The fading of the Forbidden City
The Olympics of 2008 will transform Dazhalan, historic district of Beijing, in a stylish commercial area. With bulldozers, evictions and speculations

Text by Alessandra Cappelletti
Pictures by Roberto Brancolini

“Bulldozers are erasing centuries of history. My family has always lived in this hutong, here in Dazhalan. As all the other residents I am waiting the demolition of my house”. Amongst mounds of rubbles and gutted houses, every morning the 60 years old Ma Lian keeps lifting up the rolling shutter of his kiosk where he sells cigarettes, fresh drinks and pumpkin seeds. Sharp eyes, only two teeth in the mouth, his voice betrayed anger: “Tourists should be impressed by the artistic heritage of Beijing, but what they will find for the Olympics is a new city without character”.
Dazhalan is a spot of the old Beijing, an extensive urban district just five minutes away from Tiananmen, well-known for the freedom and for the community life of its inhabitants. Its history is characterised by a free development of artistic activities and handicrafts, inns and guesthouses, theaters and “houses of flowers” (brothels). During the imperial age the whole complex of the Forbidden City was surrounded by tall and thick walls, strictly controlled by the imperial power. During the Qing dinasty an edict of the emperor banned the opening of commercial and art activities inside the walls, and Dazhalan, just beyond them, became one of the most lively and free urban areas, where the Chinese artistic and commercial flair could flourish. The Olympics of 2008 will represent its end: Dazhalan will become one of the most stylish commercial area of Beijing, a business junction meant to be ashtonishing.
The economic development of the last years and the 2008 Games have transformed the Asian metropolis in an open-work yard. The preservation of the historical city is in the political agenda – 25 involved areas, the 17% of the ancient Beijing – but, behind rhetoric, in ambush there are property speculation and loss of cultural identity. Lian looks around as to find confirmation among those who will soon share his fate: “The Government made this choice, and this is for the good of the collectivity, the individual does not have any voice in these matters. But, after the rebuilding, Beijing will become their city, it will not be our capital anymore.”
According to Hu Xinyu, responsible of the group Friends of Old Beijing, in 2003 already half of the three thousand hutong (alley) of the historical city had been demolished, and thousands of people moved to featureless suburbs. A high representative of the government, quoted in anonymity by the Financial Times, compared the damages of the present urban policies to those of the Cultural Revolution.
Beyond Qian Men, the “front gate” overlooking Tiananmen, the ancient and populated Dazhalan district, destination of travellers over the centuries. Its name, in Beijing dialect Dashilan’r, “high fences”, goes back to 1670, when the emperor decreed the night closing of the hutong. Known hat shops, guesthouses, restaurants and commercial activities, theaters, cinemas and “houses of flowers”, between tall red walls chasing each other and, in the background, the clanging of the pedal rickshaws, in a drowsy and cheerful atmosphere: this was Dazhalan at the end of the 90’s, a lively community of merchants, artists and craftsmen.

The look of the elderly Feng gets lost among high finely carved wooden eaves, now faded and damaged by age and negligence. White beard and undershirt in the hutong muggy weather, he recalls the past history of his district: “All these buildings were occupied by craftsmen who carved jade. After the Deng Xiaoping reforms, during the 80’s, commercial activities, restaurants and retailers started to appear. I am more than 70 years old and this has always been my world”.
Panels with images realised with the rendering technique hide the rubbles of Dazhalan. They show new high buildings with elements taken from the Chinese traditional architecture, shops and offices, avenues lined with trees, water fountains: Chinese and blond foreigners dressed elegantly or casual, buying clothes with a Westerner-fashioned look. “ I do not know when I will ordered to move – Feng goes on saying – the scrapers will be here in the next months for sure, before the Olympics everything must be renewed. Is there any other solution? We are laobaixing (common people) and we can only listen.”
Zhang Hong is 20 years old and sweetly looks at her Li Guan, who has just celebrated two years old. The sunshine hardly filters between the high walls around the dwellings. “Our houses are unhealthy, it is not possible anymore to live in here. Often there is no toilet and sometimes we even lack running water. This area will probably be preserved, there are a few guesthouses, but if my turn will come it means that I will move away.” Where? “The money I will receive as compensation and my salary as cleaning woman will not be enough to buy a house in this district, I will just search elsewhere”.

