The sun is setting on the Drum and Bell Tower Hutong

Guardian Figures: trying to keep evil away as darkness falls

My favorite place to watch the sun set in Beijing is at the Drum and Bell Bar by the Drum and Bell Tower. Unfortunately, it is slated to be destroyed in China's race to modernize. I think the government plans to make it into another soulless shopping plaza where people will not buy "famous" luxury brands.

The Bell Tower

China thinks that modernization means smashing and bulldozing the old. They have not realized that a society can modernize while preserving even celebrating antiquity. It is not a new coat of paint but a whole shift in paradigm such as potable drinking water in the faucets that leads to modernization.

I love this area at dusk because people emerge from the mazes of the hutongs and congregate in the square as the sun disappears behind the towers and the gentle breezes off the Mongolian steppes rise. It is one of the few times I feel a sense of community here.  Parents and children play badminton in the streets. Grandmothers turn on the traditional music and do their choreographed dancing. Old men smoke and walk their birds.

The Drum tower

For a few hours each night, the grey muted walls become a screen where people can laugh and gossip out loud. People seem less fearful and more joyful.  And the shadows where most people seem to spend their lives during the day disappear.

 courtyard home in the hutongs

I like to hear the laughter and the traditional folksongs as a drink a nice, probably fake Tsingtao before hopping on bike and weaving my way back home down the walled streets.

Here I feel the charm and the draw of Chinese culture.

The Bell Tower

People can take rickshaws through the hutong

Neighborhood shop with Beijing-style yogurt for sale