By LOUISE WATT | Associated Press

Associated Press/Andy Wong - In this photo taken on Dec. 26, 2012, a bicycle is parked outside a Hutong home with a demolition notice seen behind the entrance wall near the historical Drum and Bell Tower in Beijing. The district government wants to demolish these dwellings, move their occupants to bigger apartments farther from the city center and redevelop a square in 18th century Qing Dynasty fashion. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

BEIJING (AP) — In a corner of old Beijing, the government may soon be both destroying history and remaking it.

District officials want to re-create a piece of China’s glorious dynastic past by rebuilding a square near the Drum and Bell towers in 18th-century Qing Dynasty fashion. To do it, they will demolish dozens of scuffed courtyard homes that preservationists say have themselves become a part of a cultural history that is fast disappearing as construction transforms the capital.

Because of relatively recent renovation, few of the homes can claim to be more than a few decades old. But they are in crooked alleyways known as “hutongs,” which formed around courtyard houses and date back centuries.

Along their lanes and within their mended walls, an old way of life is still visible — mahjong rooms, shared courtyards, clothes hanging to dry — against a more distant backdrop of skyscrapers.

The plan to redo the neighborhood has raised the ire of those who see it as swapping a real and living piece of Beijing’s history with something static and fake.

“They want to restore the Drum and Bell Tower square to the time of the prosperous Qing Dynasty,” but in doing so they will destroy a “rich accumulation of cultural heritage,” said He Shuzhong, founder of Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, a nongovernmental organization.

“We believe that protecting cultural heritage is about inheriting, accumulation. It is a process of history. It shouldn’t look like the prosperous time now,” he said.

Dominic Johnson-Hill, a British entrepreneur who spent nine years living in the Drum and Bell neighborhood, said the hutongs “are kind of the living museums of China, or Beijing at least.”

“If you go to the Forbidden City it feels quite empty, as do a lot of cultural spots. But when you go to a hutong, you feel like you are in some of the best surviving parts of Beijing,” Johnson-Hill said.

The Drum and Bell towers were first built in 1272 to announce the time, and at various points in history, the square served as a lively marketplace. Today, it is different.

The homes are dilapidated and the hutongs lined with rubble. A handful of tourists meander through while locals carry home shopping bags, some of them stopping to read pasted signs advising which properties will be knocked down. At one home, pigeons warble in coops on the corrugated iron roof.

A previous plan in 2009 to demolish the courtyard houses and build an underground mall was shelved after opposition from civic groups and some residents. Now a less ambitious plan is on the table.

The Dongcheng district government says the new plan is about preserving history. It says it will restore the square “to its original appearance” by using maps of the Qianlong period in the Qing dynasty in the 18th century and other unspecified periods, though they are still working out designs and details are vague. Residents, however, were given notice to move in December.

The oldest houses to be demolished date from the Republic of China, 1911-1949, but most were either renovated or rebuilt after the 1970s, said Liu Jingdi, who works for the Dongcheng district Historical Appearance Protection Office.

These houses are of “no historical value. There is absolutely no cultural heritage in the 4,700-square-meter area” to be demolished, Liu said.

The neighborhood’s average living space per household is just 20 square meters (24 square yards) and is rife with fire hazards, officials say. Many houses are made of wood, and the 3-meter-wide (3-yard-wide) hutongs are too narrow for fire trucks to navigate.

Those displaced will be relocated to bigger apartments farther from the city center. Residents of illegally added second and third stories won’t be compensated, said Li Guanghui, deputy chief of Dongcheng housing administration.

Officials say the project will raise residents’ living standards and safeguard the area’s historical appearance. Heritage experts disagree, saying the existing homes should be renovated, not destroyed.

“We respect this place because it has so many histories, so many stories, so many imaginations,” said He, of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center. “They think this is a dilapidated place, the dirtiest, messiest place of Beijing, which is hindering Beijing’s development. They think Beijing should be big, sparkling and new.”

China’s breakneck economic growth and real estate explosion over the past three decades have transformed its big cities at the expense of history. A third of Beijing’s narrow hutongs have disappeared since the early 1990s and another third have lost their original appearance after renovation, He’s group estimates.

