that she’s not paying anything to meet me today.”

  Teacher Peng smiled again. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she said.

  when I first moved to the neighborhood, i regarded McDonald’s as an eyesore and a threat: a sign of the economic boom that had already destroyed most of old Beijing. Over time, though, hutong life gave me a new perspective on
the franchise. For one thing, it’s not necessary to eat fast food in order to benefit from everything that McDonald’s has to offer. At the Jiaodaokou restaurant, it’s common to see people sitting at tables without ordering anything. Invariably, many are reading; in the afternoon, schoolchildren do their homework. I’ve seen the managers of neighboring businesses sitting quietly, balancing their account books. And always, always, always somebody is sleeping. McDonald’s is the opposite of hutong life, in ways both good and bad: cool in summer, warm in winter, with private bathrooms.

  It’s also anonymous. Unlike Chinese restaurants, where waitresses hover, the staff at a fast-food joint leaves people alone. On a number of occasions, dissidents have asked me to meet them at a McDonald’s or a KFC, because it’s safe. When Teacher Peng told me that our meeting was “underground,” I realized why she had chosen the restaurant.

  Others apparently had the same idea. One couple sat near the window, leaning close and whispering. At another table, two well-dressed girls seemed to be waiting for their dates. Over Teacher Peng’s left shoulder, I kept an eye on a couple who appeared to be having some sort of crisis. The woman was about twenty-five; the man seemed older, in his forties. Their faces shone with the unnatural redness that comes to many Chinese who have been drinking. They sat in silence, glaring at each other. Nearby, the McDonald’s Playland was deserted. Teacher Peng’s pager went off.

  “That’s her,” she said, and asked to borrow my cell phone.

  “I’m at McDonald’s,” she said into the phone. “The Italian is already here. Hurry up.”

  After Teacher Peng hung up, I tried to say something, but she spoke too fast. “She teaches music at a middle school,” she said. “She’s a very good person—I wouldn’t introduce you otherwise. Good. Listen. She’s twenty-four years old. She’s pretty and she’s 1.64 meters tall. She’s educated. She’s thin, though. I hope that’s not a problem—she’s not as voluptuous as the women in your Italy.”

  There was so much to process—for one thing, my date seemed to be growing taller—but before I could speak Teacher Peng rattled on: “Good. Listen. You have a good job and you speak Chinese. Also, you were a teacher before, so you have something in common.”

  Finally she stopped to breathe. I said, “I’m not Italian.”

  “What?”

  “I’m American. I’m not Italian.”

  “Why did Old Yang tell me you’re Italian?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “My grandmother is Italian. But I don’t think Old Yang knows that.”

  Now Teacher Peng looked completely confused.

  “America is an immigrant country,” I began, and then I decided to leave it at that.

  She recovered her poise. “That’s fine,” she said with a smile. “America is a good country. It’s fine that you come from America.”

  The woman arrived wearing headphones. Japanese script decorated her stylish jacket, and she wore tight jeans. Her hair had been dyed a dark brown. Teacher Peng introduced us, crinkled her eyes one last time, and tactfully took her leave. Very slowly, one by one, the woman removed her headphones. She looked quite young. The CD player sat on the table between us.

  I said, “What are you listening to?”

  “Wang Fei”—a popular singer and actress.

  “Is it good?”

  “It’s OK.”

  I asked her if she wanted anything from the restaurant, and she shook her head. I respected that—why spoil a date at McDonald’s by eating the food? She told me that she lived with her parents in a hutong near the Bell Tower; her school was nearby. While she was talking, I glanced at the drunk couple behind her. Now they were ignoring each other and the woman flipped through a newspaper, angrily.

  The music teacher said, “Do you live near here?”

  “I live in Ju’er Hutong.”

  “I didn’t know there were foreigners there,” she said. “How much is your rent?”

  This being China, I told her.

  “That’s a lot,” she said. “Why do you pay so much?”

  “I don’t know. I guess they can always charge foreigners more.”

  “You were a teacher, right?”

  I told her that I used to teach English in a small city in Sichuan Province.

  “That must have been boring,” she said. “Where do you work now?”

  I said that I was a writer who worked at home.

