Wednesday 26 December 2007

Hutong Life

One of the quintessential yet rapidly disappearing Beijing ways of life is the hutong. The hutong is the traditional architectural and communal structure for this style of living and stretches back centuries. Communal living in this style does however often present some harder realities. There are a terrific series of posts on Beijing hutongs including lots of photography over at Beijing Visitor

4 comments:

  1. A turkish toilet seat in the 21st century? More likely than you think...I've seen some of those around here, in remote places but those look like..modern technology!

    (Oh and ps: I hope you had a lovely Christmas celebration :) )

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  2. Its brilliant isn't it Andrea?

    On the subject, I was reading about an African tribe where food is eaten in private and craps were taken together. I'm not sure a person can say they've lived until as my Aussie friends would say we've 'snapped one off' together ;)

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  3. They used to have star ratings. How many stars was this?
    That's a much nicer than usual toilet, including the "handicapped" (boon for westerners) one on the left. I wouldn't be surprised if it is one of those being put in with the impending Olympics in mind.

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  4. Welcome marcellous. Good point. I was thinking how much better it looked than most of the squat toilets I've come across. I'm still curious about the whole etiquette of taking a crap next to someone. Is it normal to squat next to them or considered polite to take the furthest one :)

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