One hutong community south of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square was bulldozed to make way for new shops modeled on old architecture, rebuilt in 2008 with new materials rather than reusing what was there before, to the horror of heritage buffs. It is now filled with Chinese and Western brand stores.

Dongcheng officials say the Drum and Bell square won’t become a commercial street and that the surrounding area will remain residential. But those in the immediate vicinity will have to leave.

Many aren’t sorry, and are looking forward to newer and bigger houses.

“I wanted to move 30 years ago,” said one woman, who would only give her surname, Wang.

Liu Fengying, 64, is more wistful. Liu, who remembers three earlier generations of her family living in the neighborhood, hosted visitors while wearing a winter coat and sitting on a bed that took up about half of one of her two drafty rooms. A washing line was strung across the room, and a calendar with a drawing of a young Mao Zedong hung on the wall.

“I’m not willing to leave,” she said. “But if the state needs this land, then we have no choice. They will give us a bigger house, but it’s just a little far out.”

Johnson-Hill, the British entrepreneur, said he chose to live on a hutong because he wanted to bring up his children in a community, rather than in neighborhoods where “people live a meter apart but don’t even know each other.” His family lived on a courtyard with four Chinese families and wild ferrets in the roof.

“Those families are now like family to us. Our children would come home and would go to our neighbors’ home before they came to our home,” he said. “The best days of my life have been spent living on hutongs.”

___

AP researchers Henry Hou and Flora Ji contributed to this report.

Qiang people is perhaps one of the most courageous and legendary people in the world. The rich cultural heritage of Qiang people has contributed to the cultural diversity of the mankind. At the same time, it has also become the important driving force for the region’s sustainable development.

A Shaman of the A’er Village

A woman in A’er Village

The A’er villagers love their own heritage and they have been very proactive in shouldering the responsibility of preserving the Qiang culture. When the aftershocks of the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008 were still active, the A’er villagers had already started the A’er Archive Project, documenting, and saving the Qiang cultural and tradition in the A’er village. And this once again had demonstrated the courage of the Qiang people. In the high mountains of the A’er Village, there is a thousand-year-old Qiang stone tower. It had witnessed so much happiness and tragedy of the human beings, and had survived numerous natural disasters, yet it is very dilapidated although it is still standing. The stone towers of Qiang people are very important carriers of the Qiang culture. They served as guardians of the Qiang people, and reflected their unique values as well as capability. The A’er villagers consider this stone tower a symbol of their ancestors’ spirit, a shelter of their deity, so they had tried hard to preserve it, and prayed for its safety to heaven.

A’er Archive, A book published by the Cultural Heritage Press in 2011, with A’er villagers enjoying full intellectual property rights.

The top of the damaged Qiang stone tower

The interior of the damaged Qiang stone tower

The foundation of the damaged Qiang stone tower

Prince Claus Fund recognizes the importance of preserving cultural diversity, and consider the thousand-year-old Qiang stone tower a heritage of mankind, so they firmly believe that the A’er Qiang stone tower has a irreplaceable status in promoting the development of the diversity of cultural forms. They are also moved by the persistence and courage of the A’er villagers, so the Prince Claus Fund decided to provide funding for the villagers to restore and preserve the ancient Qiang stone towers, so it can be passed down to future generations, and protect the prosperity of the Qiang people.

At the help and encouragement of the Prince Claus Fund, A’er villagers carried out the restoration work of the ancient Qiang stone tower in the fall and winter of 2012. During the restoration work, A’er villagers followed faithfully the international principles on ancient architecture preservation. They used only the authentic materials and the original craftsmanship, so the historical information of the ancient Qiang stone tower was kept in the best possible way. They firmly believe that this ancient Qiang stone tower has witnessed their collective memory and emotion, so this tower has to be carefully restored and preserved, so further artificial damage could have been avoided. They laughed at those so-called historical preservation work in other places, as they observed a lack of respect to historical buildings, a lack of adoration for historical information, so in the end, many preservation work is a destruction of ancient buildings.

Worshipping Ceremony before the preservation work was carried out.

Reinforcing the foundation

Local mud, timber and stone slabs are the materials used for the preservation work.

The restored wall and gate

The last phase of the restoration work

The interior structure of the stone tower is consistent for over a thousand years.

