Kids Playing Marbles in one of the Hutongs across the street from where I live:

The Spring Festival came early this year in China. The timing of this event is determined by the lunar calendar and it typically falls around the middle of February. In 2009, however, the Spring Festival began on January 26th. Three days before the holiday started, the temperature here plunged, as a cold front from Siberia hit Beijing.

This freezing weather was accompanied by strong, gusty winds. Lying in my bed before going to sleep, I could hear the wind howling and whistling in between the high rise apartment buildings in the neighborhood. I would be massively understating things to say that during those three mornings, the trek from my apartment to the bus stop and short walk to the office after getting off the bus wasn't a very pleasant experience.

It was still cold and windy when I returned home from the office on Saturday, January 25th to begin my week-long Spring Festival Holiday. I thus headed over to a warm place, namely the nearby Oriental Kenzo Shopping Mall, to have some lunch and then spend several hours drinking coffee and reading a book. I had planned on having an early dinner at one of the neighborhood’s two Russian restaurants—the Russian Embassy is a 10 minute walk from my apartment complex—before heading back to my warm apartment to spend the night unwinding with a beer or two and a DVD.

However, while returning from the mall to my apartment, I noticed that it had become a bit warmer. More importantly, the wind had died down. And since I had spent most of the past week sitting on my butt in front of the computer, it occurred to me that it would be really good to take a walk and get some exercise.

Fortunately, my immediate neighborhood is a wonderful place to stroll about. In particular, I love walking through the narrow hutong (胡同) alleys and siheyuans (四合院) that are across the street on the north side of the Dongzhimen Beixiaojie, or 东直门北小街 (up through the 1990s, the area south of this street was also all siheyuans and hutongs). I hardly ever see any other laowai walking about there, even though lots of us live in the Dongzhimen area. That's really a shame because the street life there is always very interesting.

This particular late afternoon-early evening was no exception, even though many of the residents had clearly gone back to their old hometowns (老家) for the Spring Festival (春节). Normally, these hutongs are filled with pedestrians at this hour; however, on this particular day, just a few cyclists and pedestrians were out and about.

Nonetheless, I did see three locals, all of whom were small children, doing something which made me want stop and observe them for a bit. And seeing them clearly having a lot of fun doing what they were doing caused me to think about their lives vs. the lives of more affluent children in the West and here in China.

The three kids—two boys and a girl—were no more than 10 years old (more on their age in a minute). The girl and one of the boys were rather chubby; the Chinese often call such children “小胖” or “little fatty.” Much of the time, this is actually a term of endearment, as if to say the child is very cute and lovable (很可爱).

These children, who were bundled up for the cold weather, were certainly very cute and lovable. They were playing a game of marbles. They had just two marbles, and both of the marbles were small and scruffy “cats-eye” marbles (I recall from my now very distant childhood that such marbles weren't highly prized, particularly compared to big and bright “purie” marbles). They rolled the marbles down the alley and on to the sand and dirt near the adjacent siheyuan's outer wall and entrance.

Even though these kids had the simplest of toys, they were clearly have a wonderful time, running back and forth, talking in animated voices, and laughing loudly all the while. I stopped and watched them for a few minutes. Before leaving the scene, during a pause in their activity, I asked the girl, “你几岁?” (How are old are you?) She replied in English, “nine.” And when I told her, “你们都很可爱,” (you are all very cute/lovable), she again replied in English by saying “thank you.”

The families who live in these siheyuans are clearly not at all affluent. In fact, they're what the Chinese call 老百姓. Literally translated it means “old hundred names,” but it's really an idiomatic term for very ordinary people. Since there are only around 100 old family names in China—刘, 陈, 曾, 李, and the like—common folks who are neither well off nor really poor are called 老百姓.

After resuming my stroll through the hutongs, I thought some about the contrast between these children and kids from affluent families in the West and here in China. Unlike these siheyuan children, the latter have all kinds of toys and gadgets—game boys, palm pilots, you name it. They also typically have lots of cash to blow at the mall. Yet despite having all these things, many of them are bored and unhappy and lead fairly empty lives. I would bet that the trio I bumped into that day are more content and happier than most of their materially better off counterparts in both China and the West.

Now I don't for one minute want to glamorize siheyuan life. To be sure, there are some very nice siheyuans near the Confucian Temple on the 国子监 not too far from where I live in Dongzhimen. Indeed, such places have now become upscale housing for rich Chinese people and laowai. However, most of these structures are very cramped and have little privacy. And they also typically lack central heating and, in many cases, indoor plumbing as well.

It's thus not at all surprising that many young people prefer living in newer apartment buildings. For example, one evening my neighbors across the hall in my apartment community invited me over for tea and watermelon. They had several foreign visitors staying with them for a few days and wanted some translation help. We talked for several hours and they told me what the immediate area used to look like. Although the husband and wife clearly missed living in the old siheyuan, their teenage daughter, who is a cute and very pleasant young lady, said that she preferred their new digs.

As China continues to develop and modernize at a rapid pace, it faces many social challenges. As I see it, one of the biggest social challenges will be striking a balance between obtaining Western style affluence and avoiding some of the bad things that go with it. In the meantime I look forward to more strolls around those hutongs and siheyuan across the street.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

胡同 (hu2tong2).
四合院 (si4he2yuan4) These characters literally mean “courtyard house.”
东直门北小街 (dong1zhi2men2bei3xiao3jie1).
老家 (lao3jia1).
春节 (chun1jie2).
小胖 (xiao3pang4).
很可爱 (hen3ke3ai4).
你几岁 (ni3ji3sui4).
老百姓 (lao3bai3xing4).
刘 (liu2).
陈 (chen2).
曾 (zeng1).
李 (li3).
国子监 (guo2zi3jian1).