Old Beijing

After breakfast at the hotel buffet, we left on the bus for Hutong (Old Beijing). It is a section of the city that has been protected to preserve the old way of living, very similar to a historic district. It seemed to be a large area, but in a city of 15 million people, even a small portion seems large.

In Old Beijing, residences are all one story, and the streets are very narrow. The main modes of transportation are rickshaws and bikes. Our guide, Sherri, said that Beijing has around 2 million bikes. We rode a rickshaw to the school we visited and then to the home.

It was very obvious that the Chinese take a lot of pride in caring for their children. The children were having lunch while we were there so we got to look in through windows. You could see that there were more boys than girls, and they were very friendly waving at us and full of smiles.

A Chinese traditional home has four sides, with the parents living on the north (cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter), boys on the east (they are the rising future), girls on the west (as they will be leaving once they marry), and the servants on the south (warmer in summer, cooler in winter). In the center is the courtyard, which I would compare to a yard and garden combined. Old traditional homes have been for the most part split into multiple families now. Space is a premium and very expensive.

Major observations from today include:
- All buildings are painted the color gray. It is part of feng shui I believe, but I don't remember why.
- They don't dry things. After washing things (toys, rugs, bowls, clothes), they are laid or hung outside to dry in the sun. Sherri said that there are no clothes dryers here because they don't have space.
- Anything under 900 years old is not considered much of an antique.

Lunch was a new adventure with traditional Chinese food at a restaurant that used to be open only to royalty and the politically powerful.

I spent the afternoon napping while John worked. We're hoping for some serious sleep while you have your Friday now at home!