Over the course of this blog and its predecessor, you’ve seen lots of imagery from Beijing’s hutongs. Most of these images have been positive or amusing scenes depicting life in the small alleys that make up the inner-second ring of Beijing. However, the reality of many of these alleys is far from positive or amusing. In the name of progress, the traditional architecture along with the unique, culturally rich way of life contained within the narrow alleys is disappearing.

While shooting a video this week on urbanization I filmed an enormous hutong graveyard just north of Beijing’s Drum Tower. Mass media has been reporting on this but normally we see photographs of historic monuments or people muling about socializing as way to depict the destruction. This is a very poor representation of the issue and makes old Beijing look like Disney world. Take these two recent examples:

• USA Today: USA Today used these photos to describe the situation last week, which I thought was a bit funny (but to be fair, they were probably file photos or stock — although there is no indication of this).
• LA Times: Not only does LA Times also use a rickshaw driver, they chose to use a photo of a laowai (foreigner) driving it for fun while the man who makes a couple dollars a day walks behind the cart. Does this really illustrate loss of culture, history and actually homes?
• CBS: China’s Disappearing Ancient Homes

If these photographers had walked ten minutes away they would have been in the environment you see here. If anyone has more examples of this poor coverage send the link along and I’ll add to the list of “poorly represented photos on this subject.” However, @maggierauch points out:

The photo stitch below is the combination of 11 photographs. Click here for a bigger, detailed version. This will give you a bit of perspective on the mass of the landscape.

Walking around these destroyed areas is very eerie. As if a bomb went off, the post-apocalypse style landscape is a ghost of culture. Some walls are left standing while others create a sea of red bricks on the ground. People’s belongings are scattered about as if they didn’t have time to pack — or perhaps they had no where to bring their things.

From guitars to bull skulls, posters to lamp posts — the signs of abandoned life are everywhere. He Shuzhong, founder of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center says:

After decades of development, the number of hutongs [in Beijing] has shrunk to about 1,000, down from more than 3,000 in 1949 … Few inner-city areas retain the traditional feel and historical value of the Drum and Bell Tower neighborhood.

While the hutong I live in is alive in well, there’s no guarantees it will be like this tomorrow. The photos above and below are about a 15 minute walk from my house. Many however, are trying to stop this including He’s organization. The reality is toughly spelled out on their Web site:

The Drum and Bell Tower neighborhood, also known as Gulou among both locals and foreigners living in Beijing, is a unique neighborhood. Despite Gulou’s cultural importance, multiple sources have indicated that a 5 billion RMB budget has been allocated to convert 12.5 hectares of the Drum and Bell Tower area into a ‘Beijing Time Cultural City’ – putting the neighborhood in serious danger. Once again, Old Beijing is facing another serious threat of demolition. On one side we have well-established laws and regulations that stand to protect Beijing’s history and culture. On the other side, however, there is a 5 billion RMB project waiting to commence.

Other posts on hutong life and photography

• Short commute to work for migrant workers in hutongs
• A MOMENT IN TIME: Where were you Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 hours U.T.C.?
• Home Number 6 in 1 Year
• Mars-Jing
• Chinese Barber Shop

More links on the subject

• Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center
• Photo essay by photog friend Sean Gallagher on the subject: The destruction of the hutongs of central beijing
• Photo essay by photog friend Tim Wagner on the subject: Last days of the courtyards

UPDATE: Here’s the link to this image on the NYT Lens blog.

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If you don’t remember, somebody else probably does — and there’s a photo to show you. The photo above, that’s where I was Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 hours U.T.C. The photo is taken over 243 seconds at f/10, ISO 50 with my Canon EOS-1D Mark II and Canon EF 14mm f/2.8 L II USM.

On Sunday the New York Time’s Lens Blog launched a project called “A Moment in Time” where they asked photographers, both amateur and pro, all around the world to take a photo at the exact same moment to create a “timely global mosaic.” From there:

Our plan — emphasis, “plan” — is to post almost every picture we receive. So your work will almost certainly be included, unless it fails any of the tests mentioned above or is more graphic than news photographs we would customarily publish.

The interactive gallery that will appear next week takes the form of a globe on which you can find your location, or those of other photographers. It was designed by Zach Wise of The Times and is, to use highly technical professional vernacular, too cool for school.

Although I was ready to take a picture at work that night, thinking I might still be working at the design desk of China Daily, I managed to run home and take a picture from my terrace which overlooks Beijing’s old city. I live on the edge of Beijing’s second ring road — and much of the property right in front of me has restrictions on building heights. This gives me a great view down onto the hutong life that thrives directly below me. And like any overly energetic, apparently geeky photographer, 1 moment was not enough, so I had two cameras setup shot with my remotes to synch them to 15:00 hours.

Although a hutong 胡同 in Chinese literally means “small alley” and specifically refers to the streets of Beijing, the word has much more meaning than that here. It refers to a lifestyle, home style and community unique to China. Like the structures you see above, homes are built directly into each other. An intricate network of small alleys allows people to get to their houses — but from above, sometimes the alleys are small enough they are completely unseen — blocked by shared roofs. Many of these homes don’t have kitchens or plumbing. People use communal bathrooms and showers in the alleys. As space is very precious, people either socialize in the streets or in their courtyards. A defining characteristic of the hutong architecture are homes called siheyuans 四合院, or traditional courtyard residences. In the photos above you can see small outdoor spaces dotting the landscape. These are people’s ‘outdoor living rooms’ and often even recreation space. The streets are lined with xiao chi, or “small eats” — tiny little hole-in-wall (literally) restaurants that serve noodles, dumplings, meat-on-a-stick and an enormous variety of unidentifiable foods that might actually eat you.

A lot of these alleys are too small to drive down, and I walk through them everyday to go to work and return. Sadly, these traditional living areas are being knocked down in the name of progress everyday. With the fall of the walls, comes the evaporation of this lifestyle. Fellow Saint Michael’s graduate and new media photographer Tim Wagner has a great photo essay on this threatened culture called “Beijing’s Hutongs: The Last Days of the Courtyards.”

Although this is where I was Sunday, May 2 at 15:00 hours U.T.C., this is where I am right now in life as well: Living in (and above) a hutong in Beijing. I thought this was the appropriate photo to share for the Len’s blog’s project.

As I said above, I did take two photos. The one I didn’t use is right here — of Beijing’s ancient Bell Tower. This tower is directly across form the Drum Tower (see photo of drum tower here) which I can see directly from my living room and terrace.

The Time’s photo blog says readers will be able to:

The photos will appear quickly on the Lens blog and on NYTimes.com, and — if you’d like — you’ll be able to arrange them by country, by topic or by how they were ranked by other readers. Or you can just view them randomly. Some will almost certainly be spotlighted on the Lens blog.

You can see some of the early arrivals from the photographic experiment in their post “From Many Instants, a Moment.” According to the National Press Photographer’s Association the “response was overwhelming” with over 10,000 entries on the morning of May 3 in New York. This will surely be a site to check out when it is finished sometime after Friday, May 7 at 15:00 hours.

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Updates: from NYT

• An Exhilarating (and Frustrating) Mom
• From Many Instants, a Moment
• A Few More Moments, Please
• Patience

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Just to give you an idea of what this view from my terrace looks like during the day, during sunset, during polluted days and during a sand storm — here’s some of the scenes I have seen in my first two months of living in this apartment over Beijing’s hutongs.

… and at last, a relatively silly video almost completely shot during a sandstorm from the terrace.