The single wood ladder to the top

The top of the tower, well built with water proof layer

The White Stone God enshrined at the top of the tower

The village under the blessing of the Qiang stone tower

What has touched us most is that the support of Prince Claus Fund has intrigued the confidence and self-consciousness of the A’er villagers. They have now founded a Qiang Cultural Heritage Protection Association of the A’er Villagers, and plan to carry out monitoring work for the ancient Qiang stone tower, as well as various education and promotion activities for the Qiang culture. They have plans to work with more related organizations so that the well preserved Qiang culture of the A’er village and the thousand-year-old ancient Qiang stone tower would be able to play bigger roles in the preservation of cultural diversity of the mankind.

Logo of the Prince Claus Fund

Logo of Qiang Cultural Heritage Protection Association of the A’er Villagers

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP) would like to show our respect to Prince Claus Fund as well as the A’er villagers, and we feel privileged to be part of this exciting project. We truly hope that the Prince Claus Fund would be able to make greater contributions to the preservation and development of the world culture. We also truly hope that the Qiang Cultural Heritage Protection Association of the A’er Villagers will be able to make irreplaceable contributions to the preservation and development of the Qiang culture.

(by Wang Yunxia & He Shuzhong, Realising Cultural Heritage Law,

A collection of essays edited by Lyndel V. Prott, Institute of Art and Law, 2013)

I.  Introduction

In developed countries, NGOs are a mature and stable part of society; but in China, understanding of NGOs is rather limited and still controversial.  Some officials believe that NGOs only oppose governments; if their purpose is not to oppose the government, then why establish an “NGO”?  Some business people believe that NGOs are only a new kind of company; if their purpose is not to make money, why should someone start such an organization?  A large portion of the public maintains that, because China has too much fraud, NGOs are really just a new way of conning people.   These views are all really not that strange.  China is still a socialist country led by the Communist party.  The government is used to controlling everything.  China is extremely proud that its GDP is already the world’s second largest.  The media has widely praised ideal of a prosperous lifestyle; to live lavishly and make money is the most important aspect of life.  Traditional ethics and virtues have already been destroyed but a new social order has not yet formed.  Honesty is lacking everywhere.  In this type of social environment, NGOs are indeed too strange.

However, China had begun reform and opening up thirty years ago, its inevitable result is that many organizations appear similar to NGOs, and fall under some of the similar laws and regulations.  In order for China to maintain its unique socialist system, and to demonstrate its reform and opening up, China hopes to use the concept of “social organizations” to replace the concept of “civil society” and NGO that exists in most developed countries. The law recognizes three types of organizations simultaneously: social groups, foundations, and “private non-enterprise units.” Some points should be pointed out that: 1. According to the law, establishing social organization require a minimum financial protection, a fixed working space, a full staff, and local government think the establishing is necessary; 2.  Social organizations undertake “important projects,” In order to observe the wishes of the government, they must first seek government permission, otherwise the government might think they are undertaking illegal activities. 3. A majority of social organizations receive financial support from the government, and employees are hired by the government, work plans are set by the government; so some Western experts have called these “Governmental-NGOs” 4. Beside such governmental NGOs, many are involved with poverty alleviation, technical training, and artistic and cultural performances.  Few are involved in cultural heritage protection.  And of the G-NGOs involved in this field, most fall under the category of “private museums”. Such museums are often in the business of illicit trafficking of antiques. In our discussion of the role of NGO in cultural heritage protection, we should clearly state the general situation of NGOs in China: the law permits them to exist, but the social environment is sick, funds are seriously lacking, government regulation is too severe, and they can be shut down at any time due to “illegal activities”.
Read more»

Recently, a blog by Yuan Shui Gu Qu (远水孤去) has triggered controversial public discussions  about an ancient site in Beijing.

Beijing Tongzhou District is building a new line of subway, and at the site of a planned station, the Remains of its East Gate as well as its Barbican Walls have been discovered. The remains are kept rather complete, and we can identify obvious locations of roads, pavements, and gutters inside the barbican walls. This subway station locates by a main street, and there are real estate developments on both sides, so this area has obvious high commercial value. In order to ensure the construction process of the subway, the local government is planning to “cut and move” the entire remains of the east gate, and then “restore” it when the subway station construction is completed.

