Beijing - An Alley Way of Life

The XXIX Olympics were seen by the Chinese government as China's coming-out party to the world. Billboards around the city promised "New Beijing, New Olympics". This new Beijing is bigger, wider, flatter and more.

To my American eyes, it looks uncomfortably familiar. Half a million residents have been evicted from their traditional courtyard homes in Beijing's network of alleys, or hutong, to make way for flats, shopping malls, McDonald's and Starbucks.

Just south of Tian'anmen Square in the hutong where I live, life moves at a centuries-old pace. My neighbours don't wear watches and there are no public clocks – I can hardly find one in the primary school where I work as a volunteer English teacher.

I first came to China in 1995 as a Peace Corps volunteer; I decided to stay afterwards because I wanted to experience a different way of life from what I had known in the US. Yet over the years, as China developed, its cities have come to resemble the country I abandoned: fewer bicycles; more golf courses, ski resorts, dance clubs and spas; conversations dominated by real estate.

I initially lived in a high-rise apartment, but my neighbours remained strangers after two years, so I moved into a $115-a-month courtyard home. I may not enjoy it much longer.

Each classroom in my school has a flip-chart marking the days until the start of the Olympics, but only one consistently displays the correct figure. In one room, there are always 942 days until the games.

As I watch my students, aged nine and ten, I wish that stopping time were that easy. This is the last year before the pressure of examinations will begin to press upon their carefree spirits. The red-kerchiefed students tuck their yo-yos into their desks, then clamour with laughter and raised hands to be called upon.

"What is the weather like today?" I ask one girl.

"Today is sunny," she replies, looking out the classroom window framed by jade-coloured creeper vines. "My father is happy because today his pigeons are happy."

Outside, a flock of white birds dip over grey-tiled rooftops and persimmon trees. The bamboo whistles attached to their feet emit a low hum. "Are those pigeons from your father’s rooftop coop?" I ask the girl.

"I don’t know," she says, then switches to Chinese: "From far away, pigeons all look the same to me."

Our hutong is no different. From a pigeon's vantage point, it looks like thousands of other blocks in Beijing. Hutong are to the Chinese capital what canals are to Venice.

The densely packed lanes are lined with the grey brick courtyard homes. Many lanes are too narrow for cars, and most of the houses are dilapidated.

Less than 1500 of Beijing's 10,000 original hutong remain. That number will be halved again by the time the Olympics begin.

Following the communist victory in 1949, Beijing's courtyard homes were appropriated and resettled by the government. The resulting legal limbo means that residents have little say over what happens to their own homes. Developers affiliated with the city government pay displaced residents the equivalent of $1135 a square metre for land worth three times as much.