But there is a voice that does not join the chorus: Ou Ning, well-known director and video maker from Guangzhou, since years lives and works in Beijing. The young artist does not judge the Government policy, he prefers to unerline the concept of choice: everybody should have the right to decide where and how to live, it is not fair to impose from above models of life or city. Ning is one of the artists who participate in the Dazhalan Project, organised with Kulturstiftung des Bundes, a German foundation that deals with the process of enlargment and development of urban realities. A key person of this project that will monitor the outcome of the Olympics and will terminate in 2008 is Zhang Jinli. “We got in touch with Zhang while we were shooting the situation in Dazhalan”, recalls Ou Ning while he sits on a sofa at the 20th floor of a modern and coloured building, part of the residential complex called Xiandai Soho, close to the Beijing city. “He was hanging leaflets on the walls to express his protest. After one month he was going around Dazhalan with a videocamera to shoot his life in the district at the eve of the clearing”. Zhang used to run a small but known restaurant in a hutong named Meishi jie. “The Government forced him to leave his house and his restaurant, but he thought that the compensation was inappropriate – goes Ou Ning – that it would have been right to obtain the assignment of another restaurant in the new district”. The videocamera has been used as a weapon to criticise the Government policies: the experiment of Zhang Jinli realised a video, Meishi Street, and a publication, The Story of Zhang Jinli.

Zhang had the courage to accuse the injustice of the compensations and gave a great contribution to the growth of awareness in the neighborhood”. One of the main aim of the Dazhalan Project (www.dazhalan-project.org) is to analyse the impact of the Government policies on the different urban realities, up to the smallest ones, the individual ones. “In March 2006, after months of protests and activities in the district community, the scrapers demolished Zhang’s house and restaurant”. Ou Ning is not contrary to modernization: “Urban realities shall improve, we are interested in understanding which is the impact of this development on people, which is the room for people in the changed context of a new city. The story of Zhang Jinli represents the breaking point between tradition and development”, continues the artist.
According to Ou Ning “in Dazhalan each homeowner would have like to restore the buildings gradually, leaving the area unchanged. But the citizen does not have the possibility to choose, nor he knows how the district will change, he only has those pictureson the barriers in front of his eyes, and the only thing he can imagine is a rich and smart commercial district”.Urban policies that destroy the community life, wiping off the the street lifestyle and the liveliness of Chinese cities. “According to the Constitution of China the land belongs to the people, but in practice it is a Government’s property, and the Government acts only according to political and economical evaluations”, concludes the video maker. “Our purpose is to make this situation known to the largest number of people, through activities and events and the involvement of those who are interested, only in this way the future could be different”.
Beijing traffic and smog cover with sounds and dust a city in ongoing transformation, as erratic and uncertain are the lives of the inhabitants of these areas. Once rich and prosperous, they are now poor after China entered the global market: the handicrafts have been replaced by the industry products made in South Eastern China, while theaters and “houses of flowers” have been replaced with night clubs and massage centers.
Zhao Lianmiao is an artist who lives in his studio-dwelling 10 square meters big that will soon be demolished. On the walls he hung his paintings, and with a jasmine tea cup in his hands recalls his life in Dazhalan, the prosecutions suffered during the Cultural Revolution, and says how much he would like to buy a new house in this district.

“They are destroying everything, it is a real pity, I live here since ever and I really love this district”. Much more explicit is Li Wu, intelligent look and young looking, he lives and works in a lively and full of traffic hutong, where in a small workshop he repairs everything, from clothes to watches. The keys to be copied bounce while the scrapers are demolishing the house just next door. In front of his workshop, the debris of a Muslim restaurant, an old plate in Arabic recalls the presence in the district of the Hui Muslim minority. Beijing now is a city divided in two parts, the northern part is rich of industrial and commercial activities, while south of Tiananmen small commercial activities and family run little restaurants. “They are stealing our money! My compensation will be 10.000 yuan per square meter, but the new building will be sold for 50.000! The Government is tricking us: they can carry on their policies without meeting any resistance because here people are poor, the small compensation are enough to obtain silence. We will move in dormitory-dostricts , in new apartments at a high floor and we think that our life will get better”.

Pictures:

p.52: Beijing, a spot of an old hutong in Dazhalan

p.53: Dazhalan, the panels around the demolished area show how the district will be for the 2008 Olympics

p.54: above, Zhao Lianmiao, artist in his studio-dwelling
below, a hutong in Dazhalan

p.55: above, an old man lives in a discharge tube after eviction
below, Ou Ning, Chinese artist and video maker