The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Backstreets

Tag : Cotton Hand Towel

"Little Plumblossom! Listen, you have to eat before class." I standbefore her in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. The Widow scrapes theends of a pair of chopsticks and places them in my hand. "Eat,Little Plumblossom!" She uses an endearment short for my Chinesename. I call her da niang , a term of respect for an elderly woman.
The Widow extends a steaming bowl of dumplings with two hands. Hereyes squint from the cigarette smoke curling up her sallow cheeks.She stuffed the dumplings with pork and chives, my favorite. "Youknow," she says, "it's too hard to cook for one person, so you haveto eat these."
I always do what the Widow says. Although seven of us inhabit thefive rooms of this courtyard, everyone knows that we are living inher home, even if she doesn't own it. The Widow has tenure. In1962, the municipal housing bureau assigned her to the south-facingroom opposite mine. In sixty-five square feet, she raised twochildren and a granddaughter. Their photos, and one of her as aradiant young woman with high cheekbones and a pressed gray dress,fill a single frame that hangs on her wall. The room has an exposedcement floor, a bureau made from walnut, two metal folding chairsat a card table, and a twin bed. She keeps the color televisiontuned to Channel 11, the Beijing opera station. Crashing gongs andplaintive wails fill our courtyard from sunrise until after dark.
The Widow lights another Flying Horse. The robin's-egg-blue packageis decorated with a drawing of a horse leaping skyward, away from ahorizon of petrochemical plants and smokestacks. It is the cheapestbrand sold on our hutong , and tastes it.
"You should wake up earlier," she scolds. "I already went toHeavenly Peach market." It is seven o'clock in the morning. Ourneighborhood's compact blend of housing and shops means the hutong is always open for business, and business is always nearby. In themorning, residents crowd the open-air bazaar, where farmers fromoutside Beijing sell fresh meat and produce. "I put the pot on theflame for the dumplings, then left," she says. "When I got backfrom Heavenly Peach with the ingredients, the water was alreadyboiling."
The Widow watches me drink the salty broth. I thank her. She cocksher head and says, "What?" She is going deaf. By way of good-bye,she grunts, "Uh!" before stepping over our courtyard's woodenthreshold and turning left. The four courtyards in this formermansion are each shared by multiple tenants. Our rooms are tuckedin the back corner, farthest from the entrance gate. The Widowshuffes over the corridor's uneven earth and flagstones, runningboth hands along the gray brick walls for support. The women'slatrine is opposite our front gate on the hutong , narrow enough that she can cross in a few unassisted strides.
The men's bathroom is farther away, and so with the Widow gone andmy neighbors still asleep, I undo the padlock on the rotted door ofa closetsize annex and pour a plastic bottle filled with theprevious night's piss down the drain. I grab a towel off theoutdoor line, snap it free of dust, and stick my head under thecold-water tap, shampooing quickly and rinsing with a coffee mugfilled with frigid water. I scrub my face and under my arms, savingthe rest of my skin for the Big Power Bathhouse, a few lanes away.
It is a typical morning in a typical Beijing hutong . The only thing exceptional is the weather, which is neithersweltering nor frigid, and the air unpolluted. "Tiger Autumn"arrives between summer and fall, bringing bracing mornings and warmafternoons. When I reach up to put the towel back on the line, theview shows a cloudless blue sky over serried rows of gray-tiledrooftops that crest between tufts of green leaves. A wind gustshowers the courtyard in dust.
In its original state, a tea table and persimmon tree could havefit in the courtyard's open space. But over the decades, the cementslab has shrunk from an added bedroom, a kitchen sheltering apropane range, and clotheslines that web the air. When it rains,umbrellas have to be opened on the lane. In the courtyard, I muststoop to the Widow's height.
Inside my house, I tower over her. The north wall of my home ismade of windows that stretch from waist high to the eaves, fifteenfeet above. The door lock is a weak dead bolt, engaged only whenI'm sleeping, because people wander in throughout the day. It is avery public life, lived in two rooms. Although the $100 monthlyrent is a fraction of what a Beijing apartment with heat andplumbing costs, the Widow still thinks I'm wasting money. She livesin a single room, after all, as does the married couple in theadjoining room. They migrated from China's northeast to find workin the capital. We share a wall and a landlord, who divided hisfamily's half of the courtyard into two spaces. Like the Widow, hismother was assigned to reside here. Unlike the Widow, he prefersliving in a modern apartment and moved after his mother died,retaining the home's "usage rights," which are transferable andallow him to sell or rent his toehold in the neighborhood.
My living room holds a bookshelf, small couch, chair, tea table,and a desk. The floor's polished marble tiles are always cool anddamp. The whitewashed straw-and-mud walls glow from sunlight or theuncovered bulb dangling from above. The other room'scrimson-painted planks creak underfoot. It is furnished with abureau, a platform bed that could sleep four adults, and amineral-water heater. I spoon instant Nescafé coffee into acup, switch off the computer, and turn on the water, avoiding arepeat of the morning when I blew the courtyard's fuses. That's whymy unplugged refrigerator now stores underwear.
* Pronounced "who-TONG." Hutong is both the singular and pluralromanization of the word. Chinese characters and the translationsfor place names appear in the appendix.
Excerpted from "The Last Days of Old Beijing" by Michael Meyer.Copyright © 2008 by Michael Meyer. Reprinted with permissionby Bloomsbury Press.