  “That sounds even more boring,” she said. “I’d go nuts if I had to work at home.”

  The drunk couple began arguing loudly. Suddenly the woman stood up, brandished the newspaper, and smacked the man on the head. Then she spun on her heel and stormed out past Playland. Without a word, the man folded his arms, lay his head down on the table, and went to sleep.

  The music teacher looked up at me and said, “Do you often go back to your Italy?”

  The following week, the matchmaker telephoned to see if there was any chance of a second meeting, but she wasn’t insistent. She impressed me as a sharp woman—sharp enough to recognize that my cluelessness might be exploited in better ways than dates at McDonald’s. The next time I ran into her in the hutong, she asked if I wanted to become an investor in a karaoke parlor. After that, I avoided walking past her office.

  When I asked Old Yang about the confusion, he shrugged and said that I once mentioned that my grandmother is of Italian descent. I had no memory of the conversation, but I picked up a valuable hutong lesson: never underestimate how much the bike repairman knows.

  Good Old Wang was right about chai nar. For years, he had predicted demolition, and in September of 2005, when the government finally condemned his apartment building, he moved out without protest. He had already sold the cigarette shop, because the margins had fallen too low. And now there was no doubt who had been the true chairman, because the W. C. Club died as soon as he left the hutong.

  By then, three-quarters of old Beijing had been torn down. The remaining quarter consisted mostly of public parks and the Forbidden City. Over the years, there had been a number of protests and lawsuits about the destruction, but such disputes tended to be localized: people complained that government corruption reduced their compensation, and they didn’t like being resettled to suburbs that were too distant. But it was unusual to hear a Beijinger express concern for what was happening to the city as a whole. Few spoke in terms of architectural preservation, perhaps because the Chinese concept of the past isn’t closely linked to buildings, as it is in the West. The Chinese rarely built of stone, instead replacing perishable materials periodically over the centuries.

  The essence of the hutong had more to do with spirit than structure: it wasn’t the brick and tiles and wood that mattered; it was the way that people interacted with their environment. And this environment had always been changing, which created residents like Good Old Wang, who was pragmatic, resourceful, and flexible. There was no reason for such people to feel threatened by the initial incursions of modernity—if anything, such elements tended to draw out the hutong spirit, because residents immediately found creative ways to incorporate a McDonald’s or an Olympic toilet into their routines. But such flexibility could also make people passive when the incursions turned into wholesale destruction. That was the irony of old Beijing: the most appealing aspects of the hutong character helped pave the way for its destruction.

  In 2005, the Beijing government finally instituted a new plan to protect the scattered old neighborhoods that remained in the north and west of downtown, including Ju’er. These hutong wouldn’t be put on the market for developers to build whatever they wished, as they would have been in the past. The stated priority was to “preserve the style of the old city,” and the government established a ten-member advisory board to consult on major projects. The board’s members included architects, archaeologists, and city planners, some of whom had publicly criticized the destruction. One board member told me that it was essentially too late, but that the new plan should at least preserve the basic layout of t
he few surviving hutong. Within that layout, however, gentrification was inevitable—the hutong had become so rare that they now had cachet in the new economy.

  The change happened fast in my neighborhood. In 2004, bars, cafés, and boutiques started moving into Nan Luogu Xiang, a quiet street that intersects Ju’er. Locals were happy to give up their homes for good prices, and the businesses maintained the traditional architectural style, but they introduced a new sophistication to the Old City. Nowadays, if I’m restricted to my neighborhood, I have access to Wi-Fi, folk handicrafts, and every type of mixed drink imaginable. There is a nail salon in the hutong. Somebody opened a tattoo parlor. The street vendors and recyclers are still active, but they have been joined by troops of pedicab men who give “hutong tours.” Most of the tourists are Chinese.

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

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

  In the nineteenth century, the compound had belonged to a Manchu prince; in the 1940s, Chiang Kai-shek used it as his Beijing office; after the revolution, it was taken over by Dong Biwu, a founder of the Chinese Communist Party. In the 1960s, it served as the Yugoslavian embassy. Now that all of them were gone—Manchus, Nationalists, Revolutionaries, Yugoslavians—the compound was called, appropriately, the Friendship Guest House.