Archeologists worries that it would be impossible to “cut and move” a few thousand square meters of the east gate remains, and once the subway station construction is completed, there would be no place to “restore” it either. Public believes that the so called “cut and move” then “restore” plan is simply an excuse in favor of the commercial interests. According to this plan, even if the East Gate Remains can be preserved, it will only be just a very small part of it. To sacrifice the East Gate Remains for the commercial development plan is a very wrong and stupid idea of the local government.

In fact, the commercial development plan can be rearranged elsewhere, or its location can be adjusted slightly on site, and these changes will not be devastating for the economic development of Tongzhou District. The East Gate Remains is an irreplaceable and important cultural resource for Tongzhou District, it can not only help the district regain its cultural identity, but also lift its cultural significance, and in term, attracts more tourist resources for high quality economic development. The fate of the East Gate Remains, whether it is preserved or destroyed, is a test for the cultural preservation awareness of the local government, as well as a test for their cultural sensitivity and taste. So the local government is now facing two choices: one is to destroy the cultural heritage remains in exchange for short-term commercial interest, the other is to preserve the remains for long term development. To make the right choice will urgently require the local government fully understand their responsibilities as a civil servant.

Experts already gave feasible solutions to protect the remains of the Tongzhou East Gate: move the planned subway station slightly west. What the public needs to do is to help the local government making the correct decision. Dear friends, please join our efforts to make the local government hearing our ideas, and help them to make the right decision.

For more details, please refer to the following blog of Yuan Shui Gu Qu:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_49f6ce9301010oy6.html

Recently, a Chinese architecture design studio announces their plan for Beijing Guggenheim Museum. As stated by the architect, “The contemporary insertions into the complex are designed to impact minimally on the fabric and character of Huang Shi Cheng, whilst being completely distinct from the existing structure in form and appearance. Although the new exhibition buildings aim to maximize available space in their strategic locations, they are self-contained structures that make no contact with the historic buildings around them.” This design had caused a lot of controversy once reported by the sina miniblog of China Museum Magazine. In order to give the public a chance to share their concerns, and to help the public opinion being heard effectively, Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP) has sent out an open invitation, so those who are concerned about the public interest on this cultural heritage preservation issue can participate in the discussion.

After the discussion, consensus has been formed, and everyone agrees that, Huang Shi Cheng, which was used to keep the imperial decrees, historical records and archives, is one of the most sacred heritage buildings in the Ming & Qing Dynasty Imperial City. Its main entrance, main hall, east & west annex buildings, as well as its imperial tablet pavilion were all built with traditional brick and stone structures; and it is now still surrounded by an old purple wall, and is one of the most intact buildings inside the Ming & Qing Imperial City. In order to protect Huang Shi Cheng, the Chinese government has listed it as the National Level Heritage Site, and has included it as the most important site to be protected in the Imperial City Preservation Plan. According to the Cultural Relics Protection Law, any construction project irrelevant to the protection of the site within the compound of Huang Shi Cheng should strictly be prohibited. If this design is to be implemented, it will be an illegal project. It will not merely be disrespectful for the historical value and artistic value of Huang Shi Cheng, but even a total intrusion and occupation. This plan has shown the disparaging attitude of the architects towards laws, and their intention to exploit on historical resources, with no sympathy for our past.

We all agree that, when facing challenges in preserving a historical monument, the humble attitude embraced by Confucianism should be its basic moral principle. If we leave aside the high moral values, we should at least observe the principle of equality and abide the law. We appeal the government to take up its full responsibilities and protect Huang Shi Cheng strictly by ruling out the plan for “inserting” the Beijing Guggenheim Museum. We also suggest that Huang Shi Cheng should be opened to the public as early as possible, so its historical and artistic value can be appreciated by the public and fully realize its social educational functions. This is also the responsibility of the government.

At the same time, we still have confidence towards the Guggenheim Museum, as we believe that the prestigious Guggenheim Museum would not be happy to see its Chinese partners conducting anything that might cause damage to the Chinese cultural heritage. We believe the Beijing Guggenheim Museum, should it choose to move to another site, will find peace and harmony with the Beijing old city, and the Chinese historical monuments.

For more information, please click http://en.bjchp.org/?p=5075

2012-06-30