Hutong/siheyuan urchins (小淘气)

When I did that Chinese New Year's Eve hutong/siheyuan walk, I didn't bring my camera along. Deciding to go there was done on the spur of the moment, and I was too lazy to go back to my apartment and get my camera. But since I'm on the subject of hutong/siheyuan life and haven't included any of my own photography in recent blog posts, here are some earlier photos of neighborhood children.

The little girl was sitting on the entrance steps of a Dongzhimen Beixiao Jie store across the street from my apartment complex. I think some fellows in that store or an adjacent one were playing mahjong (麻将). She was very into whatever it was she was doing and didn't notice me as I took her picture.

I shot this picture while walking along the Dongsi Bei Jie (东四北街) one October morning last fall. For some reason, many Chinese children and adults like to do the “V for Victory” sign when posing for us laowai photographers. The older girl, standing behind younger child making that sign was trying, without much success, to get the child on the left to pose for the shot.

This photo was taken last summer, about a month before the Olympic Games started. A good friend and old colleague from my Henan days, Jacqueline Baker, came to Beijing and stayed with me for a couple of days. We were walking toward the café, 喜鹊咖啡馆, that was mentioned in my December 1, 2008 blog post. These three children had just been playing a game and the little girl in the middle was clearly directing the activity. In China girls rule!!!

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.

小淘气 (xiao3tao2qi4). Actually, this word has more of negative meaning, denoting a naughty child. I suspect that none of these children are very naughty.
麻将 (ma2jiang4).
东四北街 (dong1si4bei3jie1). The first characters mean “east” and “fourth”, while the last two mean “north” and “street.”
喜鹊咖啡馆 (xi3que4ka1fei1guan3). As was mentioned in the December 1, 2008 post, the first two characters mean “magpie”. While a Western person might not want to go to a place called “magpie coffee”—the third and fourth characters mean “coffee” and when combined with the last one, you have the Chinese word for coffee café—these birds are seen by Chinese people as being magical little critters. By contrast, Westerners see them as being thieving and obnoxious little critters.