True Life: "I live in Hutong"

"True Life: I live in a hutong"

This morning we went for a neighborhood walk around our hutong. We learned that hutong is actually a Mongolian word for water well from back when the Mongols climbed the Great Wall and conquered a Chinese dynasty. Each house has beams above their doors that represent the status of their family, from none (very poor) to twelve (reserved for the emperor, though of course he wouldn't have a normal house anyways). We took a rickshaw (a bicycle with a carriage attached to the back) ride around the hutong and up to the Drum Tower. The tower is massive in the middle of the city. Similar to a clock tower its purpose was to tell time. They would beat the drums every two hours (as opposed to ours every hour). We climbed up 70 steep steps to the inside of the tower where we watched a traditional drum performance. Inside was the oldest largest drum in the world (extremely battered and torn) as well as a newer "largest drum in the world" which was made out of just one extremely large cowhide. The drum tower, Jingshan park, the forbidden city, and Tiananmen square are all in a perfect line, which looks really cool from each place. After the performance we jumped back into our rickshaw and rode to a local family's house where we ate a traditional lunch. After we walked through the main door on the street we had to navigate small uneven passageways to get to their personal home (30 families share the same entry and courtyard). We all sat in their living area around small tables. I had to sit on the family bed because there weren't enough chairs- that was only slightly awkward. We had a family style lunch of duck, chicken, dumplings, rice and veggies. The coolest part of the place was the giant picture of Mao on their wall and their pet crickets that were as big as gerbils (they looked like Mulan's lucky cricket except for they weren't cute or lucky!). The same family has lived in the house for over 50 years, now three generations live there together.

Later that night we attended a Kung-Fu show in order for David to brush up on his skills. It was a mixture of kung-fu, ribbon acrobatics, ballet, and a play. We didn't really follow the plot very well but it was something like there was a young boy who didn't want to leave his mom and do kung-fu, but then he had a dance off with 2 other kids who were way better than him so he decided to join some school or monastery. As he was becoming the best fighter he turned evil because he thought he was the most powerful fighter and also liked a girl. So it ends with him realizing harmony is best and he didn't need a girl and so he became the warrior monk. Not your basic chick flick. David's favorite part was when little boys did frontflips and instead of using their hands they used their little bald heads to push off the ground (and my dad wouldn't let me do headers in soccer because it killed too many brain cells). My favorite part was when they did flips and swung on ropes hanging from the ceiling, with no harnesses. After the show we took the metro to see the Birds nest and water cube but they had just closed :( Tomorrow we are heading to see Mao's embalmed body, go shopping at an antique market, and end the night at the Beijing Opera!

Zai-jian!

D and K